Nitaboh

**Story** ****    The story is relatively straightforward with few real surprises, but it really doesn't need to be complicated. The pacing was a little slow as well, spending most of the time in his childhood and a couple montages that were ran a little long for my tastes. That being said, this does not detract too much from the story, anyway. **Animation**    The animation is very smooth and has a decent amount of detail. There were moments where it looked a little strange to me, but I couldn't explain why. Also, there are a few cuts that are abrupt and somewhat jarring in how bad they look, but these are few and far between. **Sound** **   **The shamisen music is done very well, but I found the movie score to be somewhat inconsistent at times. This is really my biggest critique of the movie. One moment the background music is done perfectly, and the next it seems somehow out of place. However, as a whole, the score was well done. **Character**    I honestly don't know how to analyze characters so I'm not going to try and fail. I don't want people to not watch this because I say something stupid. Still, the characters are rather basic, in my opinion, but even so they are well done.