Alright, so I've never really written an anime review before, but this one was so bad I feel like I have to let people know what they're getting into.
The first thing that will catch your eye about this movie is the animation itself, even though it's done by Studio Deen who has fully shown they're capable of quality animation with Fate/Stay Night and their extensive list of helping with animation on other notable anime such as Neon Genisis Evangelion, they decided to use 3D animation. Not only did they use 3D animation with the same quality as if it were done in MMD, but the frame rate is terribly slow. The animation is extremely choppy with the exception of maybe 2 parts, one being where a bee flies into the room. At multiple points in the movie you can see the characters' clothes clipping through other pieces. The reason I'm giving the art a 2 instead of a 1, however, is because even though the animation is garbage, the backgrounds are pretty nice.
After that, the story begins. The movie is only an hour long, but the first 30 minutes felt like an eternity. The pacing is really weird, and while they are expanding on the story they never really expand on the characters. There's only one character, Murakami, which is given some sort of a personality, otherwise the characters are completely bland. Each character is a walking TV trope.
The story itself started out fine and then slowly became a mess. This movie actually is barely based off of the game Ao Oni at all. The only similarities are that there is the Ao Oni itself that behaves the same, and that people are able to turn into Ao Oni, which is unexplained in the game. The movie basically makes up its own backstory for the Ao Oni, which has no relation to the game.
Not only that, but the story they came up with is ridiculous. When they are trapped in the school at some point, they learn that one of the characters had sex with a mysterious flower in the basement, who he claims is a beautiful woman. We are even blessed with a scene where it somewhat shows this. After that we learn that having sex with said flower causes your genitals to rot and fall off, and then they turn into an Ao Oni. I would maybe be able to excuse this plot if it wasn't trying to tie itself in with the video game, but this really does not make any sense. At the end of the movie as well, they try to throw in some kind of "protect the environment" thing.
I did however, give the sound a better rating because it was probably the only good thing this movie had going for it. The voice acting was good, and the music was pretty good too. They also used the classic Ao Oni theme from the game.
Overall, I give this movie a 2 for all the reasons listed above, and because I don't think I'll ever be the same after watching this.
