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AnoHana: Letters to Menma follows in the tradition of countless other anime movies before it - that is, it functions mostly as a recap of the original series with some new scenes sprinkled throughout.

If you've seen the original anime (and if you haven't go watch it right now before you read this review), then you're familiar with the story and it's resolution, so I'll spare the summary. The actual movie itself takes place roughly a year after Menma's wish has been granted, and catches up with the rest of the Super Peace Busters as they gather together to write their own letters to Menma, sharing ... their thoughts and feelings about what she meant to them and how they're doing now that she's gone.

Using this premise, the show switches back and forth between three different perspectives. The first of these are scenes from when the Super Peace Busters were children, and how they welcomed Menma to their group and played around. From there, we follow the characters writing their letters in the present, preparing for a celebration of sorts for their departed friend. And using that as a springboard, we see flashbacks to events from the actual show, as the process of writing the letters brings them back to the surface.

The problem with the movie is not so much anything to do with it's characters, story, poor writing, or what have you. Simply put, it suffers from a lack of new content - while maybe half the movie features new scenes (both in the show's present and past), the greater part of it consists of flashbacks and scenes from the original anime. Put together with how often the perspective changes, the result often feels disjointed and slightly unfocused.

What AnoHana: Letters to Menma does well, however, is provide a little more closure for fans of the anime. Getting to see the Super Peace Busters playing around as children was priceless, and certain scenes even add even more emotional gravitas to the show's powerful ending. That's a tricky feat for something as well written and self-contained as AnoHana - one wrong move and you risk looking revisionist or retroactively harming the story's original impact. And while there wasn't much development during the scenes set in the present, getting to catch up with the characters a year later felt a little like revisiting old friends and was rewarding in it's own way.

When all is said and done, this is a good movie. It's not without it's problems, and it's not one you should watch without seeing the show first, but it serves nicely as a sort of 'where are they now' and does a fine job of adding additional back story without damaging the integrity of the original show. If you're already a fan of the show, there's nothing you can lose from watching this movie.

This is a manga that is thrilling and disturbing by turns, but disappointing and over the top at the same time.

What drew me to this manga was the atmosphere that oozes right from the first chapter on. It's dark, and the art serves incredibly well into creating nightmarish creatures and occurances. There is no limit to the amount of strange things that will make you ask, "what the hell did I just see/read?!", and that alone makes it worth reading.

But, as creepy and disturbing as so much of this manga is, the effect quickly wears off after several filler chapters that stretched my suspension of ... disbelief to the max. I found this particularly disappointing, because there is a true lack of depth behind the events of the story. It's a cool premise - an obsession with spirals driving residents of a small town crazy - but we don't get to know much of the why or how. Things just happen, and occasionally, characters react disproportionately to the insanity around them. I would've enjoyed Uzumaki infinitely more if the author had simply went more in depth about what was behind everything, instead of the few small hints we wind up with.

While I'm overall disappointed at how the manga's plot unfolded, I still think this is something worth reading. It's very unsettling at the best of times, and downright disturbing at the worst. For the sheer "what the hell?" factor alone, you'll want to see just how much worse it can get until you've wound up finishing all twenty chapters. It's the kind of thing that gets into your head late at night, leaving you with that paranoid feeling that all good horror provides.