I watched half of this on Netflix and the rest on Kissanime, but apart from promoting illegal sites this movie was pretty good. It was somewhat of a letdown when I learned it was a prequel and not Season 2, but the movie delivered and ended on a powerful and somewhat promising note. The pacing of it was rather inconsistent, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow, and sometimes "wait--what the ficudkel?" If you were someone who's never watched NGNL the anime, you may have wanted to leave it due to this 'interesting' plot movement.
The characters and the story itself were a big "boom". You feel yourself being attached to both Shuvi and Riku, and the prequel itself delivers as a "prequel" and doesn't screw around with the main story, instead building on it--something some prequels can't say. Better Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, maybe? Is that accurate?
However, I would like to warn that any Jibril-stans are going to go through a rough amount of emotion. No spoilers, but F!@#$%ING JIBRIL !@#$%^ING @#$%^& @#$%^&@#$%^&*@#$%^&*, to sum it up in the least. If you liked Jibril, you're going to question your girl tastes. If you didn't like her, you're going to utterly loathe her. If you hated her, you're going to want to shoot her in the head with a 12-guage shotgun. Nuff said.
