Date A Bullet: Dead or Bullet

I am not a big fan of Date a Live to begin with but I was excited when a movie featuring Kurumi Tokisaki was announced. Her character is without a doubt the best thing from Date a Live. Her abilities, design, and character in general are very interesting so my disappointment with this movie was even greater.

Sadly this "movie" is 24 minutes long and is just introducing new characters. Thats it. Thats the whole "movie". It is just an introduction for the next movie.

I really hope that the next movie will be worth the wait. But this was an absolute letdown.

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

I gonna be honest here. I just watch this mini(?) movie to kill time and also to feel like I use my Free Premium Access in the most efficient way.

So basically a battle royale featuring the Best Girl from a very popular LN series taking down every girl she meets at that isolated school setup? Yeah, the premise doesn't intrigue me, not even once. Also heard that this first part derived away greatly from the spin-off LN material and I can see why.

The animation fight scenes neither great nor bad. Just average though the protagonist's abilities' designs and transformation (?) sequence are made beyond expectations.

Nevertheless, ... not even the protagonist's Best Girl status can save this first part from being a dull & uninteresting to watch on your free time. The exposition dumps, especially when the new characters are being introduced through that, are also part of the reasons why this spinoff feels monotonous.

I'm about to watch Second Part so to sum up, I suggest you only watch this spinoff series if you're a dedicated fan of the protagonist whose role in the main series has somewhat make her earn "Best Scene Stealer" title.