Date A Live Movie: Mayuri Judgment

REVIEW
*May contain spoilers*

Story: 7.5/10
I was really hyped for this movie, being a date a live fan, but this movie gave me the impression: " thats it?" It wasnt really much, just shido going on dates again and the appearance of mayuri. She literally talked for only about 5 minutes before she basicallly dissapears.Before she appeared at the ending you can only get glimpses of her. IMO i was dissapointed in this movie. Action was really good though.

Sound: 9/10
Very good soundtrack, loved how they used season 1 opening song again, was fantastic during the action scenes.

Characters: 6/10
Seriously, if a movie is about a person, make sure ... they have enough screen time
P.S kurumi doesnt have much screen time in this movie :(

Overall: 8/10
Was overall a great movie as a harem fan, but story was pretty down the drain. Still a must watch for date a live fans!

**May contain spoilers**

Date A Live: Mayuri Judgment is to say the least... average.
A common problem I see when it comes to these kind of movies is that the movie original character isn't developed very well and that's exactly the problem with our movie's character: Mayuri.

Story: 5/10
I don't really want to go into too much detail so I can refrain from posting spoilers but it's basically this:
A huge orb of energy happens to appear in the sky that only Shidou can see. Now as per the usual Date A Live tradition he must go on dates with spirits! All this happens while he is trying to ... figure out the mystery behind the mysterious girl that frequently appears before him.

Mayuri's character was honestly handled very badly and the ending was predictable and felt forced. If you want us to feel bad for a character you have to give that character some actual screen time and dialogue which this movie did not do.

Art: 8/10
I really like Mayuri's character design. There's not much I can say regarding the art and animation because there's not much to really say about it other than it's good; much better than what we got out of season 2.

Sound: 7/10
There's a lot of reused music from the original series but that honestly doesn't bother me too much. Overall the music was pretty nice and I have no complaints regarding it.

Character: 5/10
OH BOY. This movie needs to get it's shit together regarding its characters.
While I enjoyed how each of the spirits got ample screen time by each going on dates with Shidou they decided to neglect giving screen time to the one spirit that should matter: Mayuri. She spends more than half the movie randomly stalking Shidou and doesn't get any spoken lines until near the end to the point she feels like a flat character.

Oh, did you guys want some Kurumi screen time in this movie? She's here and she does absolutely nothing. She just casually observes everything that's going on and that's it other than this one scene where she speaks to Shidou, although it has no importance to plot and it's very brief.

Enjoyment: 6/10
For the most part I enjoyed this movie. It's Date A Live so I wasn't really expecting much but I at least expected to enjoy it which I very much did.

Overall: 5/10
Despite the movie being called "Date A Live: Mayuri Judgment" the titular character Mayuri isn't that apparently important to plot apparently since they decided to give all the movie's screen time to all the other spirits.

So, should you watch this movie? If your Date A Live fan then yes, but if you hate Date A Live or found it mediocre then you might as well not bother with this movie.

From the very first episode in Season 1, Date A Live was definitely unique in its set-up. Using dates to save spirits from their misery is certainly a concept that you do not see often in the romance genre (except maybe The World God Only Knows? Just maybe?) and this was initially executed in a very interesting way. Where Date A Live goes wrong, however, is that, instead of coming up with something new, the writers choose to recycle the same generic formula once, twice, and now thrice.

“Formula? What the heck are you talking about? What formula is this?” you may ask. Nothing wrong ... with asking a totally legitimate question. And to answer: well, let us boil down exactly what happened in the past two seasons. Whenever a problem comes up in the form of a new character, tensions among various characters, or some kind of event, how do the characters resolve it? That’s right, a date. Something as simple as two people spending time together as a way to seal up the worst of the worst.

Does this happen once again in Mayuri Judgment? Certainly. But having Shidou go on six dates for the first 45 minutes of the movie was really unnecessary and dragged the plot on and on. Nothing spectacular come out of these dates, and we learned nothing new about the characters that we did not already know.

As for the climax itself, talk about messy, messy, messy. One thing that I kept asking was what the heck is the big-ball-of-doom doing there? The relationship between that and Mayuri’s presence is constantly hinted at during the “climax” battle, but it’s never fully explained and thus we end up taking it at face value.

Moving onto the characters themselves, there really isn’t any development at all. In the first and second seasons, dates were used as a way to forge and deepen the relationships between Shidou and the rest of the main characters. Since they are all now close friends, these dates don’t hold the same kind of meaning anymore, hence the little character development. Don’t get me wrong – the characters are definitely interesting – it’s just that they don’t really change at all.

One new character does come into the mix: Mayuri. But she’s just there with really no purpose for most of the movie – stalking around in the background, following the main characters around, with some hints here and there. When it’s finally her time to shine, she transitions into the plot inconsistently and poorly. In one moment, nobody but Shidou can see her, but all of a sudden in the next second everybody else can. All of this crammed into literally the last 20 to 30 minutes of the movie.

The only one character I was extremely disappointed with was Origami. She was completely a throwaway character in the movie who butts in randomly to challenge Tohka (as if we’ve never seen this happen in the previous seasons), and then removes herself from the picture once that is over. The movie could have just done well without her (although I’m sure the fans wouldn’t have liked that).

Sound and art are of high quality. The animation is by Production IMS so it is definitely high quality. The voice acting is also done well. I personally really like how Shidou changes his voice when he switches into his female counterpart. My only major issue is that sometimes the 3D graphics looked a little odd and incompatible with the bright, well-illuminated background, but otherwise from that, no complaints on that front.

So is this movie worth your time? Well if you’re reading this review and thinking about it, you’ve probably already enjoyed the first two seasons well enough so go right ahead. From a critical standpoint, however, I was pretty disappointed. Date A Live: Mayuri Judgment did not put itself ahead of the pack.

Overall Grade: D+

Author's Disclaimer: Please remember, this is my own personal opinion. I critique anime primarily on how the story is executed and how well-rounded the characters are. This review is not meant to target any other review but was intended to provide a more holistic analysis.