"Hello World" is a Sci-Fi movie with a core theme exploring how far one is willing to go for the person they love.
The story will appear to be pretty standard, maybe even a little less than that on a surface level in the first half of the film. At this point, it's just the beginnings of a love story for the main characters, Naomi Katagaki and Ruri Ichigyou with the caveat that there's a "guide" for Naomi Katagaki that comes from someone in the form of himself 10 years in the future. In the second half of the film you see a lot more of the Sci-Fi elements come to the forefront of the story. Initially I thought some of the directions the story headed towards would have been to the detriment to the film but by the end I thought everything wrapped up in a satisfying manner and made sense.
I thought that the Art for "Hello World" was great, especially when it came to the background environment but that may have been thanks in part to the film being in 3D/CG. However the 3D then comes to serve as a detriment a little when it came to the Animation as I don't think that aspect of the film was the strongest. In particular, there was scene near the beginning of the film that involved a character's running animation that I thought was horrible. Funnily enough, there's a reason for the 3D/CG that will be made clear as you watch the film where even looking back at that particularly bad running scene I mentioned previously, it made sense and maybe even elevated that scene a little for me.
The OST for "Hello World" was very good. The tracks had more of Romance anime vibe than a Sci-Fi one if I had to make any other comment on it. Also, the few insert songs that the film had were excellent.
The characters may have been the weakest part for the film in my opinion. It's not like they were horrible or anything but I also wasn't able to fully get invested into them. That may be because the movie run time didn't allow for enough exploration of some of the characters that may have been necessary for me to connect with the characters or it just may be the characters weren't super interesting by design in the first place.
In the end I was able to get quite a bit of enjoyment from "Hello World", especially when a came to the "plot twist". By the last third of the film, you would be able to feel that something like that may have been coming, but what happens in the end is all what was needed to elevate the film for me. It was the last piece that was necessary to get the full picture for everything in "Hello World"
If you have an hour and a half to spare, why not give "Hello World" a try?
