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There's a moment in this film when a little girl stands at the side of a street, watching an army of phallic-shaped tanks roar by. The animators made extra sure the shaft part of each tank dick, which protrudes to its left, passes directly over the girl's head.

If there's one compliment I can give the anime, it's that moment. The scene encapsulates perfectly how I feel having sat through this hour's runtime. Minute after drawn-out minute, Angel's Egg is a bunch of anime writers swinging their dicks at you, moaning how smart they are. Worst of all, they're right. This IS a smart film, and ... it's probably going over your head, pillar and stone and all.

But "smart" doesn't mean good. You'd rather have a dumb friend who knows what he is and lives his life to the fullest, than be around a boff who does nothing but brag of the latest thoughts to pop in his head. Same with anime. I know because I used to be one of the latter type of people, except I really wasn't that clever.

You see, this film is unique. It's so different, it's so artsy. Surely that alone makes it better than the generic ecchi harem to come out every season right? Well, the thing with cliches is, the tropes themselves become tired because they have an inherent appeal. To someone seeing it for the first time, tsunderes are cute, no matter how shallow the character. To a 12-year-old boy, accidental groping is funny and awkwardly exciting. Not to insult people who like that stuff, of course; I'm just explaining the nature of tropes and how creators come to overuse them.

Angel's Egg is devoid of tropes not because it takes a fresh approach on portraying life, but because it's completely devoid of emotional appeal. Its "plot", if you could call it that, can literally be summed in two sentences. That's not what you normally call unique. It's just... nothing.

Let me expand on my point. This film is about Christianity and the death (abandonment) of God. That much I and most people gleam from the film alone; I watched a 30-minute passion analysis reasoning everything in the story, and I'm all like... That's it? As it turns out, Mamoru Oshii was inspired for this film after his loss of faith in Christianity. Everything in the story, few as they are, is some symbol relating to ideas of faith vs atheism.

Everything is symbolic, it's all dark and grimy and supposedly desperate. None of it is engaging. Because even as you can see the pain and anguish in every picture and song of this film (art and sound are fine), he doesn't give you a single reason to care. The characters are so NOTHING that you can't even call them one-dimensional, because that would imply they have some sort of breadth. You can literally describe them in one word; that's not just paper-thin characterisation, that's no characterisation.

I don't mind shallow characters if it fits the point of a story but this movie has their suffering as its only thrust. And it offers SO little to latch onto.

Okay, Mr Oshii. I can see it's affected you very much. I can see how these characters would feel lonely, whatever in this post-apocalyptic world. But you don't explore this emotion at all. Why should I give a damn about these people, or this world, or about you?

If you don't care about the characters, you don't care what happens. A few things do happen - FEW emphasised, each scene is so quietly, so agonisingly stretched out, I swear I could hear the soft masturbatory strokes of this movie's creators somewhere. Of the things that happen, none of it makes sense. It's all chalked up to being symbolic, nothing else.

I'm not the pedantic type. I very easily forgive a show for plot points that others call "contrived". But there's a line, and Angel's Egg is miles across it. At that point it doesn't just break suspension of disbelief. It's entirely unengaging.

"Oh, that happened. I WONDER what that means..."
"Oh, it symbolizes despair this, innocence that. Don't care."

Geez, there's so little going for this movie to do anything. I have to wonder why it hasn't been forgotten. It has no philosophical or social commentary that millions of Woke atheists haven't already said. It contains no predictions on the progress of mankind, like Serial Experiments Lain had on the boom of the Internet.

I consider myself a fairy average person with fairly average tastes. I respect people who like this kind of stuff, and if you're one of them, give it a go. If you loved stuff like NGE, Texhnolyze, and SEL, you'll probably like this too. But if you're anything like me, don't. It's boring as shit, and you probably won't get it on the first watch. If it were that one needs to enjoy this kind of stuff for bragging rights, then I don't want those rights at all.