Ibara no Ou

When watching the trailer for this anime film I had big expectations about what I was going to see. Here you have a sci-fi/thriller with killer virus threatening society, survivors trying to stay alive and mysterious monsters inhabiting the area of the last set of people. It sounds good doesn't it? Science fiction happens to be one of my favourite genres of films and on paper his anime adaptation has the potential to be great, however this is one of those films that have a good idea but the way it is executed leaves a lot to be desired.

The first part of the film feels ... good, the characters are unique and feel likeable and the way everything unfolds again feel just right. But as the film progresses and the true nature of the story comes out one feels starts to think differently about the film and by the end you'll feel like you were robbed. My main issue with the film was the story and the art. As I stated the film starts out fine but becomes tedious because of the speed of the film and focus on unnecessary people and there will be moments where you don't know where the film is going because of the pacing. In terms of the art the characters look good and the painted background look nicely detailed and suits the locations; however there is one fatal mistake that becomes blatantly obvious in certain parts of the film and that lies in the animation. At certain points the film tends to jump into the area of 3D animation with character models that look like they are cel-shaded and the movement looks terrible. The times when it switches are easily noticeable and just look bad.

The music isn't too memorable nor is it a soundtrack worthy of brilliance, it's decent enough as it adjusts to each situation and works on a whole. The characters in the films start of okay but then feel like they just be killed off because their credibility falls over time. The little boy provides humour in some places and while Kasumi feel like a likeable lass because of her shyness and care for her sister Shizuku, but through her memories and the way she acts I found her just to be a worrywart and lost interest after quite some time. In terms of how you'll enjoy the film is entirely down to your preferences really, fans of complex sci-fi films and maybe disappointed with end result purely because the film doesn't fully give you the experience that you felt that would. The feeling of loneliness, claustrophobia, isolation and danger is done well for the most part eventually it just feels tedious then exciting and thought provoking.

Overall the film is something that can be watched but just doesn't feel like it gives out what it planned to. It had all the right ideas and feels good for the first part but progresses questionably and leaves you feeling robbed at the end like you were expecting more.

Encore!!

But next time in a form of 13×24 minutes long series, rather than a 90 minutes long movie.
To make it clear, how I was able to watch this movie ahead of you. Anilogue filmfestival is being held in Budapest and Vienna, and one of the premier movies was King of Thorn, and I managed to get my hands on a ticket ^^

Now back to the review.

As I mentioned first of, this was a really-really eventful movie squeezed in a very short 90 minutes.

Story:
... In 2015 a new virus called meduesa raises it's head and spreads worldwide, leaving noone alive who's caught by this epidemic.
However a pharmaceutical company, offers 160 choosen one to be put in deep sleep, to ensure their survival, until a cure is found. But something goes wrong, very wrong.
That's where the new story of The sleeping beuty begins.
And it makes you really want to know, what is different in this story, from the fairy-tale version. The princess has a lot more role (more [and maybe someone else], than you'd thought!! just wait until the last 75 minutes !!!), but the princes weren't cut out from the cast-list either...
The story would had had a lot more to tell about the circimstances, and the personalities of our "knights", "servants", "gatekeepers", but we'll have to be satisfied with the adventure and the princess' story int this short 90 minutes.

Art:
Sunrise Need I say more. Oh, yess!!! And I'm not saying this, because of my approvement.
The creatures were fit to be animated in CG, but, by some parts (mainly gunfights) are little crew went through a little CG-fication too, witch would had been acceptable, if it would have appeared only in gunfights, but somehow, they've put some of these technical solutions in simple dialogues, and running sceens, witch was a bit irritating, that they changed from one cut to the next into a blockhead, strife-haired, bottomless-pit mouthed characters. But it didn't kill the atmosphere, it was just, not unnoticable.

Sound:
Nothing to complain here (or I might be the stick-eared one). It reale made the atmosphere, what it ment to be felt like. Maybe at the end it was a bit more fittable for a Disney film's summit, but it didn't break the pot.

Character:
160 -153 killed right off leaving 3 knights (a former policeman, a prisoner [lookalike], a scientist) a fool, a maid etc.
As I mentioned before, they don't really develop, only our "princess", and maybe the 3rd "knight", maybe a bit by the "maid", but it's really regrettable that the movie was cut so short. So no big progress by the crew, manly just by the "princess"

Enjoyment:
Overall, it was great, but left me there with alot of other questions in the middle of nowhere. Okay, they weren't so cruicial, but I would had been really curious about the "who?"s, the "why?"s, the "how?"s. I really was amased by the climax (no not the flying thingy, but the "truth") of the movie, I've almost sh*t bricks. However the film was so short, it didn't have the time to develop, escalate, and expand itself so, that this climax would had a really Big-Boom effect. Still this climax one of the few WTF moments of my anime history.

Really good movie, but surely would had much more pontential, in a form of a 13 episodes long series.


Ps.: Note me on my profile, if you find grammatic glitches in the review, please. Thank you!

Story: 9
Honestly, I really loved this movie. It had me immersed from the first minute to the last, and while I can understand why some people dislike it over its "lack of logic," I don't agree. For the first half, or even first 3/4 of the film, it seems rather realistic, almost as if it could be an alternate reality to our own. Undeniably, it takes an unanticipated twist at that point--and one that I felt personally bumped my overall enjoyment of the film from an 8 to a 10--there was no doubt in my mind that the change of pace was, for my taste, ... a positive. With that said, I'm going to keep this review spoiler free, so that's about as far as my review of the story itself goes--I decided on a 9 for this section, just because the very beginning starts off a bit too slow for me, despite it being the general establishing opening.
Art: 8
I am NOT a fan of CGI, and this movie depends heavily on it. However, for the most part (aside from some of the cringy monsters), I really didn't mind it when applied to the scenes and even the characters. The speed of the action blurred the 3D models almost enough to make the CGI undetectable, if you aren't an enemy of it (like me), and it was certainly better than the usual MMD standard.
Otherwise, the hand drawn artstyle was somewhat generic, but definitely not something that negatively impacted the experience.
Sound: 10
I think that the soundtrack of this movie was picked perfectly. There are times, especially in flashbacks and in the conclusion of the film, that the outside noise is nearly or entirely muted, and the beautiful music has a moment to take over. Is it something most of us would listen to all by itself? Probably not. But it fit the scenes so while that doesn't even matter to me.
Character: 9
While there isn't anything extraordinarily spectacular about the cast, I really appreciated its diversity. At first glance, one might point the seven mains out as archetypes, but as the story progresses we learn that they REALLY aren't. The development is done well, even if it turns pretty entropic towards the end, and I wasn't left feeling like any of the character were familiar cookie cutters I'd seen before. All that having been said, working with seven characters does mean that certain ones were given, if not more screen time in this case, more attention. And THAT having been said, this extra attention was done somewhat subtly and I'd say was rather acceptable given the survivability of each character in the end (lol sorry I'm not trying to sound all weirdly sophisticated, I'm just trying my hardest not to spoil those major plot points).
Enjoyment: 10 (see Story for why...sorry I got lazy and need a snack)
Overall: 10

I come into King of Thorn not having read the manga and had primarily been intrigued because of the animation studio behind the production.

King of Thorn is one of the rare movies that manages to pace itself very well, neither boring the audience or giving them too much of adrenaline rush. It's a film that unravels it's mysteries bit by bit without giving it all away.

Story: This is an unabashed survival horror title, it's got the genre's tropes down to a fine art, a facility over-run with thorns and weird creatures that attack survivors. But what's really great about the story of this movie is ... that they keep unraveling mysteries as time goes on, the revealing of these mysteries are done perfectly and they mix these well with the action sequences so that your not sitting around listening to someone explain everything and boring you to death. The only real problem with the story is that near the end it becomes incredibly confusing and you have no idea what is real and what is not.

Art: I want to make it clear the reason this gets a low grade is not because of the absolutely beautiful 2D animation and backgrounds, it gets it because of some really really shitty 3D Animation, There is no reason to have the human beings become 3D out of nowhere and then suddenly shift to 2D, it looks jarring and out of place. This is what really brings down the movie in my opinion, if they kept it to completely 2D, this would probably be a near masterpiece, instead it really harms the movie.

Sound: I watched this on English Dub, there are accents for all the characters except for Kasumi, Shizuka, Peter and Ron. The accents are perfect and are not out of place or take away from the story. Though at times I felt R Bruce Elliott's Italian accent slipped a little into Russian, however that's not as much of a big concern if you've watched the movie. The music on the other hand for this title is incredible, anytime a title makes you want to look up who did the scoring for it, you know you have good music. Toshihiko Sahashi did an incredible job with this soundtrack and payed great attention to detail with it, he included a little scottish flair paying homage to the locale of the Story.

Character: I really love the Characters in this story, when you have a film that makes you care about the characters and what happens to them, You generally want to see these characters survive the hell they have found themselves in. I really would like to go in depth on this but I'm not very eloquent when it comes to talking about other people. I think what I really like about this film is the character development regarding Marco, when you first see him you honestly think this man is an complete asshole but over time you really start to learn he is a flesh and blood human being like the rest of us and that he too carries around wounds of the heart.

Enjoyment: I absolutely loved this movie, I think I could definitely watch it again, if the animation could have just been fixed as well the ending just a tiny bit this may be one of the best Anime Films to have ever been made, I know I won't forget this movie.

Overall: King of Thorn has it's flaws, but it has some of the most beautiful 2D Animation and Music you will experience in your life.

When i first saw this i was frozen in awe. Then i realized that out of all the movies/television shows that i have seen this has got to be one of the greatest i have ever seen!

While there's some strong overlap here, the difference is that King of Thorn strikes me as a lot smarter. Or maybe it isn't really, and that's just my perception. Maybe I'm just overly impressed with the references to classical mythology and the psychological import of fairy tales ("Sleeping Beauty" plays a key part in the plot and imagery). More likely, I can't help noticing that while Pandorum starts ... sharp and gets more conventional on its way to its twist ending, King of Thorn gets decidedly brainier as it progresses to its impressive twist-upon-twist ending. (much like that of the movie inception)

Better still, nothing from the early parts of the film is ultimately meaningless, which helps redeem passages that at the time might seem random or precious. The weird yet intense relationship between a pair of twins, the usual assortment of character types thrown together (cute child, hunky bad boy, ext.), the overall trippiness of the setting/mood when they first wake up--all of it signifies something, and the end result is a conclusion which is strangely satisfying.

Have some mixed thoughts on this one. King of Thorn depicts a survival/ horror like story where several people put under cryogenic sleep due to being infected by a virus awaken to discover the institution they are at is covered in spiked thorns and swarming with violent monsters. On the plotting end, the series is effective for the most part in slowly building up its mystery surrounding what exactly is going on when Kasumi and the others awaken at the institution. Hints are scattered throughout the movie concerning what happened with some characters having hidden motives for their actions, some good and others are not ... so much. Some characters are fleshed out in exploring their pasts with their past traumas having a role to play in later events of the series, especially in the case of Kasumi when the shocking truth surrounding the origins of the virus and activity in the institution are revealed.

What does hurt the movie for me to a good extent is the pacing. The movie's events fly by a quick pace, which prevent any dramatic or suspenseful moments from encounters with the monsters or revelations from having time to sink in and allow for the maximum emotional impact to be felt by the viewers. In addition, some of the prominent characters in King of Thorn felt rather underdeveloped as either they had little depth or weren't given enough depth to allow me to connect with them fully. Also be warned, this movie can get quite violent at points as a number of characters die in very bloody ways thanks to the monsters they encounter.

The visuals for King of Thorn were also a bit of a mixed bag for me. The regular animation had a great amount of visual detail put into scenery and character designs, with subdued color tones going along well with the tense mood the movie wanted to give off. On the other hand, the CG animation used in the movie, while fluid in action scenes, sticks out like a sore thumb in many instances in its rendering of vehicles, the various monsters and even the characters during action sequences for some odd reason. In the case of characters, their rendering looked quite rough compared to their regular designs and were not as well-detailed.

But while having its issues with animation and pacing, King of Thorn is still a solid movie worth killing two hours to watch through thanks to its plot buildup concerning what led to the institution inhabited by Kasumi and others to become a hellish place they have to survive through.

For some reason King of Thorn feels like a broken rollercoaster; At first you think it's gonna be the best thing ever, it takes you higher and higher - only to stop at the top and leave you somewhat disappointed. King of Thorn doesn't have the required and exciting downfall of a rollercoaster to be called a masterpiece.

STORY:
The most disappointing and yet most impressive thing about this movie is the story. It actually IS very, very good, but only in the beginning. Or, let's say, throughout the first half of the movie. Then it gets unnecessarily complicated - I still don't get everything. It would've ... been perfectly fine if they would've left out some of those many, too many twists. But there are also many enjoyable moments that caught me off guard. You know these moments when you think, okay, it cannot get any worse than this - and suddenly it gets MUCH worse? This movie is full of it, and THAT I liked.

ART:
The art is very fluent and enjoyable. It's a mix between rather unspectacularly animated characters/objects and some 3D elements.
It makes everything a lot more interesting for the eye to watch.

SOUND:
Throughout the whole movie there are parallels to Sleeping Beauty. Not only does a character from the movie serve them to you by narrating the fairy tale itself; The music actually makes you believe you're in a fairy tale. It wonderfully mixes with the dark setting, leaves a bittersweet taste. Simply beautiful.

CHARACTER:
The characters all have their own surprising little secrets, which sooner or later are revealed. But it feels like it's not enough. I wished for more background information to each character to be able to better understand them. Which sadly, I didn't all the time. As for the main character, Kasumi; Especially for her I hoped to get a little more information. There are some flashbacks, each time longer than before, and each time delivering you another piece of a puzzle to put together. But as I said; You don't really know enough about the characters to be able to do so. But, even if the characters won't make a lasting impression on you, they're not unlikeable.

ENJOYMENT:
I was plagued by lots of WTF - moments. But as I said, I enjoy those very much. :D There are also few but very well placed shock moments. And blood. ;)

OVERALL:
If you wanna watch a good, in its storyline very twisted movie, I would recommend it to you any time. But if you easily get confused by these kinds of movies, you should avoid this one. You might only be frustrated after watching it. As for my part, I admittedly WAS confused. But it left me thinking about it, about the possibility for something like this to actually happen someday. Scary and fascinating at the same time.

Also, I once had this strange thought, the exact same as it was mentioned in the movie but long before I watched it. SPOILER; What if we're all just a dream or imagination of only ONE living being? This thought still freaks me out and I love the movie for addressing it. :>

So perhaps I am the only one, but I found this quite good. I'll touch on a few points as to why;

First, I have not read the manga so I have no point of reference in that regard. So from that standpoint this is a really good standalone movie that is done very well in a lot of ways, and I think it is unfair to compare the two as written material versus any kind of visual adaptation are often very different for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that many things that can come across great in a novel (or ... manga, as the case may be) do not do so well when translated into a visual format like a movie so many times changes do have to be made.

Second, I actually liked that there was a mix of the traditional anime style and the CGI monsters. Other animes have pulled this off in spectacular fashion, and I think it was done so very well here. It made the things from one part stand out from things in another part.

Third, while the story was confusing and it may be worth reading the manga to get the full version I think for what it was it was told well. I was very surprised at the ending that I absolutely did not see coming, and at the end I kind of had to do a run through in my head to recount the movie and realize how it all ties together. In that particular aspect it's worth watching at least twice for that alone, to notice the little things you didn't the first time with the information at the end at hand.

Finally, overall I thought this was wonderful. A great adaptation of a classic fairy tale with a little bit of a sci-fi element to it and a twisting flair that isn't found much these days. If you read the manga chances are you won't like this, but if you haven't then it's worth the watch because with nothing to compare it to I sincerely think this was great.

I read the manga and did not like it that much because i found it too convoluted and it didn't make any sense. The character development suffered because of this and i was unable to feel the same emotional attachment that i do in the movie. The movie, whilst deviating from the manga, served to slightly make up for it and was much more simplified. The art style for action scenes kind of took away from the overall experience but this may be because i myself am not a huge fan of CG. Overall, i found myself being more immersed and invested in the movie ... than the manga because i found that it was more of a cohesive plot than the manga and it was much more simplified. I would watch it again once in a blue moon to enjoy the nostalgia i suppose but not avidly as this is only a 7 for me. The ending left quite a bit of questions for me as it did not address some pre-existing issues like the virus and there were more than a few plotholes during the movie. But i did enjoy it and for me that's all that matters in the end.

This anime turned out to be surprisingly good.

It is two hour long movie about the world where a strange diseases arrives in human worlds, and slowly turns people into stone. Somebody tries to invent a countermeasure for it, but things do not really go as expected.

I have not read the manga, but from anime perspective alone it is a very solid horror/action movie, that becomes more dream-like and surreal as it goes on. Music is great, and shines in situations where the anime doesn't try to make characters talk. I would say it resembled me Gyo, in its atmosphere.

Detailed breakdown below.

Story: 6/10
The story has weak ... points when the anime stops action and lets character interact with each other. Character interaction is a bit awkward and is not that believable. IT also spends plenty of time setting up the events into full motion, but once it is done with talking parts it becomes more and more surreal and symbolic, acquires a bit of dream-like atmosphere and greatly enjoyable. I really liked later half of the moive.

Art: 7/10
Highly detailed backgrounds and fairly solid overall, however, there instances where certain creatures are done using CG, and it is noticeable. Basically, CG is not horrible, but it doesn't perfectly blend with hand-drawn parts, like it was done, for example, in Seikai Suru Kado or Sidonia no Kishi. So, the CG parts stand out. Having said that, realistic character proportions and decent amount of detail help a lot.

Sound: 7/10:
Some wonderful and fitting music in the later half of the anime, which contributes to the atmosphere.

Character: 5/10:
In the 2 hour time window there's not much time for proper character development, and in situations where characters do interact with each other it is not really convincing. It is not really horrible, but it isn't that well done, and this anime works better when characters are going somewhere, running for something, etc. I.e. during movement/action parts.

Enjoyement: 7/10:
I liked it. It started as a decent anime with some action and horror, and in later segment it became enjoyable due to more surreal atmospehre.

Overall: 7/10:
Definitely worth a watch. There are very brutal scenes, but it doesn't try to go over the top with on-screen gore, like some titles do. The atmosphere is interesting, and enjoyable, and in conjuction with nice music, later halves turned out to be very enjoyable.

I definitely recommend watching it.

When i started to watch Ibara no Ou i didn't really have any expectations expect the fact that i probably going to like it. In the beginning everything was there a killer virus that turns everyone into stone and people who are put to cold sleep to wait a cure and suddenly when they wake up everything has gone haywire. The story started really great at the beginning but at some point in the halfway it didn't really go the way i was expecting and that somewhat turned me off. The story about how everything happened was for me somehow really rushed off. Still i ... watched it to the end and it was very good entertainment for the whole time of 1,5h even thou it could've done better. It really started good and to the end it just kinda dropped little.

Solid anime sci-fi/horror film with very good animation, likeable characters and genuine thrills. The first half is top-notch stuff, with a phenomenal set-up and an even better follow through, but the second half gets a bit bogged down in nonsensical exposition and an attempt to make the film more profound than it needed to be, resulting in some convoluted and muddled plot threads.

To clarify though, things never get too confusing not to be able to follow, but the first two-thirds of the film are so straight-forward and well executed that I didn't feel like it needed to go in the direction it did. This ... would have been better off as a "dumb" genre flick instead of trying to be intellectual, and considering no one is complaining about anime classics like Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D being true to what they are, this would have been fine going that route as well. Not everything has to aspire to be Ghost in the Shell. I would have probably rated this higher if it had a different final act, but it's certainly not a deal-breaker, and is still well worth checking out.

I’ve always been fascinated with survival type of stories and the same reason why I’ve been in love with “Resident Evil franchise”. Not only it always comes with the too much thrill of staying alive while fighting monsters or staying sane amidst the confusion but it always has that mysterious and twisted plot that will reveal at the end of the story.

The story was about a set of people who were bewildered by what they saw around them after waking up in a supposed long sleep. They didn’t had enough time to think because they had to stay alive from the mysterious monsters that ... lurked around the facility they were kept. Not only they had to survive but they also had to figure out what happened to the world while they were asleep and just how long they’ve been sleeping.

This movie exceeded what I was expecting from it. It’s not just a survival type of story that has a mysterious and twisted plot but it has a strong psychological touch which revealed at the end of the movie. You will be confused and puzzled after every revelation and so you really have to finish it to really understand the whole storyline.

The animation was superb which to be expected considering it was done so recently. Accompanied with a nice soundtrack, this movie was definitely worth to watch.

It was a good anime but I was very displeased with how much of the story they removed and changed. While watching I couldn't help but always point out mistakes like "What happened to this part?" or "This didn't happen!". The ending was completely different as well. It was NOT BAD but for someone who's read the manga is a tad bit of a disappointment.
My advice: Read the manga and imagine everything as if you were watching an anime.
lol :3

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
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✦Story

So, there is a disease that poses threat to mankind, select few gets sent to 100 years "cryo" sleep with hope that when they wake, cure will be found. That's the premise, and that's where it will all go bad.

It's a psychological action/thriller survival horror with a spice of philosophy and adventure Anime. Hard to say much about it without spoiling, so I will only tell few general reactions and thoughts I had.

I found the story my cup of tea. Meaning that it was "edgy" enough for ... me and feeling of "thought provocation" was great. I found a start a bit boring yet intriguing, then after everyone went for a sleep, I thought "eh, now rest of the movie will be their adventure of survival and getting out of the facility alive". But in fact, it was much more than that, characters were irrelevant to select few and as progression went on, it became more and more difficult to keep track on. It went more eerie, intense and to a certain degree, quite spooky. But as someone who watches/plays/read or "concept of understanding" is to simply soak in things as I get and simply feel them. Rather than propose questions, which never pop in my head, I'm a bit of a moron probably. Anyhow, I found a bit hard to grasp, took me a while to get the point of some things and probably some things I felt unanswered. But in the end the story had lot going on, lot of confusion, lot of mystery and lot of weird progression and "truth". So indeed, a fun trip of brain buggering.

✦Art & Sound
Art was quite good, but nothing too unique or amazing.
As for sound part, cannot remember to be honest. Aside the main ost, cannot remember of any other ost/music in the "sound" category. Think it was good, but I somewhat forgot to review few things I finished lately, and "Ibara no ou" was the oldest of them.

✦Character
All I can comment regarding characters is "eh....I guess they had some more "real" character than the usual troupes, stereotypes, but can't say that I was impressed. Good enough, nothing worthwhile. Twins only "quality" highlight.

✦Enjoyment & Overall
For some reason I thought I've seen this movie, but apparently not as it was in my "Plan to watch". Not sure what anime it reminded me of feel'wise, but something did. Anyhow, I did enjoy it more than I expected. It was spooky, mysterious, edgy, gruesome enough, psychological and intriguing. So yeah, it was an enjoyable experience, I suppose...

King of thorn is a sci-fi fantasy type thriller in which this killer parasite tries to destroy the earth. It involves a few characters, and a plot that at times, really makes no sense. Especially when it gets towards the last 20 minutes, you're like " what the hell? explain that again please?" I have never read the manga, and i really don't plan on it. I try to stay away from a lot of anime movies unless they belong to a show. But this movie i found pretty good, i mean i liked it, it had very good music which seemed to fit the ... story well as the music was kind of suspenseful. The art was good, nothing to rave about but like a movie there is only so much you can do. It has a time length so don't expect to fall in love with any of the characters. But i think overall the movie deserves to be watched. it wasnt bad, it was good, and hopefully one of you will agree with me on that.

I was really excited when I heard there was going to be a King of Thorn movie. I'm a fan of the manga. As a fan, I am disappointed with the movie. I enjoyed it, it hit all the major plot points, but it left out a lot and the overall feel and excitement wasn't the same.

The movie starts off with a long drawn out sequence of explaining the Medusa Virus and taking the patients to the island. This didn't bother me all that much, as exposition is necessary, but I preferred how it was done it the comics - naturally brought up throughout the ... series. It moves into quick, sudden action that pulls you through the few slower, dialogue based scenes.

The story - 9
Naturally, as a fan of the Manga - I like the story. The anime did leave out a few things, Details on Alice, left out a character, and some minor stuff. The movie hit the most important points which is all I ask for a movie adaption. It's still a shame it couldn't have been a little longer to fill out some of the things it left out though.

Art - 3
For the most part, the art is just fine. The problem is whenever there is a lot of movement or action - the characters are changed from drawn images to cell-shaded model (Think the graphics to early ps2 games). The movements became a bit off, and some of the switching between styles was weird. I ended up laughing at it a bit - which isn't what you want to do while watching a horror-survival movie.

Sound - 7
The voice acting of the English dub was good. No performances really stood out. I thought the accents that some people used were a bit awkward at first, but it didn't bother me as the movie sent on.

Character - 7
I give this a seven because most of the characters miss the development they get in the manga. Due to time constraints, I understand missing out on certain characters. What is most important with the main characters is kept in and done pretty well.

Enjoyment - 7
I enjoyed it. It wasn't good, but it wasn't anything very special.

Overall - 7
Overall, it's a good movie and well worth the watch.

Somehow this show ended up on the free movies section on Xfinity several years ago and I probably would not have seen it even now had it not randomly appeared on there back in the day.

I first saw the movie and then bought the manga. Some reviewers who had read the manga first were upset because it completely changes the final act which is an understandable criticism. Had I read the manga first as well, I probably would've had some sourness too. I usually despise when animes do this because I know the only reason they do it is because the anime is not long ... enough to cover the whole story so they make up their own ending. It drives me nuts.

However, this is one of the rare times where after looking at both versions, I am ok with both endings though I do prefer manga version more. The movie still managed do get the fundamentals of the manga and prevent the story from falling apart.

The movie creates some new explanations from why certain things happen in the movie compared to manga in order to stitch up loose ends that the manga covered but the movie had to work without it.

Also, this is one of the rare times where I actually prefer the english dub on an anime that isn't done by Studio Ghibli. the voice actors did a pretty good job and added life and personality into their roles.

The big part of the movie revolves around twists and turns that are revealed in the final act that I cannot spoil. However, that is what makes the anime rise above many others in terms of story telling. Just like Perfect Blue, it makes you want to rewatch the movie instantly in order to see the story again but with the revelations in mind. You pick up on several details and moments you miss that make a lot more sense upon rewatch. Its part of the reason why I haven't forgotten it even after several years.

I would show anime blu rays back when I was in college and this movie by far got the most watches and positive reactions from folks who didn't even watch anime.

As for negatives, the CGI elements of the animation really stick out like a sore thumb since a lot of characters and setting do have very nice hand drawn detail in them. It feels lazy and tired. Still don't understand why studios think we won't notice it.
Also, the story is not for everyone. People who prefer more structured stories, endings wrapped up in a nice little bow, and happily ever afters will leave disappointed.

I recommend this anime to most anime fans and people looking to get into anime despite its flaws.