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June 17th, 2019 (based on my 2018/08/31 reaction post, reformatted as a "MAL review")

Art/Animation - 7~8/10 (depends if I'm hallucinating)
Sound - 6/10
Characters - 5/10
Story - 6/10
Enjoyment - 5/10

Animation - What do people find beautiful in the animation? Were the movements very detailed? Was it not rather the usual over-filtering that is hailed as "animation"? Or the simple but smooth design ? (that makes the good animation that easier, by the way)
Every three or five minutes during more than half the movie, I kept being "punched" away by a super weird 3D-like arm / hand or legs that were moving weirdly, etc. The worst part being ... everytime a few walking characters are "filmed" above waist : they look like they're still while it's actually the background that slides (like some old and badly made side-scrolling scene).
Often good-looking albeit too computer-painted like backgrounds.
An apparent effort on using less filters (I think?)

Sound - The score is very discrete neither enhancing or diminishing a scene's effect and the SFX are all good. But the use of songs, while fitting for such a large audience teen movie, are at times taking too much place and at others sound inadequate (scenes where a background song doesn't "seeem right", can't explain, maybe it's me who's too accustomed to other movies).

Characters - The boy for all the screen time he gets is highly undeserving of this attention while the girl and her environment do some good to the overall movie. Apart from her infatuation, the main female . The hero on the opposite seems empty: while they give him some characeristics (by stating them mainly), I was never under the impression that it was really him. At the very least, his initial teen infatuation was actually "reasonable".
Can't remember enough about the rest of the characters.

Story - It was like seeing two stories put back to back, with the 1st one suddenly interrupted and getting its end after the 2nd one. Maybe that was why the movie has achieved a 2hours duration for a teen movie.
The first story was extremely classical, nothing really special apart the usage of today's technology (but I mostly read/watched those coming-of-age swap stories in the 90s so there might be others that did it since then), so it was easy working. The 2nd one, supposedly the more interesting (and original) element, had great difficulties to not fall into a too high speed, and I felt like it was at time adding more rules "just because". Bonus: the two parts felt incoherent between each other too.
Not explaining a fantasy element used to allow a story is perfectly fine, by the way.

Enjoyment - none, because it's just the nth teen romcom I see and I have a strong dislike for most adolescent movies of the 2000+ that lack the charm, colourfulness or fun of 80s ones. I happened to fall asleep during the 2nd half, the 1st time I watched it. I might also be too old.


Score: 5.5+/10
A simple teenagers romantic story, weighed down by weird "rules" additions to the story over its course, saved by its visual aspect (despite its often way too artificial look).

What a fun reunion full of fan-service ("the Professor" is here !) with every character apart from Saeko getting some action and the required humour. Each one is faithful to his old self, with maybe Kaori and Ryô who seemed rather childish a good chunk of the movie (I could mention Umibozû but it's a joke so...)
The modernization is everywhere (even running through the story in an interesting way) in this concept confronting the City Hunter to the "present world", with some exaggerations here & there (ex: a virtual visitors board?!).

The great musics from the series sound superior to the rest of an otherwise ... anecdotal soundtrack. But they're sometimes weirdly placed. On the contrary, while it's nice to hear our old pals with the "same" voice again, several actors have largely lost their voice from back then; and the guest-seiyû sound very good, namely Yamadera and his henchman whose name I forgot.

The movie is clearly pretty poorly drawn and colourized (reminiscent of a 2000 TV show rather than a movie): the bold outline and extremely sharpen colours accentuate the lack of integration of the characters in their (nicely made) environment. Chara-design-wise, most characters didn't change much (Kaori's eyes make a big fifference though) but they're often oversimplified. While the animation is okay (with some well done fights), the characters don't look good as soon as they leave the foregrounds and feature inhuman hands most of the time. The 3DCGI mechanical ennemies can look out of place.

Also, as a theatrical release, it could have featured mokkori jokes. But there were none.

Enjoyment: 4/5
Score: 6/10 Okay film made for fans (who'll be more or less excited)

June 19th, 2019 (based on my 2017/02/26 reaction post, reformatted as a "MAL review")

WARNING: I read people praising the director's storytelling as innovative, so I might be confuse and blind to the new narration employed here. I also didn't notice anything noteworthy in term of direction.
DISCLAIMER: You probably DO know better than me.


Animation & art (visuals?) - 6/10
Sound - 6/10
Characters - 6.5+/10
Story - 6/10
... Enjoyment - 5/10


Animation - More than decent at times. But the performances are often subject to bad face drawings and inconsistent bodies/animation, despite how good they were! The 3D models used in those segments are usually OK. Drawing-wise, apart from those scenes, it's perfectly fine. And I thought style and designs were nice.

Sound - The OST was repetitive and varied , both because of the skating tracks.The performances songs were interesting choices (those I personally liked as well as the others).

Characters - Considering the main ones, the good point of this series, despite certain elements. A bold evolution seen in the hero. But the extended cast, the various sportsmen, become rapidly useless, repeating themselves to a tiring point (with a single counter-example).

Story - Classic, effective, inconclusive.
The competition story leads the hero to no self-confidence, his road took him from being a self-deprecating loser to a totally dependent person who can't move a finger if it's not for the sake of a certain someone (no problem with that but it's never addressed as a negative evolution and even shown as a rather good thing...). Only his coach and "rival"s road were good, but mostly untold. The relationship spawned out of the Nothingness, the fact it feels genuine at times (if you admit it since it's more often than not implied) makes it even weirder.
I didn't understand the need of cramming all the routines in 13eps to the detriment of the story (and its core relationship), that lost precious time.

Enjoyment - Almost none: a few smiles and I liked some skating numbers.


Score: 5.5+/10 (+ for the choreographies)


Note: The routines might be perceived as repetitive but it comes with the sport.