For something that was so hyped up by Nasu lovers, I was kind of disappointed, since it felt like this was something written by Nasu in his edgy/chuuni days. I never understood why people want to force symbolism into anime so badly. I don't watch anime to be confused (feel free to call me stupid for it, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that just likes to watch anime casually to enjoy it). I had to read someone else's analysis to even understand what was going on (it talked about things that were never even mentioned in the movie, and I don't think they're things that get explained in the later movies either). The characters were fine until we meet the edgy/tryhard philosophy character that Nasu probably uses to portray his own edgy thought processes on. One thing I REALLY hate about certain anime is when they try to get smart with psychological/philosophy stuff. I try to analyze these thought processes that they try to portray, but really they're so unique/unrelatable that I can think of them as nothing more than pointless/useless "plot" devices. At the same time, some of the symbolism was just some simple/common sense idea that was made complicated and disguised as something profound in a way to make it look edgy/cooler (but symbolism is also what the viewers make of it, so maybe the anime isn't as much as to blame for all the speculated "symbolism"). And the even more annoying part is when people claim that the symbolism and ideas/thought processes in the anime correlates with real life (it doesn't....). An anime so edgy, it makes its viewers edgy. Oh boy.
As for the things I enjoyed: soundtrack and maybe art. UFOtable has never failed me with their soundtracks, but I didn't really like it when they used the volume of the music to build suspense. The sudden jumps in volume scared me, which was a cowardly way of grabbing my attention for something that isn't exactly part of the horror genre. The art isn't something I can really complain about, since it was made in 2007. UFOtable has a habit of putting most of their art efforts into fighting scenes (to, guess what? make the anime even more edgier). But now I'm just being cynical.
I probably would've rated this anime a bit higher, if I didn't have the expectations I did from the praise from all those Nasu lovers. For something that was 50 minutes long, I didn't get any background at all. I know the 6 other movies are in different orders on the timeline that might/might not explain all the questions I have, but I just hate it when an anime makes a confusing first episode/entry as a way of pulling in the viewers from their curiosity. This is mostly just a preference thing. Like they could've at least explained some things, instead of making it vague/edgy. I know I used the word edgy a lot, and a lot of people are going to say something like: "What did you expect from an action/mystery anime?" And you're right, I've seen much worse. But again, this is also because of the expectations I had for it.
