I find anime movies based off a series are usually just a really long summary of the anime and as a summary this sucked pretty bad. I usually never watch anime movies based off an actual anime because most of the time they tend to be just summaries. This is where I would rather have a filler anime movie instead of a whole retelling of the story in movie format. It's just pointless and a waste of money and resources.
I love Studio Ghibli movies so much more, because the movies are originals, they don’t just hash out the same material even if they have a source, like Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo which are both based on books.
First off, the first hour of this movie, was way too choppy. This is supposed to summarize the series yet, if I hadn’t watched the original and had a basic knowledge of the show and characters, I would have no clue what this anime was about. Especially, considering they edited it in really weird places. I had to mentally process how we got from point A to point B and before I knew what happened, I was already on point C. It made no sense. As a story as a whole, if someone were to just pick this movie up, they would be totally confused. They wouldn’t know what was happening at all.
The animation was nice to look at and a lot better compared to the original, especially the fight scenes. However, during that first hour, you just get this fast pace, basic knowledge of the plot: Of seven hero spirits in history who fight alongside magi (sorcerers) for the Holy Grail that grants any wish. They literally explain that in less than 2 minutes.
From that measly introduction, you get the main character Shiro, cleaning up after dinner, walking his friend back home and than you cut to a magi summoning a spirit and from there is goes everywhere. You get snip bits of characters meeting and fights and before you can wrap your head on what’s going on, the pace slows down a little, to where characters are finally having full fledged conversations with each other rather than just fighting.
The only real time the pace of the movie really slowed down and stopped being choppy errrr stopped being as choppy compared to the beginning was during the fight scenes.
It felt like the animators wanted to bombard you with characters so you couldn't recognize the lack of plot and story in this anime and before you know it, these characters are fighting again.
This movie to me is more confusing than Akira. I understood Akira, even though I really need to watch it again because, dame that movie really fucked with my head. Hell, the mangaka made Akira before he had concluded his manga series, so the movie and manga are different. That's what I call original!
But, this was in a completely different category of mind fuck. This turned my brain into putty with it’s choppy editing and terrible pacing. This is even worse than Angel Beats and that had 12 episodes, they had good solid episodes but terrible over all pacing. Too rushed. That’s what this was. Too rushed. They wanted to go to point A,B,C as fast as possible so they could take their sweet time on Z. Which is absolutely pointless, because a GOOD movies has a solid beginning and middle but this one lacked all three.
