Hal

In the backdrop of a very slightly future world of helper robots and robot therapy a violent, fiery plane crash effectively ends the budding romantic lives of Hal and Kurumi. Left alone and without their significant other, Hal wakes up dazed and confused, programmed with a new mindset of a robot sent to comfort "his" former lover. Through their initially reluctant meetings and attempts to make Kurumi happy again, Hal finds something much more beautiful, and much more sad than what his initial purpose had programmed him for.

Using various things left behind in that small button shop Kurumi lives in as clues, Hal does ... his best to simulate the former Hal as best as he can. Photo albums and short messages written on Rubik's cubes are his main ways of connecting to the now reclusive Kurumi. With each short exchange, they start to open up to one another, sharing in their pains of loss and memories of a once happy life. With each side of the Rubik's cube solved, each bearing a different message and a different color, everything culminates in a beautiful ending of growing closer to one another, no matter what the source.

"Hal" is a short film that packs into it a myriad of emotions of love and loss that gives viewers glimpses of the lives of Hal and Kurumi before and after the plane crash. After shutting herself in her room, Kurumi seems to spend much of her time trying to fix a broken red video camera that taped moments of her and Hal's lives, some memories flattering and others painful. Seeing the past shows us that things were not rose colored and perfect, but sometimes troubled. Overcoming these obstacles and growing closer is the heart of this film.

The story is like a puzzle, leaving us as confused as Hal at first. Through those disjointed recordings of the past, and as Kurumi fixes the video camera, these scenes become more complete and raise certain questions. Loose points and fuzzy details rise that do not seem to make much sense, but every little detail comes together brilliantly in a dazzling conclusion that reveals much about the story behind the story. It is like how the characters love solving Rubik's cubes, how with each completed face of the puzzle the overall picture becomes clearer, another message is revealed, and another beloved memory is remembered once more. It is a game of puzzles that leaves viewers playing the game with Hal all the way until the very end.

However, not everything is fleshed out and not everything is made clear. There is a much darker side to "Hal's" world that the film hints at but never really goes into depth with. The only clue is Hal's hated memories of being poor and his experiences as a child. Given more time, the film could have created another aspect of the future world the characters live in to bring up more points about the conflict that robots bring. In fact, the robot aspect plays such a minor part that much of the film would be unchanged if they were suddenly taken out. Even so, this is a way for the story to bring in the interesting aspect of questioning what would happen if a loved one was suddenly replaced by a robot that looks exactly like them.

The film is a visually pleasing swirl of colors and reflections, light and dark, old and new. The setting is gorgeous, with the sun shining and entering the lonely button shop that Kurumi lives in. Even though this story takes place in the near future, there are still traditional buildings, customs, and a festival parading through the modern town. The water illuminates, the trees shade the light, and everything seems to flow. The film looks very crisp and colorful. The most stunning scene, where everything ties together, is a wonderful display of fantastical light and reflecting waters.

Accompanying the film is a pleasant soundtrack that accents the mood the film creates, that of hope and comfort, of regaining the past. The voice cast is excellent, with some of my favorites playing the characters. The ending song is Owaranai Uta by Yoko Hikasa, who plays Kurumi. It is a wonderfully bittersweet song that adds a sense of completeness to the film. All the way until the last note, viewers are still playing the game with Hal.

"Hal" is an enjoyable, romantic story of finding the past and growing closer to one another. Accepting our flaws and less savory parts is another step towards love and understanding. It can end abruptly, it can end violently, it can end unfairly, but learning to move on afterwards and taking comfort in fond memories is our way to cope with the ever painful reality of loss.

Just like solving a puzzle, solving each part and filling in the blanks, this story completes a picture of memories, both good and bad, of the precious time that we spend with our loved ones.

What constitutes true love? The answer is simple. Working towards understanding one another and growing closer to each other through the process. Hal is not your typical romance show, but instead, strays from the norm by bringing touching on the post-romance theme, which seems to be taboo in anime nowadays.

[POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW: I have refrained from spoilers as much as possible. Read at your own risk.]

Story & Setting
The setting of the story is slightly into the future, where robots and other more advanced electronics are common place. In a mere hour, HAL demonstrates the cycle of what was a regular relationship turned bad through the ... death of one of the two young love birds. The story centers around the main character, a robot who now takes on the face and role of Haru, as he tries to reach out to Kurumi, the latter whom has given up the will to live upon the passing of the original Haru. A touching story, astonishingly full of emotions despite its short length.

Animation
The animation is relatively detailed, creating beautiful environments and bringing out the various emotions belonging to each scene. In particular, water appears to be a main focus of the show with it being used in various ways throughout.

Sound
The background music acts as a great way to pull the audience deeper into the story, creating gripping scenes which do nothing but cause you to gasp in shock or smile along with the characters. The generally gentle music in addition fits very well with the theme of comfort and trying to regain the will to live.

Characters
In this short span of time, a great deal of focus has been successfully put into showing the relationship between the characters. Haru, the robot desperate to learn more about Kurumi to cheer her up and Kurumi, the grief stricken ex-girlfriend who wants nothing more than to go back to the time when she and Haru were together. I had expected the characters to be rather shallow due to the time constraints of the movie but was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not the case, but rather, the opposite of what the anime managed to convey.

Overall
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie as though rather short and could possibly be considered rushed, it still manages to very effectively make me feel along with the character and associate with their feelings. Though some things were left unexplained, in particular some parts from the start, it became apparent later on through self deduction as other truths were revealed throughout the anime.

Definitely a good watch and all in all, a rather spectacular piece of work.

[AFTERWORD: Thank you for taking time to read this review. Please do give any comments of which I could learn from and improve on for any reviews I might do in the future!]

HAL review

This movie was a total disappointment in both characters and story aspects .The concept and idea was good but the execution and rushed pace made it worse.

The story is about losing a person who is dear to you and the movie portrays the human drama behind that loss. The only problem is the execution of the plot and character interaction.
The rushed pace that the movie uses , instead of making the viewer accommodate with the story and characters , all of the emotions and drama is lost on the way leaving no impact or message.

The characters are poorly written , we ... can’t get to know them and understand their sufferings because the movie doesn’t tell us nothing about them. They are thrown into our faces and used as plot devices for the progression of the story. For example the relation between HAL and Kurumi who is the main focus in the movie , the execution and the way it’s delivered as a human drama aspect for the viewer, fails it’s expectations and potential.This happens because the movie doesn’t explore the characters background story enough, we are shown only pieces of the puzzle but those pieces are not entirely connected to the story or serve a purpose for the human drama theme.

The transition between different aspects of the human drama is rushed and all of the emotions is lost . For example when HAL tries to help Kurumi and cheers her up , the anime doesn’t take a natural pace to form a bond between those two instead all happens in a instant and we are left with a lot of questions and a sour taste of disappointment.

In conclusion I was disappointed in the execution of the story and plot because of the rushed pace, the poorly written characters who I couldn’t get to know them well both on story and emotional state , a lot of unexplained plot holes and finally the focus on the human drama aspect that lacked a strong impact and message to me as a viewer.

Overall 4/10

Hal is a love story between a robot and a human. Kurumi had lost her lover, Hal, in a plane explosion. Since then, she had shut herself in due to depression. A doctor (and friend of Kurumi's), along with Hal's grandfather, get a robot to help Kurumi. The robot takes Hal's place, in appearance and name, and goes to reach out to Kurumi and hope to reforge a relationship between Hal and Kurumi.

The art, done at Wit Studio (known now for Attack on Titan) is phenomenal in this movie (as you can see in the image). The scenery, the character design, and pretty much everything ... (especially the water) is beautiful in art and design. Kudos to you Wit Studio.

Next up is characters. The characters in this were so lovable and genuine that you can't help but get attached. I don't know I mean there's not much else to say other than I loved the characters. Just to make a longer segment I'll put music here too. The music was fantastic and really sets a mood (as music should) that engulfs you into the story. Again... not much else to say there.

Themes and Messages. The overall themes were really driven and important here. Things like "can you teach a robot to love" and "can you ever understand someone else's emotions" come into play and are really driven home hard. Along with a recurring motif of Rubiks Cube Wishes (what those are is that you write a wish on a Rubiks cube and if you solve it that wish will come true). You'll walk out of this movie asking a lot of questions like this, and maybe even have an existential crisis, like I did (even more than with Evangelion).

The dub quality (I watched it dubbed) was amazing. Funimation does it again with a fantastic dub. That's all there is to say here.

And lastly, the story. What could easily be the best part of the movie. Having only 60 minutes to deliver a story so powerful, so amazing, and so thought-provoking is truly a feat to be amazed at. I'm still in awe about everything in the movie, and the ending will have you thinking about this movie for quite some time (seriously, I'm even going to have to rewatch it).

Now for the scores...
Art: A
Characters: A
Music: A
Themes: A
Dub Quality: A
Story: A++
Overall: 10/10

All I can say is that Hal is nothing short of a masterpiece, and all in the course of 60 minutes.

(1:30mins QUICK AND SPOILER FREE REVIEW! - Because your time matters to me)


I really enjoyed the synopsis when I read it for the first time: a girl called Kurumi loses her boyfriend on a plane crash but thanks to incredible robotic technology, she gets a robot identical to her boyfriend. The goal here is to Kurumi to find the confort and love that she once felt.

Knowing this, the question that you're probably thinking is: How can both Kurumi and the robot (Hal) grow their relationship? How can they find love when one is a robot and the other had gone through such a tragic ... experience as losing her boyfriend in a terrible accident? Now that's what makes you want to watch this movie.

Only that it wasn't something like that. I consider myself a romantic guy but I didn't "aww" even once in this movie. Almost no time was given between Hal and Kurumi to develop feelings for one another. The movie was mainly Hal doing random stuff with people from the village. Such a disaster. Oh, what a great word to describe this movie: a disaster.

I didn't give a lower score because the Sound was good enough and the Art was on point, kinda like a better version of Ao haru Ride's art for those that know that anime. That's what saved this movie. There was a good twist at the nearly end of the movie that really got my attention. Here again, I saw some potential. And then it faded away. They did nothing significant with this twist.

If you tolerate lackness of story and just wish to watch something quick (1h), go for it. But if you're expecting something good from this movie, don't be. I find it very difficult to agree with other reviewers on this. This is just lost potential at it's best.

I have read the manga for HAL and I thoroughly enjoyed it, so I had high expectations when I watched the movie and I must say they were met.

Story:9
Although categorised as a romance I wouldn't say that it's your average romance story. It's got a few moments in the film that have you going "aw" but I wouldn't say romance is the number one aspect of the film. I'd say it has more of a psychological feel to it that is a nice contrast against the slight shoujo side to the film.

Art:10
I love the art. Sakisaka Io helped with the character design and ... I love her work a lot so I was glad to see it animated. (Now just give us a Strobe Edge or Ao Haru Ride anime!) Overall the art in general was just beautiful.

Sound:8
I don't have much to say for the sound apart from I think the voice actors were chosen well for each character.

Character:9
The characters in HAL, in particular HAL and Kurumi, have decent backgrounds and it leaves a good foundation for the story.

Enjoyment:10
This film is definitely something everyone should watch at least once. It's only short so it may seem rushed to some but the manga is also fairly short so it's not something I can personally complain about. Despite knowing what was going to happen it still pulled at my heart strings and I was a sobbing wreck by the end and if that doesn't say it's worth the watch then I don't know what will!

Yo, just finished watching "Hal" and wanted to give you some thoughts about it.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not doing this review spoilerfree so if you do not want to get spoiled skip the parts that I mark as *SPOILER* ^^

Story:
The story starts off without much explanation. You see a robot/android lay in the water trying to catch some fish, so naturally, you think it's set somewhere in the future. Robot gets called out by some old guy who after the android arrived gets mail and a plane explodes above them and the old guy looks like he's having a heartattack or sth.
Then the movie cuts ... to a dark scene which seems to have taken place after a funeral and the old guy tells the android to make some "child" want to live again. This is where the movie really begins.
Some time later (We don't know how much later) we see a guy sitting in some sort of chair witha doctor next to him telling him that his transformation into a human was completed, which apparently looks like some dude named HAL. The doctor (Who looks like every stereotypical crazy professor in the animeworld) tells him that his task is to make this girl called Kurumi, who appearently was Hal's girlfriend, want to live again. He does some things to lighten her mood up blahblahblah even though she never really seemed like she actually had no willl to live on.
He learns a bit about Hal's past even though no one really explains Hal's past properly, but that doesn't matter because it's barely plotrelevant anyway.
Someday, he meets some guy who recognizes him as Hal and You instantaneously think "Yep, that guy is gonna cause some problems".


*SPOILERALERT*

And so he does.
One day when RoboHal goes to a festival with Kurumi, that specific guy who actually turns out to be Hal's best friend wants to "sell" Kurumi. He has some shady dudes, one of which is wearing a Bruce Lee suit, accompanying him.
Of course, Robohal doesnt want to sell kurumi, they run away and Kurumi falls into a river. Robohal sees her lying in a shallow part of the river and wants to go save her, but of course Hal's best friend catches up stops Robohal from jumping in and gives Robohal a real beating.
PLOTTWIST
Robohal starts bleeding and actually remembers that he actually is Hal and that Kurumi is the one who died in that plane accident.
He starts crying, shakes free of his "BEST FRIEND" (The guy who wants to sell his gf without explaining anything beforehand and beating him up, you know, typical best friend stuff) and dives into the river together with Robokurumi. We get some flashbacks fullfilling the funeral scene from the beginning and showing that Hal thought he was a robot because he couldn't handle Kurumi's death, Robokurumi and Hal kiss underwater and she sinks into the wet abyss while Hal is getting pulled out of the water by his best friend
Btw, Hal was magically attached to a rope there. No further explanation needed.
In the end, we cut to a scene where Hal has started to live a normal life again.


I don't think this is a partycularly bad storyline, but it's no masterpiece either. The pacing is bad which results in the viewer constantly being confused how much and how fast the time is actually going by and some things actually make no sense at all. For example how did Robokurumi know that Kurumi wanted to see a giraffe together with Hal if she didnt actually see the note on the rubis cube....Oh yeah....I forgot about this: Kurumi and Hal both wrote things they wanted to accomplish and stuff on the sides of 5 by 5 Rubiks cubes and then scrambled them completely. I actually liked that but exactky such a detail makes no sense. Or Are you going to tell me that Robokurumi first solved those things, memorized all the notes on them and then scrambled them again? Nope I'm not buying that shit.
There were a lot more scenes like this but I guess there's no point in pointing them out one by one. You'll notice them yourselve if you watch this movie.


*SPOILEREND*



I actually liked this futuristic drama concept but since the pacing of this movie is so mediocre and the explanation in a 60 minute movie is so poor....well...I simply cannot give the storyline a good or even better rating.

5/10


Art:

The art on the other hand is really amazing. There is so much detail in every single frame that you could take a picture at any time and you'd have an awesome desktop background every time. But I did not expect less from Production I.G.

10/10

Sound:

Though the soundtrack is not as amazing as the artstyle, its pretty good aswell. The soundtrack mainly consist of Orchestral pieces which suits this anime perfectly. On a side note, I want to shortly mention the music at the climax scene. Thatwas it.

8/10


Character:

The main problem with the characters is that there are no explanations for any characters besides Kurumi and Hal. I'm being dead serious. You don't know who the doctor is, you don't know who the old ladies are that show up a few times in the movie and that I forgot to mention which doesn't really matter because those scenes were rather pointless anyway and even Kurumi and Hal are only explained a little. You don't know how Kurumi and Hal came together....well....let's be real: You barely know anything about Kurumi. The best friend of Hal has three scenes in the whole movie, which creates no emotional attachment at all, especially when he starts crying after dragging Hal out of the water.(You need to have read the spoilerpart if you want to understand what I mean by that :D)
But you cannot really get attached to characters that don't have much screentime together anyway. I mean, Kurumi and Robohal don't do that much together. The doctor nearly has as much screentime as her and I don't think his name is even mentioned once(But I could be wrong on that one.)
Though I have to give the author credit for the characterdesign, they look pretty damn good. Kurumi, Hal and best friend that is. The rest consists of your generic Grannies, your genery professor/doctor and your generic wtf ever.
And the characterdevelopment only really happens at the end!


*SPOILERALERT*

I have seen people call Robokurumi's behavior as "Strong characterdevelopment". Well guys, I dunno about you, but I understood that as her simply acting as a girl who's having characterdevelopment. Seriously. She's supposed to act that way to make Hal think that's he's a robot helping Kurumi starting to live again. The only characterdevelopment we have here is in the very end of the movie where Hal can finally let go and accept Kurumi's death. AND NOTHING ELSE!

*SPOILEREND*

4/10


Enjoyment:

Strangely, I really enjoyed this movie. I like seeing dramas with a lot of feels and this actually is one of those. Sure it's a bit hard to get into it at the beginning but it's fine as it is. And let's be honest, it could be a lot worse.
Though it's no masterpiece, I gave it a.....

9/10, I enjoyed it a lot after watching it the first time ( 7/10 if you watch it again and notice a lot of flaws and stuff.)

That makes a final verdict of

7.2/10


I'd recommend this if you enjoy dramas and don't take flaws too seriously.^^

I am only just giving my honest opinion of this movie.I noticed others saying there is a manga so maybe better opinions come from readers. I did not read, just tuned in to the movie because it seemed like something I would enjoy.

There may be spoilers also!

The story had just seemed so fast. I couldn't really catch on to the emotions of the characters because of this. There were other elements that had thrown me off, the main one being Ryuu seemingly being a friend to...wait a bad guy...?...or is he now a friend again who was allowing people to try and beat ... up Hal and sell Kurumi...? OH now he wants Hal to snap out of it, he is helping? It was just very sloppy and didn't make sense.

Perhaps I had set my expectations very high. Hal just did not have the story all there. If it was longer and had a nice steady pace then I think it could have been better.

Love Sakisaka's style always though!

For all those who never heard of Hal before,it's a sci-fiction romance film released in 2013 overshadowed by another excellent work Garden of Words which was released in the same year.

About the plot-
The story takes place in a technologically advanced society in which robots can be programmed to behave like a complete human. After a tragic plane accident, a robot, also known as Q01, is sent to a small Japanese town to help a person who just lost a loved one. While trying to heal the melancholic heart, the past of the couple is unearthed.
The story is quite ordinary and easy to watch but ... it got some emotional moment as well. especially the plot twist but it's not something that will left you depress for weeks and it got sad yet realistic ending.

The animation is little below par,considering it was released in recent times.
The voice acting have been done precisely both in dub and sub so no place to complain.

As a whole it's a delight to watch the movie :)

The best way to describe Hal is that the movie starts off great, then it has to add something that nearly wrecks the quality of the film. The movie is focused around a robot who is able to take on the human form of a man named Hal, the lover of a young woman named Kurumi who is still emotionally recovering from the loss of the human Hal who was killed in a plane accident. She is distrustful of the robot Hal at first for taking on the form of her dead lover, until she slowly starts trusting him and the robot wishes to learn ... more of what Kurumi's life was like with Hal before his death. We do come to learn more of the joys and difficulties within the life of the couple when the human Hal is still alive, the mentioned difficulties leading to a dramatic element to the story as we learn one of the two in the relationship has their own personal baggage that doesn't make them as pure-hearted as they seem on the surface. The first three-quarters of the movie has excellent story-telling and character exploration that has you credibly buying the relationship of our pairing in the movie and you would think the presence of the robot Hal is there to allow Kurumi to learn to move on from the loss of her human lover. Unfortunately, the movie's final quarter attempts to toss in a rushed and poorly explored plot twist that leads to all the buildup throughout the movie to feel like it didn't matter because of the sudden revelation concerning its premise.

This is a bit of a pity too, as Hal is a gorgeous looking film to look at sporting vivid and detailed scenic shots with character designs looking nicely drawn and detailed. While not a prominent element in the movie, the animation depicts characters being natural in their movements and there isn't a sign of any shortcuts present throughout the film's run.

Overall, Hal is something of a disappointment as much of its run had the elements and buildup to create one of 2013's best anime titles before implementing its sloppy ending. While much of the movie is still great from much of its earlier buildup, the ending feels like a bitter aftertaste when you realize that the movie's creators duped you and you might be hesitant to rewatch this film again.

This will be a short review because it is impossible for me to write a long one without including any spoilers.

After watching this movie once through, you will be compelled to watch the movie a second time through a different lens.

The story is really unique and although I can usually predict what happens in most stories, I didn't see that curveball coming.

Enjoyment: A very well-crafted (and imo, coherent) story, an ending that may not sit well with some, interesting characters, pulls at your heartstrings.

Ok to start off, This is my first time writing a review and i will try to keep it spoiler free as much as possible.

Enjoyment
I Enjoyed Hal thoroughly, It was an hour well spent watching this movie, Though even after finishing it, It didn't leave a bitter taste.

Story
Hal starts off kinda slow but in the 1 hour of time you get to watch, It starts to move very quickly, The Story wasn't you average A to B Romance that you would regularly see, I would say more about the story but you will have to watch it for yourselves to understand.

Characters
The Characters had a decent ... base to them, They didn't stand out that far as to draw all the attention to the personalities the writer wanted to portray but they had a real smooth and realistic feel that complemented the story in whole.

Art
Well i was quite happy with the art, But usually for Movies the Art is fairly decent with exception to few.

Sound
The Sound was well coordinated, It wasn't overcrowding the Movie nor was it wasn't vacant, They had a good selection of sounds and pleasant music.

Story: I like the idea, even though it's a really common one but in terms of execution and presentation it's well done. The beauty of the movie is that it flows in a slow-paced manner, with small little details and symbols portrayed as a key to sort out the misunderstandings and problems between the two main characters and lastly the climactic plot twist adds up to the flavour, altogether it is enjoyable and heart-touching. So 7/10.

Art: The character design the animation, the clarity and the quality all are superb so a solid 9/10.

Sound: The music was fine, could've been better. So 6/10.

Character: All the characters ... are shown to be playing their roles quite well. Both the main characters develop in a steady manner taking one step at a time and it's really beautifully shown. so 7/10.

Enjoyment: It was quite enjoyable. So 7/10.

Overall: 7.2/10.

What would you do if your beloved one dies? Probably go into isolation or try to cope with life, in this case its the former.

Story: 8 - When Kurumi's beloved passes away in a accident she isolates herself from the world. And that's when a scientist creates a android who looks exactly like her loved one so that she can crawl out of her room and open her heart again but there's still an unsaid truth. It's nothing original except that you add a android which gives this story a different point of view from romance. That makes this story like a lightly blowing breeze ... which makes this story good.

Art: 9 - The art was beautiful as it captured some moments effortlessly while it still looks mesmerising.

Sound: 8 - The sound isn't something that I'd make an effort to listen to again but it's something that's nice. The voice actors conveyed the main character's feelings smoothly as the story progressed.

Character: 8 - The character's state of mind is what creates this movie's story and as the story moves on they develop which is what I like about the characters. Overall I think they're likeable.

Enjoyment: 8 - This series is enjoyable as I enjoyed it and I think this movie is highly underrated.

People who liked: Eve no Jikan, Chobits, Natsuyuki Rendezvous, Hotarubi No Mori e and Hotori: Tada Saiwai wo Koinegau will like this series because its related to androids/dead love.

Overall: 8 - Overall this series is likeable and can be watched by anyone. Though I think this series will be enjoyed by people who like romance/drama animes.

As a cuber, I got triggered because of all of the inaccurate cubing scenes.

If you are a cuber, I recommend you to be prepared for serious trigger warnings.

Like the logic doesnt make sense. How do you 1 side randomly and somehow the pieces fit perfectly (for the wishes). Also its a 5x5 so its worse. and also, for some cubes, they solve the 5x5 by doing it 1 side at a time. Like bruh, thats not how it works.

Other than that, the story's decent, not too special. I just watched it cuz I wanted to see the cubing logic.

The show starts out rather strange with a plane suddenly exploding over a quiet little town. Then they suddenly talk about a boy named Hal who had passed away and a girl who seemed to be his girlfriend is taking it pretty hard. To me, this beginning just feels like it was a promo for the show instead of the actual show because we don’t really get any information at all. We can speculate what’s going on, but that’s all. We don’t get a full picture of what is actually happening. And then we have a robot that becomes human in order to help the ... young girl. I’m actually not sure if we could really call him human right away though as he doesn’t seem to know how to actually act human or feel human. I know this is going to into philosophy but this really does ask the question, what does it take to be human?

Throughout the whole show, we learn a lot about Hal. I mean the real Hal in fact, not the robot one. I like how we learn through Robotic Hal’s way of learning then just being told straight out. It gives us a mystery to solve then just a romance. In the end, there is a point when Hal’s past seems to haunt the two. And then in the end, it really changes around, making things a bit more confusing but making it really fun all the same. It’s not like any other love story between a robot and human. It’s hard to explain because of it being such a big spoiler that it would mess with you. You really should watch it if you are interested in knowing what the hell I am talking about with switch. And even at the end, there are one or two things that don’t seem to not be closed up, things that should but don’t take away from the story.

The artwork is amazing, and the sort of playful toy aspect to this is rather cute. All the vibrant colors and amazing little adornments all over the place. I didn’t really see any problems with the animation being poor, though I didn’t like some of the design aspects they did for a couple background characters. It doesn’t mess with the story but it makes me frown slightly at that. Still, the design of the rest was wonderful and made me happy to even watch the show.

The English dub was so good; I couldn’t believe how wonderful the voice acting was. Of course funimation did give it the dub so I shouldn’t have expected anything less and yet I have seen some that felt like they needed a bit more. Each person sounded like what I thought they should sound like, even the ladies at the adult day care sounded good and those are normally the ones that would of sounded bad if there was a bad voice. The strange thing is that there were not that many names that stood out to me in the cast. I mean, there were people like Todd Haberkorn and Chris Burnett but the rest seemed like they did mostly background characters before this. They may still do background characters in this one too but the characters give a better connection with the world and emotions.

This is one that I definitely think you should watch even if you’re not into sci-fi or romance. It’s not one or the other and it sort of opens up the idea of just what a Robot could be as well as just what a human could be.

This movie sucks. The plot twist in my opinion was entirely unnecessary and it pretty much ruined all the story and character development. If it wasn't for the stupidity at the end of the movie. I would've given this movie a better score. Way better. Sadly, the past change be changed therefore fuck this shit.

Though this show's interpretation is respectable. To a great degree, I don't agree with it. The "humans can be comforted by robot" cliche is utterly cretinous unless the story's actually immensely good. Which in this movie is not.

There are so many reasons why this movie is dogshit. Up until ... the point where I just can't be bothered to write a longer review anymore. So for that reason, good bye.

**MINOR SPOILORS**
I just got done watching Attack on Titan season 2, and I was curious as to what other series Wit Studio has done. I picked out this movie because the cover image was colorful and caught my eye. I am a sucker for android involved story lines, so I knew I had to watch it after I read the synopsis. In the end, the movie didn't quite reach my expectations.

Story (4/10):
There was a steady story line in the beginning, but I was disappointed around halfway through. It felt like a lot was lacking, but I'm not sure what it was. A lot wasn't explained. ... Are there other robots besides Q01? How did Ryuu and Hal exactly meet? Who is Ryuu besides him being Hal's friend? The story was just a bigger let down than I had wanted it to be.

Art (8/10):
I really liked looking at the characters. The way they were drawn was nice, and the animation was smooth. There was nothing overly amazing about the art though.

Sound (7/10):
The sound was good. I didn't pay much attention to any of it, so there was something else making up for that loss that kept my interest. The ending song wasn't that catchy, but it was pretty to listen to. None of the background music was anything really special.

Character (4/10):
This is the area that has the most problem. The characters have no personality or much background on them at all. Nothing was said as to why Kurumi had a thing for sewing. There wasn't much depth to Hal at all then besides that fact that he was far in debt and had a childhood friend named Ryuu. I'm not even sure what Ryuu's part was to play in the movie. The only part he played was at the end to make Hal come to his senses over Kurumi. I just couldn't sympathize with any of them.

Enjoyment (5/10):
I didn't cry, but I did laugh maybe once. I didn't feel any eagerness towards any of the characters because of their actions. I had a poker face the entire movie mostly, but this movie was an okay watch.

Overall (6/10):
I'm not happy nor disappointed that I watched this movie. It was a nice refresher from all the other bloody fighting anime I have been watching. I wouldn't watch it again by myself or with others. If you are in the mood for a soft romance between an android and a human with a big plot twist at the end, then go for it.

I just watched this anime after reading the manga since i found out that there is actually a movie.

This movie is probably the best movie i've ever watched. The story line is absolutely unexpected(basically sobbing and weeping ugh). I am quite sad with Haru's past though.

I enjoyed it very much although i'm not really a fan of robotsxhumans. It is a masterpiece and i was sobbing till the last end (yupyup.) It is very touching, and painful. This anime/manga shows that love cant be broken as long as you have faithfulness in each other.

Overall; 10+++/10

From the studio behind Attack on Titan, comes their first ever anime film Hal. A film that at first may seem like your typical romance story, but once going into it, you'll find that it's a much bigger story than you can imagine. But how big can a film that's only a single hour long can be?


Story: Set in near future where robots and other technology are part of everyday life, we center around a robot named Hal, who's assigned to perform "Robot Therapy" on a girl named Kurumi, who recently lost her boyfriend in a fatal plane accident. Taking the form of her old ... lover, Hal does whatever it takes to open up to Kurumi by learning about her and her deceased boyfriend so that she can find the will to move on.

One very noticeable thing about the film is it's length. One hour is relatively short for movie standards, so I was worried that it might interfere with the pacing and character development. But I was happy to find that it wasn't the case.....for the most part. Not one scene felt to fast or to slow and it really took advantage of it's short time. Putting a lot of emphasis on the characters and how they were going to change throughout the film. You learn about Hal and Kurumi enough to get what they're gong through and feeling that you do want them to end up okay at the end. And not to give away any spoilers, but there's a plot twist at the end of the film that really caught me off guard and changed how I viewed the film prior, which what makes a twist work in the first place. Though while I do credit the film for using it's short time wisely, I still believe it could've used an extra half hour to it's running time. You know, if it really wanted to be on the same level as Miyazaki and Hosoda and be even better.

Art: I must say this is pretty impressive for their first film. I really liked all the attention to detail to the character design, the backgrounds, and a lot of the many symbols to the films like the Giraffes and Water. The water looks like it's really their to me. I also really like a lot of the many ideas about all the technology and how they work and function. Wilt Studios is off to a pretty solid start, but it's kinda expected when it's founded by people from Production I.G.

Sound: The soundtrack really knows how to make the audience feel even more invested in the plot by making tracks that are gripping, soothing, and just overall fits the themes of grief and finding the will to live again. It also helps the characters feel even more alive when something happy or sad happens to them.

Characters: Much like the plot, the characters really are well executed during their short amount of time together. Haru plays as a good robotic lead who tries to learn about Kurumi and even his deceased counterpart. Kurumi's is a character that you'll really sympathize with, and even more towards the end of the film. They both share very sweet chemistry and I credit the film for having each one have a different side to the story. Prior to the events of the film, you learn that the old Haru did something that at first, would make him seem like a selfish jerk, but you'll understand quickly once you learn more about his past. That's another thing I like about the film, there really is no villain. Each character has a backstory and motive that really sounds justified and believable to get across. The other characters are just their to play off of our main stars, but they're still likable enough to really leave an impact to the plot.

Overall: While it's major shortcoming (No pun intended) does hold it back to being on par with Studio Ghibli or Mamaru Hosoda, HAL still does it's job well with it's heartbreaking story, deep themes and morals, and a very believable bond. If you can look past it's one flaw, you'll be left with a short, but sweet love story.