Date A Bullet: Dead or Bullet

Objectively speaking, DAB is a mediocre anime that was made for fans of Kurumi Tokisaki. That being said, I slightly increased the rating to 7/10. I can't imagine people outside of the target audience being awayed away with it.

As for me I was never enthusiastic about DAB and expected it to be a disaster but it was quite pleasant to watch. I like that Kurumi's personality is very much like in the original, as I find it to be not only hers but also the movie's biggest charms(it's refreshing to have an anti-heroine for protagonist).

That being said I'll list the things that, in my opinion ... make the movie worse or don't make it good.

-Art&Animation
DAL always had stiff animation and although I appreciate that's not the case here I don't like how Kurumi changed. Her face changed quite drastically and she lost a lot of resemblance, her hair turned from black to dark brown. Kurumi in the DAL animes, VN and games looks pretty much the same. Here I sometimes had to remind myself that it's Kurumi.

-Plot&Logic
Very simple. DAB is a hybrid of Isekai and Murder Game like Danganronpa or Mirai Nikki. As for the logic... this Kurumi is a clone and yet she can summon Zaphkiel for no other reason than plot convienience. Her bullets now stop in mid air only to go back and hit her or her opponent which was never how they worked and it makes no sense.

-Characters
Don't expect them to be interesting, they're slightly more important than trees.

Story 5/10
Art 7/10
Sound 7/10
Character 6/10
Enjoyment 7/10
Overall 7/10

Kurumi is a character I do not understand. I don't just mean that her character arc is confusing, or her motivations unclear. Those things are also true, but what I'm talking about is I don't understand why on Earth she's apparently so damn popular. My speculation is that it's purely on an aesthetic level. People like her design, or they like cosplaying as her or whatever, I don't think it has anything to do with her role in the show or her personality or anything like that. For some reason that irritates me on a fundamental level, and makes me want to not like her.

This ... spin-off exists solely on the marketability of Kurumi merch. It's like the Fate franchise, alternate timelines that exist for the sole purpose of selling you on a character so you'll be more likely to spend more money on the gacha game trying to get it. They're barely even trying to disguise how blatant an advertisement this is. The story is a half-baked death game we've seen done a million times, with characters who matter so little I feel like they didn't even get names. Maybe they did, but does anybody remember or care about them?

Where this sits in the timeline of the main series is confusing, as Kurumi's character in general is something something time-travel clock girl and my eyes glaze over with boredom thinking about it. Really skippable unless for some reason you're one of the weirdos that likes the character, in which case, seek help. 6/10

You better read the LNs of Date a Bullet, because this movie has nothing to do with the books much. Yeah you got your animated Kurumi fanservice and some cool soundtrack. But the plot.... even the oroginal Date a Live series are rushed. This one is on steroids and hardly makes any sense compared to the books' setting. It somewhat does the job as a story linker about Kurimi's past... but there are so many essential events that just got cutted out. I can't really recommend as a stand alone animated spinoff as well... For me it was a huge dissapointment. And the ... animations were also too sketchy... A crappy cash grab pruduct to feed the Kurumi thisrty fandom, with the aim for the people who would not dwell into the LNs... please do... you will see how much different it is.