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I'll give you a short criticism right away, but you may check for more details a bit lower on the page.

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So, first off, I saw the anime adaptation before I read the light novel and that may have had an impact on my point of view.
Black Bullet has brilliant ideas to create stressful situations and horrific monsters and has quite the dark plot, even if there are lighthearted moments. The problem is... the way the world was designed and thought out makes no sense.
If you can't make abstraction of these things, you will shout at all the people living in this world because their actions ... will feel artificial.
The characters are probably better written then most light novels, but it's not brilliant. It still feels like having a harem anime protagonist getting into a heavy and dark drama. The combat may feel cool, but fuck physics and anatomy (well, it is essentially an anime, so it is understandable).
I really like the artstyle with greatly contrasted base lines and interesting poses as well as inspired clothing.

BUT despite all these flaws... I really enjoyed the ride. And that may only be due to interesting ideas on the part of the author. He may be bad at worldbuilding, but the Gastrea-virus and the way he managed the mystery part was quite interesting. You may not be able to believe everything he throws at you, but it feels like a wide world shrouded in darkness where humanity is slowly dying out. The situations you go through are tough and may give you chills for the characters that are going through it and that is perfectly right. I enjoyed it way more than my logic would have aknowledged it. The atmosphere and the great ideas behind it are that good. Too bad everything else isn't up to my expectations...

Would I recommend you to read it ? If you don't expect a sequel, yes. If you are not too picky, yes. If you want logic and a well written and thought out world... probably not...

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Let's get into details. I'll only comment on story and characters, since I don't have much to say about the rest.
MINOR SPOILERS ON THE WORLDBUILDING MAY BE AHEAD !!!

Story____

The greatest problem of this light novel is probably its worldbuilding. A minor spoiler is that humanity was nearly wiped out by a terrific virus that forced the remaining humans to live in secluded areas surrounded by metallic structures that hold gastrea-monsters at bay. So okay, humanity is near extinct... but since they really want to commit suicide, they have decided to stay in a capitalistic system, even though acting egoistically in that kind of era is synonym to DOOMSDAY.

So yes, it was kind of hard to take it seriously at first. Because despite the flaws of the worldbuilding, the idea on how the virus works, and the whole plot around the initiators (children beeing able to exploit the gastrea virus) as well as the constant threat that tomorrow, the gastrea may flood one of the last havens of humanity and push them a bit more towards extinction is indeed a nice place to have a slightly different story.

And that's kind of why I gave 6/10 to the story despite the worldbuilding beeing mediocre in my opinion. It has huge flaws on the way humans would live when faced with that kind of problem, but the way the virus itself and everything that comes from it is portrayed is very interesting.

Characters_____

Characters...

They are not fundammentally bad, but the protagonist is kind of a shonen hero that got trapped into a post-apocalyptic world. He will be annoying, will lack a strong personnality and will be surrounded by girls of many different ages that really want
him to become their lover... but since this is anime... it won't happen and it will never go really far. STILL, the characters have inner conflicts and most of them are driven by strong emotions in different directions.
I really think, the protagonist is one of the weakest assets of the cast, and many side-characters are more like manicheistic plot devices that lack any charisma. (There is more love poured into the potential love-interests and more central/reccuring side-characters, but especially the antagonists are really not noteworthy.)

Since there are many underaged girls in the cast, you may find this light novel even cooler if you like the "lolicon"-wibe in comedy/romantic light novels/anime.

Conclusion_____

In the end, this light novel feels like the world and the way the characters and story are portrayed don't work that well together. A more mature story with better characters may have driven this light novel on new hights, but unfortunately, this one here seems childish. Many consequences and problems in this light novel arise because the worldbuilding allowed these problems to arise, where a logical world wouldn't have inner conflicts of this size when the survival of yourself and all the rest of humanity is at stake. Yes, humans make mistakes, yes humans are not perfect, but humans understand what is at stake once they nearly get wiped out by an uncontrollable disease. They resort to strict regulation and drastic measures, not capitallistic suicide and mutual hate.

But despite all its flaws, I really liked the ride. You get to see unconventionnal situations and get to think about why something doesn't make sense. You get to experience nice battles even though you know deep down that he should have died with the first hit because his organs should have ripped apart under that kind of pressure. You laugh at the lighthearted situations in the dark world where imminent death is omnipresent. That is why even though it is flawed, even though it is far from beeing perfect, I really liked reading BLACK BULLET.

Even though my enjoyment was more on the 8-8.5/10, I can't give it more than 7/10 overall, because it is fundamentally flawed...

BLACK BULLET has something special, an atmosphere that isn't unique, but different from what you are usually seeing.

------ SPOILER FREE ------
First off, for me, the average note of an anime, be it a movie or a TV-series, is 7/10. Since everything having a note below that has a lack of professionalism or flaws breaking the viewing experience.

Since there are many long reviews, I will make mine really short.

I will start with the conclusion: Maquia was a great movie overall and I think anyone will find some aspects to their liking while watching this movie... but I would also say that even if there were two or three touching moments in this movie, it is far from beeing a masterpiece.

For me, this movie ... is like a huge wasted potential. It had the visuals, which are astounding at some moments... and average with 3D CGI at others... and a world creation giving the opportunity to build a story on myths and legends. They had so many opportunities to create symbolism with what they had... and they unfortunately made a story which had a hard time following itself.

There are so many things happening in this movie, that even the story got lost in the middle of it, not knowing where to continue.

The beginning of the movie was great, but the pacing came out of hand, giving not enough time for the character development to be done properly. There was so much potential to get us to like the characters even more... but in the end, there were only two really touching scenes in the movie.

For me, the movie has wasted a big amount of its potential. But even with that, it is still a beautiful movie, which is worth watching. Don't expect a masterpiece, since there are plotholes (and a bit of 3D CGI).

Overall, I rate it as a 8 out of 10... wait, let me reformulate.

I rate it as ONLY 8 OUT OF 10!!!!!!!!
Did you notice the ONLY ?! That's because it could have been so much more. For me this movie is ONLY a good movie, not a great one... and even less a masterpiece.

This review could sound quite negative, but it was a pleasure to see "Sayonara no Asa ni Yakusoku no Hana wo Kazarou" and I recommend that you watch it to make your own opinion. At least the visuals will not disappoint you.

PS: Seems this review became long after all.

I've been a fan of Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei for quite a bit, even if I didn't read the novels and stayed with the manga and anime.

First off, I'll be quick because other reviews go more in depth.

This film is clearly NOT the direct following of the anime and doesn't appear in the manga, so it's a side-story which is quite enjoyable, taking place during the vacations.

STORY:
The story is ..ok?... but quite simple in the end. When I say simple, I also mean that you can clearly feel the shonen wibe behind the interactions and it's really easy to understand the story. (So it's quite ... lighthearted without the "POWER OF FRIENDS" part of the shonen shows.... but lighthearted in the wrong direction, leading to situations with no sense at all because the logic disappeared in the stratosphere...)

ART:
The art is GREAT, you can't argue with that. It's not as good as Violet Evergarden or Ghibli films, but it's still in the right continuation from the series with overall better graphics, but a better spirit. You can feel that it's a movie and not a TV series with lack of time. The CGI is quite well used, or used in the background, so it doesn't scratch your eyes.

CHARACTERS:
The characters are like before (in the TV series), but with little to no character developpment for the ones we already get to see in the previous anime AND characters appearing way later in the novel/manga series (which will not be presented, so it's kind of laking for the people coming from the anime TV part).

SOUND:
The sound was ok, but not particularly good or memorable. It just did it's job without giving a special wibe or atmosphere, which is kind of sad.

ENJOYMENT:
The movie is nice. If you liked the anime series, you'll definitely like this movies... and if you are a big fan and you read the manga/novel, you'll probably like it even more.

OVERALL: (8/10 for MAL, 8,2/10 precisely)
This movie is laking a great sountrack and a better character introduction, but in the end, it was quite what I was expecting from a mahouka-movie. It wasn't a masterpiece, it wasn't GREAT in capital letters, but it was enjoyable... and more enjoyable than most of the current movies coming out in the regular cinema industry.
People coming from the anime series ONLY will have scenes they don't understand, because they don't know the characters, which are introduced a bit later in the original series.

If you liked MKNR, I definetly recommend you to give it a shot. The animation is still great and Tatsuya is present (without him, the movie wouldn't exist after all, he's kind of the main character).

Hopefully, this quick review was helpful.

(Note: for me, 7/10 is the average not of an anime which hasn't really hardcore flaws. If everything is decent, the anime will get an 7/10 from me. 8/10 is already way better and 9/10 is nearing the realm of masterpieces.)

Because Kyoukai no Kanata (TV) was great and the community rating was high (8.34 for the moment), I was kind of expecting an awesome movie as the sequel of this great series... but it wasn't.

I won't spoil anything because it's useless to describe how I felt in front of this film. I rated it 7 out of 10 because the art and sound are really good. But the rest was JUST ok, which is kind of a big insult for a series like Kyoukai no Kanata.

You wanted fancy creatures, a great story, a good scenario, nice characters... you had them in the series. The film ... is kind of just copying the image of the series and put it on the screen. But they forgot to make anything else. No tension, the scenario isn't there. You see characters you want to see. They fight and THAT'S IT!!!!

I'm sorry but this movie was slow, a bit boring, lacking at plot. There was a scenario, but after seeing the movie, I just think that this scenario was just an excuse to make an OVA for the Kyoukai no Kanata series. It takes place one year after the end of the series BUT you don't feel it. You don't feel the characters anymore, you don't feel the tension of the darkness hidden behind a good scenario. This film is a bad sequel because it's TOO NORMAL, it doesn't move at all. There is maybe 30 min of real useful content in this movie.

So my conclusion is, this sequel is beautiful, but it's nothing MORE, it's normal, it's boring, it's slow. 普通, totally normal so it wasn't interesting at all. Watching the series again is probably more enjoyable than watching this movie for the first time.

7/10 is really just because the esthetics were great and it was a bit entertaining. But don't watch this movie if you want a sequel to Kyoukai no Kanata, it's NOT A SEQUEL, there is just a LITTLE content in it. You have more content and plot in ONE or TWO episodes of the series than in 1h30 of the movie.

First of all, I didn't saw the entire anime, but only the first eleven episodes. I stopped right at the end because this anime was still so damn SLOW. But let's speak about the different aspects of the animation serie.

Story 7/10

Why 7? Because the concept was kind of creative. This kind of killing mission where only people who just died are used to kill aliens is not so bad. But the problem is not here.

Art 4/10

This anime is quite old allready. 2004, so the artstyle became old. The details are not really present and the colors are kind of poor. The characters are not really ... beautiful to look at, but I would say that this aspect goes well with the plot, which has to be a bit psychological and/or stressed. Having bad looking people make the anime less "ideal" and give a bit more of realism.

Sound 5/10

I saw this series in streaming, so on an extremely legal way. The sound was there... but I didn't noticed a special theme that was putting emphasis on the situation or the atmosphere. The sound was there... it wasn't perfect, but not awful either.

Character 6/10

The characters are HUMANS and we can FEEL it when we see the serie BUT the way they interact with each other is REALLY BAD. I think the show wanted to create a "bad society atmosphere". But this anime puts it a bit TOO FAR. People are not so DUMP and BAD. Our society is not nice, but the people, ALL the people would lend a hand if the danger was not going right towards them.
[SPOILER]
For example at the beginning, the two main characters are killed by a FU**ING TRAIN. HOW COULD THEY POSSIBLY ACCEPT THAT!!!!! This is a REALLLLLLLYYYYY BAD choice of the autor. Why? Because they tryed to get away from the rails by running down the station. And NOBODY COULD HELP THEM GETTING BACK ON THE SIDE? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!!
[SPOILER]

The whole problem in this anime is the way the people interact with each other and the way it is shown. Everyone become USELESS in this anime. Everyone stay where he stands and wait for the others to DIE. I thought this was a good choice at the beginning to show how the anime works and than get rid of this way of doing and get a bit of dynamic in the action scenes. BUT NO. From the beginning to the end EVERYONE has a gun and 80% of the people get killed because the others are watching them die, without trying to help. They only shoot when 60% of the group is dead.
Normally, when ONE human is killed. The person/entity who did it is maybe the target of the group, when EVERYONE HAS A GUN. But no, 70% has to die in a REALLY dump way to understand that THIS IS A THREAT which CAN KILL EVERYONE.

If this show wasn't so dump, I would maybe have enjoyed it.

So,
Enjoyment 3/10

No I didn't enjoy this.........

Overall 5/10

To end this review, I would say that you CAN'T LIKE THIS only because of the way the anime was realised. The way the action is less then slow and all the characters are perverted humans with snails in the head instead of a brain. The main concept was interresting.... but it was a bad way to show it, to use it. Every single thing could have been better.

But the show is old. So some of this mistakes are due to a lack of technology and experience.