Alright before LA starts thrashing this movie, LA might as well get what it did RIGHT before tearing into this one. There will be mild spoilers ahead you have been warned! So this movie has time travelers and psychics involved and what they do with it as iffy of subject it is for time travel to pull off of...LA will be at least a bit lenient and say that Nerawareta Gakuen did...."ok" but even then it has some problems but that a bit later. The voice acting wasn't that bad all thing considering with Kana Hanazawa doing her typical nice girl scthick down to a T to the straight-forward violent tsundere of Mayu Watanabe as Natsuki AAAAAAAND that's it.
Well let's get down to one of the strength's weaknesses LA pointed out, that of time travelers and psychics, well as much as the plot has this for a setting and some of the characters are one and everything, Nerawareta Gakuen focuses more on it's character relationship dilemma's and cellphone banning than time travelers and psychics. Though some might defend the cellphone banning being tied to the psychics BUT that plot point is brought up constantly saying how cellphone is bad for the school and everything however what the problem with this defence is the mere fact that once Kyougoku stops changing people to psychics, the cellphone banning isn't brought up AT ALL, almost like the cellphone banning wasn't going anywhere, thematically or plot-wise. Kyougoku's plan of "saving the world" is also kinda weird as well, like turn people into psychics then bring them over to his timeline and that would work through cellphone banning???..huh?...see how the cellphone banning isn't exactly thematically woven in properly?, well that and what was the point of Kenji, Kahori and Natsuki defending their ground against cellphone banning?...don't bring your cellphone and get turned into a psychic, bring your cellphone and get severely and hilariously put on trial (no seriously this happens). LA DOES get the point of the cellphone banning situation, due to psychics having telepathy thus the need for cellphones are useless but again...it isn't brought up again and that rather kills it's theming of "knowing people's feelings" if it just drops like this for a sorta shaky time traveling sideplot.
So those characters...yeah there ALL bland characters, we got the ditzy bland male protagonist Kenji Seki who has a crush on Kana Hanazawa's character Kahori with her also having a crush on the new mysterious transfer student Kyougoku and finally we have the violent tsundere Natsuki. Kenji and Natsuki defiance against the cellphone banning does tie into their relationship theming of not understanding each other and as blatant as possible of the entire "show your emotions, but if your psychic it's pointless and it's not their true feelings" spiel is executed weirdly considering the situation. The rest of the cast really have no bearing on the plot as the main focus are just on these four. Sure we find revelations about Kenji, Natsuki and Kyougoku but base personality wise all that changes is Kenji turns from ditzy main protagonist to...confident protagonist. KAHORI is the worst of lot as she really doesn't change from ANY of this.
So characters and the plot turned on it's head, how about the animation?..from Sunrise no less?...well the best way LA would say is a combination of "visual overload" and "movement porn", what does LA mean by that?, well visual overload occurs frequently in Nerawareta Gakuen due to excessive use of lens flares ANY chance it gets to characters' movement being rather erratic any chance that gets to, so seeing those two elements think of combining the two with some pretty decent backgrounding only for "things" to distract you with LOTS of movement any chance it gets. LA will be honest but LA was hit with the visual overload in less than 5 minutes of the movie with how it bombarded LA with this much hyperactively bright animation and constant motion. And this leads LA right down to the fundamental problem of Nerawareta Gakuen animation and LA will take an excerpt from the Nostalgia Critic's Smurf's movie review if that isn't a bother to anyone.
"This safe, boring and repetitive movement is the same as looking at a watch waving back and forth. They're both trying to hypnotize and relax you so that you don't think about what you're watching. And that's not what a movie is supposed to do. You're supposed to think about it. You're supposed to be sucked in. But this method is an ingenious way to numb your brains without feeling bored, so you think it must be doing something right, when really, it's just junk food for your mind. And it's all over the movie."
AND that's just how LA felt about this movie's over-excessive use of animation on that front too, just the difference between Nerawareta Gakuen and Smurfs is that the Smurfs were being lazy and placid for the sake of laziness to prove this point, Nerawareta Gakuen does it because of it's over ambitiousness and hyperactive nature to prove the point.
So essentially we have a movie where the more interesting elements of the movie isn't used to it's best potential (or at all) and favours "talking" and typical relationship dilemma's instead, characters are as bland as cardboard and hardly develop, over-excessive animation barring on visual overload and movement porn any chance it gets with some decent voice acting here and there. Is Nerawareta Gakuen like some illegitimate love child of Hand Shakers and Glasslip or what?.
As harsh as LA had been with this movie and yes LA was harsh in some instances, LA DID want to like to this or find some strengths that might redeem itself however too many factors barred LA from enjoying this movie let alone desperately find something to hook LA but how Nerawareta Gakuen was executed especially in it's over-excessive animation and especially the last quarter of rushed plot was the final nail in the coffin for LA from even trying to enjoy it. Nerawareta Gakuen "tries to be interesting on visuals alone" but fails in this regard and LA won't say this is the worst movie LA has seen of all time but uhhh...it's up there, it's up there.
