Accel World: Infinite∞Burst

Overall: 7
This movie was fine all in all, very sunrise style I guess you could say. There was a lot of re-cap as the other review claims, however there is more than enough original content to split it evenly. Definitely not worthwhile watching in theaters due to the recap though, sorry Sunrise.

Story: 6
Discluding the re-cap the story for this movie was fine, and although it did lack character depth, the story worked out none the less. The original content in the movie was not long enough to be an entire arc, nor was it short enough to be an OVA, so it was more of ... an Extra Part for those who wanted to see more of Accel World. Unfortunately, it will make absolutely no sense unless you read the novels, which is quite unfortunate.

Art: 9
Good art, animation, colors, and settings. All expected of sunrise, especially with the robotic/mecha-ish aspect of Accel World since it's right down sunrise's lane. The lack of blatant and obvious CG makes this quite nice.

Sound: 8
New OST is introduced, and they do make good use of the old ost's. Rather steady use of sounds and ost so the movie does well there.

Character: 6
This is where I will be explaining the lows of the movie. The character this movie essentially revolves around lacks any depth. This seems to be Reki Kawahara's flaw as he does excellent depth with the main character(s) but completely skips out or skims other characters.

Enjoyment: 7
Personally, I could not get one of those awesome Kuroyukihime Movie Tickets but I was able to enjoy the movie, without being put through 30 minutes of pointless and terrible recap as this was the fastest I've ever seen an anime movie pirated. So I was able to skip the 30-40 minutes of re-cap and enjoy another 40 minutes of new content, which is what I highly recommend you do to get the most out of this movie.

Accel World is probably LA's most favourite work from Reki Kawahara, that isn't an understatement by any means...so when Accel World announced it was getting a movie, LA was hyped to say the least.

However...Accel World: Infinite∞Burst like MANY other anime movies with an original story, recap of the anime series events and movie-only characters deterred into LA loving this movie.

Case in point the extremely long recap recalling the events of the anime series however even as a recap, it had some questionable layered problems. For one, the recap only goes into full detail only during the Cyan Pile and the Chrome Disaster events of the ... anime series however completely skim over the Dusk Taker events to start the new story for this movie, LA "gets" why this anime movie recaps several events of the anime series as fans of the anime might not have remember all the details or newbies can get into this anime with the needed information for the new story HOWEVER the recap is by in large inconsistent to say the least, if your gonna do a recap movie recap and detail the ENTIRE anime series or don't do it at all (or better yet, spare us wasting our time and just make the recap movie fully for newbies then make the new movie with the recommended time a MOVIE takes) and yes the recap takes FORTY MINUTES, eating up almost HALF of the movie's screentime.

Well at the very least the new story of a black cloud disconnecting any Burst Linker in the surrounding area as it's new story for this movie was an upside all things considered. New and old characters are re/introduced and if people wanted the other Colored Kings to get screentime, then this movie is undoubtedly shows them in their full glory (where they put their differences aside concerning Kuroyukihime to take down the new villain of for this movie Nyx voiced by Aoi Yuuki).

The black cloud also adds in the additional factor as to why to make the audience see this as a "big" deal in a ways concerning Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime as if the black cloud spreads all throughout Japan, they won't be able to Burst Link and thus possibility of them losing their memories of Brain Burst and their time together (and by in large their relationship goes down with it)...thus the urgency.

The only other grip LA kinda had with this movie is with this new story, they didn't have time to flesh out the MANY MANY new characters from the Colored Kings (such as Green Grandee's power is never explained how he can NEGATE the black cloud effects?), Metatron voiced by Yukana who barely had ANY screentime and the only new members of Nega Nebulus, Rin Kusakabe and Utai Shinomiya voiced by Yumi Hara and this flaw could have EASILY be remedied by removing the long-ass recap and flesh these characters out more.

The animation once again helmed by Sunrise did a pretty great job overall, from the glossy CG-like Burst Link mechs of the majority of the characters (though one little flaw to this is probably Scarlet Rain's as the anime series didn't make the CGI THAT blatant but Accel World: Infinite∞Burst definitely shows this). Many of the fights were amazingly detailed and sometimes happened so fast but that "impact" is there in full force and LA loved it nonetheless when a big fight scene took place. Sunrise did their job splendidly and was expected quality out of them.

For voice acting, they were once again expected quality compared to the anime series with some additional voice cast seiyuu's from Yumi Hara, Chinatsu Akasaki and Aoi Yuuki. Aoi Yuuki as the new villain for this movie was a GREAT choice as Aoi wasn't playing a full-out evil villain but something of a sympathetic villain thus the vocals she used was expected and LA liked it to be fair, gave her an aura of mysteriousness and dread at the same time. LA's favourite voice actor?....well Sachika Misawa as Kuroyukihime is good option but she got second best for LA, no LA easily chose the hamminess seiyuu in this production...yes that's right Rina Hidaka as Scarlet Rain. Look, Rina Hidaka as Scarlet Rain brought her into LA's radar and her hamming it up is just glorious, LA couldn't pick anyone BUT Rina Hidaka.

Accel World: Infinite∞Burst falls under the same prejudice MANY anime movie with a compilation has fallen for, only this time Accel World: Infinite∞Burst has doubled down with trying to add a new story with new characters and a recap at the same time and expected it NOT to rush itself. Accel World: Infinite∞Burst could by all means have done SOOOO much better if the recap was scraped and allowed it's screentime of 82 minutes be fleshed out and realized with JUST the new story. Even with this HUGE flaw LA just can't ignore, LA still liked the new story as it expanded the world of Brain Burst even just a little as well as bring screentime to the Colored Kings in some respect and many of the climactic fight against Nyx were just amazing, but this flaw crippled ANY chance the new characters (apart from Nyx and Risa) they bring up by hardly fleshing them out or giving any chance of screentime with the few "helping out Nega Nebulus/Kuroyukihime and Haruyuki" as "compensation" not enough to know these new characters.

Accel World: Infinite∞Burst, LA wanted to love ya, but you pressed too many of LA's buttons with anime-original movies with a compilation especially with that HUGE recap being a HUGE detriment to the movie and with that it gets off with a slap to the wrist and LA crying out to anime movies to STOP. DOING. THIS. SHIT and LA thought LA gave Trinity Seven Movie: Eternity Library to Alchemic Girl a bad time.

I rather tend to consider Infinite Burst movie not related to the series’ main story, as the characters- friends or foes- join their forces in order to protect the Burst Link world from an imminent new danger , while the purpose of the series is to get to the 10th level of Burst Link fighting the top level players (the 9th level kings). However, a big chunk of the movie covers the series recap. Well, that’s understandable, I thought to myself: while it’s difficult to develop the movie’s story without giving a background of the characters, their relations, ... and their world (especially as Infinite Burst it’s a lot about teamwork, alliances and Burst Link fights), it’s also not easy to summarize 24 episodes.

And things just can’t go smoothly, can they? With all the time given, the recap it’s more useful to those that have seen the series and that can fill up certain things cut out from the recap. For the rest it can be confusing. And because of the recap there is less available time for the movie’s story, which is why you may get the strange feeling that you have just joined a race ride and you can barely understand what’s happening around you because of the speed. Luckily the main idea of the movie is not that hard to get.

In my opinion there was a slight improvement in the characters’ relations by comparison with the series. For one thing their roles were better defined, which I find very important in a story where the main subject is something beyond the characters’ daily life. The team work is very nicely built up. The fights are intense and we also get to see in action all the kings (a thing that some of us have longed for during the series). However, I still find the couples unconvincing.

When I ended the series, it appeared to me that the black king’s team was barely shaping up. During Infinite Burst, after the recap, I had this feeling that a long time had passed (maybe years?) from the end of the series until the moment of Infinite Burst. The characters were so familiar with each other, even characters that I had no idea who they were (not in the series). It can be confusing, like having missed something, but this didn’t really mind me. I could imagine that the period of recruiting and bonding of the team was skipped and we got directly to the final result. What really bothered me was that cram of female characters. I felt this imbalance rather annoying.

Even though I was satisfied with the series animation, Infinite Burst’s animation was even better. I felt as if I was finally getting the ultimate satisfaction of a fighting game movie. The graphics were slightly improved too, I could tell. And so many Burst Linkers, some of them top level, showing so many different abilities, some of them quite astonishing (Sky Laker and Ardor Maiden were quite the surprise!)?! God that was a treat!

I can’t tell much about the soundtrack, though. As I usually do, I didn’t pay much attention to it, but I’m sure it had its contribution at trapping my mind into the spin of the story and making me feel part of an intense action movie (especially in the second part).

Overall, there’s something that I find quite interesting about the way Infinite Burst action was built: you start with one of the key characters of the movie’s story, but at low pace, then you go roughly through the series’ story where you can feel a rather higher pace which is mostly the effect of passing somewhat abruptly from one event to the other, from one character to the other (sort of a bumpy road, I’d say 😊) just to get back to the movie’s story at a fast pace and jammed with new characters. These changes of scenery, story, pace and characters in this exact order (which I described above) can really pump you up with adrenaline giving you that nice taste of what “accelerated world” experience might possibly feel like. I may be wrong, but I just can’t help seeing it that way too :D.