Hells

Now a lot of people have reviewed this classic and it's both heavily slept on and underrated. Almost every negative review of this gives a lot of credit for the unique art style and wild trigger-like fights and general unhinged storyline. Bottom line is the majority of negative reviews here actually missed primary plot lines (confusion, more like skill issue, try again next time). The show has a certain skill hill for compreshesion and while some people who watch this may hate the idea of, what is now known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the final fight scene being a biblical condensed evangelion scale experience of ... positive self thought and indominable human spirit based on the writings of occult magic study.

This movie is in a way just Gurren Laggan mixed with Evangelion, and like both is great if you're actually able to see the value in the themes and the overall depth of the ironic humor. and terrible if you are watching the show to distract you from your sad life.

What a trip.

It's always interesting to see how Japan takes and adapts Christian folklore into the surreal world of anime. Hell is a concept almost ubiquitous in religions around the world, but nobody seems to be able to agree on it's exact nature. While a strictly Biblical depiction would show it to be a place of only suffering, eastern ideas about the afterlife paint it as being basically a continuation of our society as we have it already here on earth. So of course Hell is going to be a Japanese high school, where they play volleyball and talk about which boys they like.

The philosophies ... aside, what really stands out in this movie is the unique art style and animation. It's the kind of thing you can really only get from anime, and is hard to describe in just words. Even if the plot is utterly nonsensical it ultimately doesn't matter if it still looks cool, and it does. Honestly that's really all it had going for it for me, though. Looking cool isn't really enough to elevate it's score much past a 6/10, so that's what I gave it. Kind of dumb movie otherwise.

Besides the art, this is a solid mess. The movie starts off being pretty decent but the plot is just all over the place. The characters are constantly jumping from one end to the other over and over again. It would have been better if this was a show instead but even then, the final result of the unfolding of this story would have still been an absolute mess if the destination was the same. The only redeemable aspect of this show is the art. It's aesthetically pleasing to look at but even then I know for a fact some people wouldn’t like it. Just ... watch something else honestly. Some people recommend the manga more than the movie. I haven't read the manga but maybe give that a shot instead. The ratings on MAL for both are pretty much the same.