I was so disappointed... what a hunk of steamy crap.
I really didn't find anything remarkable or salvagable from what is essentially a terrible anime. I think everyone can agree that the plot is filmsy, unoriginal and uninspired, but for me there wasn't even anything worth appreciating visually.
As an anime fan I find myself increasingly perplexed with numerous studio's obsession in intergrating CGI with traditional animation. If I wanted to see CGI I'd go and watch an action movie or a 'cinema of attractions' piece such as the new 'King Kong' - that is marketable largely for its use of CGI. When I go to see animation i expect to see at least SOME hand-drawn imagery... it's not that the use of CGI in animation doesn't work; the 'Ghost in the Shell' TV series or 'Blood: the last vampire' is an example of when it works - used occasionally and effectively.
'Sky Blue' however is a hackneyed attempt at visual beauty. The 2D animation is detailed, yet horrendously jerky and sparse - CGI is used whenever it can - whether it be a gun that a character is holding or a vehicle speeding across the screen. It seems that the studio has used CGI simply to cut down on production time, (CGI is quicker to render than painstaking hand-drawn cells). Apparently this film took 7 years to make... looking at the badly rendered CGI and atrociously animated characters, this is incredibly hard to believe. The problem is that apart from the beautifully rendered STILL backgorunds, most of the CGI looks rushed, cheap, and does not blend at all well with the 2D animation.
The English dub is awful, the lead male's voice is so forced... no-one should have to try that hard to sound cool.
An utter disappointment. I do not recommend this.