Hal

Kurumi is a beautiful young woman whose beloved boyfriend, Hal, died in a sudden airplane accident. Left heartbroken and gloomy, she isolates herself in a small house. But this soon comes to change when her grandfather requests the help of a humanoid robot named Q01.

Taking on the appearance of Hal, Q01 is sent to Kurumi's house in order to save her from her state of despair. As Hal returns day after day and increases his efforts, Kurumi, despite her initial reluctance, slowly begins to open up to him and break free from her depression. But there is more to Hal than meets the eye, and these two will soon learn an unexpected truth about this relationship between a human and an android.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hal Main

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Kurumi Main

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Ryuu Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Sadao Supporting

Tsukiko Supporting

Mayama, Ako Japanese

Aranami Supporting

Tsuji, Shinpachi Japanese

Tokio Supporting

Ooki, Tamio Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Wada, Jouji Producer

Nakatake, Tetsuya Producer

Kinoshita, Tetsuya Producer

Reviews

Jun 25, 2021

Justykanna

Recommended

Let's get in a review for an hour long movie!

Story: Hal doesn't take long to get going, as it immediately shows us of a couple, Hal and Kurumi, who are in love. However, one day, a freak airplane accident occurs with Hal on it. As a result, Kurumi goes into a deep isolation and refuses to interact with the world at all. In an attempt to make things right for his granddaughter, Kurumi's father enlists a robot, known as Q01 to be sent to Kurumi's house with the looks and voice of Hal.

In the one hour runtime, the story doesn't let up ... at all, attempting to keep you in the story for the entire time. They throw plot point after plot point at you, one after the other. The beginning to middle of the film were very well told. Some of the points are clearly more significant than others and it feels like they should have been given more screen time to those in under told tales. For example, I feel like they addressed how Hal and Kurumi weren't completely the perfect couple really well, but they could have gone into more detail about Hal's past and background. Some of it is given in pieces from the conversations that characters have with each other, and yes, we get a general sense of Hal's life pre-Kurumi, but it feels like there are so many details given in there that we could have got, and never did.

Unfortunately, I don't feel like parts of the ending were done well. Hal has a history with a character named Ryuu, who we don't sense is the purest of characters, but after the final time we see him and his "friends" on screen, we're left with more questions than answers. It feels like that entire bit is missing. The way they chose to end the film was okay, and there is closure, but the way they got there felt mediocre at best. (6/10)

Characters: With such a short film, there weren't a ton of major characters. Hal's past is a bit of a dark one, which does somewhat affect how we see him act in a bunch of flashbacks. However, you can clearly tell that some of his people skills are rough. He's far from a deep character and, like I alluded to above, I wish they went more in depth on him because there are some strong points there. They didn't make his character out to be "really good" or "really bad", which they should be commended on. I feel like that could have been a trap, waiting to happen, and they avoid it completely. Kurumi, understandably, breaks down after Hal passes away. The few shots we do see of her at the start are effective and we even see bits of guilt when she tries to fix a video camera. After locking herself away, she feels like an empty shell, trying to hold onto what little of Hal she had. I wouldn't say she was either strong, or weak, but kind of predictable. Still, she represents the theme of loss really well.

Aranami seems to be in charge of health care in the area and due to the small town size, he seems to be one of very few people with medical knowledge. His interactions with Hal are a lot of fun and I'm glad they gave him the screen time that they did. He was great. Ryuu grew up with Hal and plays a pretty major role in his past, but I struggle with why he's still important to the story. There was an attempt at telling us, but it feels very inadequate. I really don't get this guy. Generally, the characters in Hal's town know what happened with him and seem very willing to help. The side characters together make nice additions here, even if our main cast had problems. (7/10)

Art: Hal does a good job at showing us what we need and the environments are really well shown. The flashbacks use very effect lighting effects, indicating what they should mean. This is a very well animated movie. (8/10)

Sound: The tunes in the film are fine, but I never found myself being heavily into it. The VOs also do a fine job with Bryn Apprill (Kurumi) and Bill Flynn (Aranami) likely being the best of the bunch. But, I was generally pretty meh on the sound. (7/10)

Overall Enjoyment: Hal does a great job at setting us up for a journey that we want to see, but the one hour runtime does play a factor in some of the details not being where we want them to be. For such a strong start, I really wish they followed it up just as well. There are clear attempts at making the back half powerful - and it will reach some people for sure - but it feels like there are too many gaps in the story to make this an automatic recommendation. Good, yes. Great, likely no. (7/10)

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 11, 2021

UnflavouredSauce

Mixed Feelings

As a cuber, I got triggered because of all of the inaccurate cubing scenes.

If you are a cuber, I recommend you to be prepared for serious trigger warnings.

Like the logic doesnt make sense. How do you 1 side randomly and somehow the pieces fit perfectly (for the wishes). Also its a 5x5 so its worse. and also, for some cubes, they solve the 5x5 by doing it 1 side at a time. Like bruh, thats not how it works.

Other than that, the story's decent, not too special. I just watched it cuz I wanted to see the cubing logic.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 5, 2023

tsujiri

Not Recommended

TLDR version: This film was less 'love story in Kyoto' and more 'mediocre sci-fi fanfic'. Everything is half-hearted in this show.

Long version:
I was so excited going into this film. Seeing the Kibuneguchi (貴船口駅) sign set me off, and I knew it had the makings of a beautiful, heartfelt anime... good looking characters, a colorful craft / souvenier shop set in the heart of Gion... what's not to like? It's got the recipe for the perfect love story in Kyoto, and (almost) everybody loves Kyoto. Except that this film wasn't so much about 'love story in Kyoto/Japan' as it was 'mediocre sci-fi fanfic.'

Things they should've improved ... on to make it a 10/10 in my completely biased and uneducated opinion:
- Storytelling
Ohmygod. This movie could have been almost completely salvaged if it wasn't for the poor storytelling. There is very little information given throughout the movie, so it's hard to follow the story. You're forced to piece together what is even GOING ON with the few scraps of plot 'hints' that you get when the characters fight, make up, whatever.
- World-building
Because of the focus on Kyoto and surrounding areas, it's easy to believe that this is a movie with a realistic / current day era. There's almost no mention of robots or how advanced AIs came to be and what their purpose is in this movie ... even though the entire movie plot is ABOUT ROBOTS. The main characters discuss it for like two sentences ... and that's it. It left me as the viewer feeling very lost, and I wasn't sure if this was supposed to be a sci-fi or romance movie. It didn't really feel like either, it just felt very contradictory and half-hearted. ... like the button.... yeah, pun intended.
- Characters
It was hard to care about any of them, because we don't learn much about each of them beyond the flashbacks that happen. The dynamic that this couple has is a 'well that's nice' but not really inspiring or even ... fun, because it's so predictable. I was actually really disappointed by this part, because I was looking forward to learning more about Kurumi. Someone who sews buttons, dolls, clothes, has entire walls of craft supplies is definitely a soul sister to an artist like myself... but we don't learn anything about why or how she even started sewing. Does she have any other hobbies? Any friends? She must have inherited the home or shop from somebody... but who? I was expecting this movie to have a character I could relate to and support, a new favourite, and Kurumi fell short. I don't think the writers ever gave her or Hal the opportunity to build any depth.

Half hearted effort also gets half hearted score from me, so a 5 seems fair. Honestly, if it wasn't for the stunning art and scenes of Kyoto - which was probably prioritized way too much, so that you would forget the lack of poorly-told story... I would even give it a 3. Had so much potential but otherwise fell short!

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Aug 1, 2016 9:00 AM by Sakana-san | Discuss (14 comments)

	Poll: Hal Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Stark700 - Dec 21, 2013	205 replies	by waalex11 »» Sep 13, 2023 2:28 PM
	Worth watching? adityasingh2705 - Jul 14, 2021	7 replies	by wiiztec »» Apr 25, 2023 3:52 AM
	Plot twist [Spoler] Allen_014 - Aug 12, 2021	3 replies	by SlammyHammy »» May 19, 2022 9:10 PM
	I think I didn't understand the final, explain me please b1GZZ - Dec 31, 2013	14 replies	by aydentheweeb »» Mar 7, 2021 1:07 PM
	Hal - Subbed or Dubbed? tayssi - Mar 3, 2016	5 replies	by JNSky »» Dec 13, 2018 5:51 AM