Asuka, Yukinon, and Menma become cyberpunk mahou shoujos and fight viruses in a speculative fiction setting under the supervision of Shin Sekai Yori's director, Masashi Ishihama, and Nozaki-kun's head writer and script composer, Yoshiko Nakamura. While this sounds like it has all the potential of being fucking great, all it turned into was an emotionally detached snorefest, trying to cram too much into too little and not doing anything with its assets.
Not to say that it isn't without its highlights: it's certainly pretty, with some set pieces being actually gorgeous, making use of its movie sized budget to make sure shots
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flow into one another with animation at a near consistent high note (though there's more than a few wonky edits), and the music isn't too bad (though its reliance on piano pieces as a gateway to melodrama feels forced and almost comical). There are brief moments that made my bottom lip quiver a little, so I guess it must be doing something right there. But even then, the film didn't really earn those on its own merits, it just used a lot of cheap tricks to pull emotion out from the viewer, complete with a "shoot the dog" sequence, ultimately making it feel shallow and working off of the audience's own inherent connection to those images instead of building something on its own. I can see it pulling a few heart strings if you're new to this genre of Dark Mahou Shoujo shows, but for us that are well versed in its various trappings it'll feel like a carbon copy of a certain other Dark Magical Girl show from 2014, down to its major plot points, world, and 'big reveal'. The character development in this is actually not that bad either, in that the ensemble definitely experience worthwhile changes as the film reaches its climax, which is neat, though the way they went about developing them was all wrong (I'll explain this point in a bit). There's also a reasonably fascinating setting here, one that approaches a prototypical speculative fiction backdrop in a somewhat refreshing way, and that's something worth crediting it for. While the notion of a post-apocalyptic world where lives are lived out through data is nothing new in this medium or any other, the manner in which this is presented places it further from the tech singularity of standard genre fare and into something just a teensy bit more unique than a few of its influences and contemporaries. With the correct approach, the universe being established here could be salvaged and make for good franchise fodder, though they'd have to steer clear of the pitfalls in worldbuilding that plagued this particular product.
But that's all I can really say in its favor. While the notorious pair at its head are known for spearheading incredible stories, this film somehow manages to pull off the unthinkable by being a paragon of mediocre storytelling. About a solid fourth of this hour long feature is nothing but infodumping, throwing a lexical onslaught of meaningless technobabble at the audience in the most repetitive forms of exposition available: the dreaded "as you know" and "as we both know" banter. This vice extends to the general dialogue as well, which comes off as inorganic and honestly a tad annoying at times, with characters constantly reaffirming their feelings towards themselves (at eachother) in bloated solipsistic monologues. I understand they're not meant to be human, and a certain form of uncanny valley is to be expected in their mannerisms, but they never felt strange or compelling in their inhuman behavior, they just felt poorly handled. I just couldn't really care what happened to any of these "people", and the fact that they start off as the most derivative forms of their moe archetypes doesn't help that cause either.
Going off on the exposition dump is one of the most ill conceived montage sequences I've ever witnessed. While the match cuts in the film's central Cute Girls Processing All Sorts of Things segment were impressive and the whole idea of it works well on paper, the fact that what should have been the most interesting part of the whole film was condensed into three consecutive music videos makes me incredibly frustrated. This shoehorned appeal to pathos severely disrupted the flow and pacing of the film, and this ties back to my previous statement about the film lacking "true" emotional resonance: in lieu of fleshing these experiences out, all three of the major character arcs are given life in 5 minutes through a combination of "watch these cute girls make food together! so cute!" and "watch these cute girls look sad as they stare at tragedies! so sad!" It's just bad usage of film length overall and boy is it frickin' dull. Considering this makes up about a half of the film's runtime, and the second half owes all of its impact on how well we connect to the first half, the whole experience just sort of falls apart right there before it ever really began.
Overall, this just isn't worth the investment, which is upsetting considering it's founded on some pretty solid ideas and found itself in the hands of some rather talented people. I felt like a big issue with this came from it feeling like an aborted television series, like if it were a recap film to a show never made (think MSG: F91). If this were given even half an hour more to breathe, perhaps we'd have something worth talking about here, but instead it's just a mess.
Alternative Titles
Synonyms: Garasu no Hana to Kowasu Sekai, D.backup, Vitreous Flower Destroy the World
Japanese: ガラスの花と壊す世界
More titlesInformation
Type:
Movie
Episodes:
1
Status:
Finished Airing
Aired:
Jan 9, 2016
Licensors:
Ponycan USA
Studios:
A-1 Pictures
Source:
Original
Genre:
Sci-Fi
Duration:
1 hr. 6 min.
Rating:
PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
Statistics
Ranked:
#62752
2
based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity:
#3934
Members:
32,360
Favorites:
88
Available AtResourcesStreaming Platforms | Reviews
Filtered Results: 16 / 16
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Your Feelings Categories Jan 16, 2016
Asuka, Yukinon, and Menma become cyberpunk mahou shoujos and fight viruses in a speculative fiction setting under the supervision of Shin Sekai Yori's director, Masashi Ishihama, and Nozaki-kun's head writer and script composer, Yoshiko Nakamura. While this sounds like it has all the potential of being fucking great, all it turned into was an emotionally detached snorefest, trying to cram too much into too little and not doing anything with its assets.
Not to say that it isn't without its highlights: it's certainly pretty, with some set pieces being actually gorgeous, making use of its movie sized budget to make sure shots ... Jan 19, 2016
Story
Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai in my opinion 'Daily Life of an Anti-Virus Software' and takes place in a setting where the human race has become extinct. The story grabs your attention in the first 10 minutes as Dual deletes her best friend Sumire and then the sudden apperence of Remo. The story flows through out the anime making it really easy to understand. 9/10 Art The art was very good it wasn't very detailed like other A-1 animes but all was written off by the excellent story. The background CG is very vivid in colors which bring out the artist's emotions. (Good Job Naoko Fusako) 8/10 Sound Glass no ... Jan 17, 2016
I just finished the movie about 20 minutes ago, and I've just spent the last 20 minutes trying to figure out what the hell happened in the movie. To no avail.
Story: 4 Sad to say, I didn't understand what the heck was going on throughout the movie, especially the more hectic part towards the end. The height of my sadness of a cute girl was dying was as great as I was in my 'wtf is going on' mode. It was not coherent at all, and I'm left from start to finish just going 'yep, this just happened, and no one is going to tell ... Jan 16, 2016
Taking for granted, this film is 60+ minutes of mind twisty fantasy. Combine that with a bit of sci-fi, cute girls, adventure, and mysterious worlds and you get Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai. Now, I have to admit, watching this film for the first time felt like taking a chemistry course. It’s like all sorts of ideas thrown together at once. For such a product, it would have been better off as a TV series. However, Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai has something to offer and that’s a world of strange wonders.
The film is directed by Masashi Ishihama. Anyone familiar with sci-fi thrillers ... Jan 17, 2016
Before anyone asks, yes I went into Garakowa, or Glass no Sekai no Who Gives A Shit if you want to be a weeaboo about it, fully expecting to hate it. When I saw that A-1 was producing the thing, that they teamed up the director of Shin Sekai Yori and the writer of Golden Time for the project, and that the cast would consist of nothing but little girls, I knew right away that there was no chance I was going to get any enjoyment out of the film. The synopsis itself wasn't helping matters either. You remember how the second season of Higurashi
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Jan 21, 2016
Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai is a 60-minute long animated film directed by Masashi Ishihama and produced by A-1 Pictures. Frankly, what made me watch this film was its relatively short length, so I'll describe its positive and negative aspects.
Positive: (+) The art and animation I guess this is the section most of the budget went to. The backgrounds of this anime were simply gorgeous. The colors and details were amazing. The animation was also smooth and high quality. I didn't especially like the character designs, mostly because I dislike anime with little girls, but objectively speaking, there was nothing wrong with that either. (+) The soundtrack The ... Mar 1, 2016
Garakowa is a very interesting movie, to say the least. It’s not really about anything; just a collection of the most precious moments of life, and the three girls most connected to them. In this blogger’s opinion, this is truly a story worth taking a glance at.
The film takes place primarily within an advanced OS capable of actually recording data of all periods of time and space, including the people who lived there. Two anti-virus programs, Dual and Dorothy are entrusted with destroying the corrupted data. Known as viruses, they infect the artificial worlds as well as the data of the people who once lived ... Feb 10, 2016
Ok this won't be a spoiler free review but I will try and condense it as quick and short as possible to save face. This is also my second review so bear with me.
The overall is that the world is run by a system and there are two programmes which help keep the system in tact which are represented as girls of the system in truth they're anti viruses for the system. This system help to keep social balance and social order in a peaceful world however like most things there are more that meets the eye. Story: 6 I found even though this had major potential ... Jan 17, 2016
After watching this movie with a really long and elaborate name, I like to think that my anti virus software is actually a collection of cute girls duking it out against viruses mahou shoujo style. The previously mentioned movie with a really long and elaborate name, Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai, also known as Garakowa -Restore the World-, and also *breathes* Vitreous Flower Destroy the World Backup, is a strange sci-fi adventure following Dual and Dorothy, 2 anti virus programs that eventually find an anomaly in the system that they cannot figure out. This anomaly, which calls itself "Remo," is also a cute girl
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Sep 7, 2017
I really enjoyed this movie, however, there are better
Story 7 I gave this a 7, because I felt absorbed in to the story (probably because it was my first anime after 2 years) and, despite how confusing parts get, some bits stay with me to this very day Art 9 The art was very pretty, and I loved the style the artists were going for. The colours didn't clash, and the visuals were nice to look at Music 8 Music was beautifully composed (songs like Sendan Life) and are very catchy too! It was not the best I had heard tho, anime ,such as Higurashi, did it better (songs like ... Aug 3, 2019
Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai is a 2016 A1 original film. The script was by Shimo Fumihiko who also worked on Air, Bakuretsu Tenshi & Non Non Biyori. I honestly don't know what to expect because the output there is a bit mixed and the same is true for A1 themselves. They've put out some great anime like Uchuu Kyoudai and absolute rubbish like Sword Art Online. I guess I'll have to dive into this one and see where it lands.
Story: Our main heroines, Dual & Dorothy, are anti-virus programs inside a device known as the "Box of Wisdom." Which I thought was the nickname ... Dec 15, 2020
I'll start out by saying that Garakowa was better than I'd expect from a movie rated ~6/10 on mal. If you can deal with somewhat convoluted, confusing plotlines and enjoy sci-fi / cute girls it's possibly worth a watch.
Story 6.5/10: As you've probably already seen from other reviews the plot is considered to be pretty convoluted and things are not exactly explained in detail. In my opinion, it's not too hard to put everything together but the movie doesn't exactly spell everything out for you. The story focuses on the 3 main girls and explores the nature of the world and what exactly the ... Sep 25, 2019
Well, this is one way to learn what goes on in my laptop whenever there are viruses :D
On a more serious note, in terms of art the anime is simply wonderful. The beautiful art style will surely enhance your experience from the story. I didn’t understand some aspects of the anime completely, but I did get the general idea. I cried at one point, that’s how much the anime touched me. The idea behind the anime is very nice and original, the art is gorgeous to say the least, the characters are pleasant to watch, the background music is great throughout the whole thing, ... Feb 13, 2018
Virtual Magical Girls deleting viruses!...
Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai has an interesting concept all things considered, our main protagonists Dual voiced by Risa Taneda and Dorothy voiced by Ayane Sakura being anti-virus programs fighting and deleting viruses until they stumble upon Remo voiced by Yumiri Hanamori and from there they find out what their jobs are TRULY about in the process of Dual and Dorothy finding "empathy" as well. Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai being a 60 minute movie has ALOT to unpack yet waits until the last half to spill all of it. What LA means is that for the first half of the ... Sep 7, 2017
I'd like to keep this review brief in order to allow people to come to their own conclusions about Garakowa.
there are aspects of this movie that I really liked, and really enjoyed the handling of. the first few minutes are like being taken on a stunning, surreal ride through absolutely beautiful environment design. however, the writing of the characters really let it down for me. given that a central theme of Garakowa is how reality and sentience/humanity can arise from AI, the girls were not at all compelling human beings. it's an incredibly interesting theme, but if you can't write a compelling and realistic sentient human ... Aug 30, 2021
I watched the movie 'Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai'. Here are my thoughts:
Positive aspects: >novel premise >tons of cute outfits!! >decent animation and cinematography >nice backgrounds, pretty solid visually overall >cute characters >good audio production quality >cute!!!! ... |