Blue Giant 2023 / A sax star plays the biggest and brightest jazz in this captivating music drama

2023 was a great year for animation with films like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Nimona, and The Boy and the Heron, but there was another animated gem that flew under the radar and that’s jazz drama Blue Giant. It’s a pleasure to both the eyes and the ears as Dai Miyamoto blows on his saxophone, adding Hiromi Uehara’s incredible soundtrack and Yūichi Takahashi’s dynamic animation to the high contrast manga visuals, and the way the story unfolds the different avenues of pure passion these three have for jazz is absolutely captivating. Blue Giant is just so well-done that it’s no surprise it garnered a bigger-budgeted encore eight months after its premiere.