Seishun Buta Yarou wa Randoseru Girl no Yume wo Minai

Great and emotional story as always, it's almost hard to rate/talk about any addition to this series objectively because it starts to feel neutral that it keeps delivering with high expectations. It's a shame that the release of this movie was whack, english sub came late so the movie is not popular as it deserves to be.

There isn't much to review to be honest, all the qualities remain the same compared to previous releases, but if one thing stands out it's the seamless pacing. The timeframe was perfect for the movie, it didn't feel like it should've been longer or shorter, it didn't feel rushed ... or too slow.

The story touches on Azusagawa's problems and we also get to see him bond with Mai even more, these are 2 things people wanted to see and this movie delivers just that.

There's not much to add, you can expect the same quality as before, great watch.

It's been a while since I watched the Bunny Girl Sempai movies prior to this, and I must say it's just an okay watch.


§ Overview

Whilst waiting at the beach for Mai, Sakuta finds a younger version of Mai, a kid with a knapsack, hence the title. After some time, she disappears and the real Mai appears and is ready for her high school graduation. Later on, Sakuta has to deal with his mom.


§ Remarks

This younger version of Mai holds the key to dealing with Sakuta's experience of adolescence syndrome, which manifests similarly to Mai's experience in season 1. This movie, for the most part, is ... boring. It doesn't engage you as much as the earlier movies.

The earlier scenes were mostly for build-up. Once you reach the climax, it's a bit emotional and makes you give this somehow a pass, but the damage of the boredom has been done.

The animation and visuals, for the most part, are just serviceable. There's nothing in it worth mentioning.


§ Conclusion

I have mixed reactions to this. If this were a self-contained story, I would not recommend this or I would recommend this to wile away the time. But since this is connected to the Bunny Girl series, it is a necessary watch, especially if you will watch the upcoming university arc. I can't guarantee that you will enjoy it though. Your mileage may vary.

The previous two movies on this series were great however this one just falls flat on its face. If you are reading this you are probably already familiar with how this series works, it's a character driven drama, where the climax is very important. So I'll be straight with why this movie is not as good as its preceding two: It's anticlimactic.

First 25 minutes of the movie is just entirely slice of life. Only around the 30th minute we're actually introduced to the main premise of the movie. And what I mean by 'slice of life' is entirely 'slice of life'. During Dreaming Girl, ... the slice of life portion of the movie was filled with build up for the premise of the movie. However, in this one there is barely any build up and we're suddenly hit by the adolescence syndrome out of nowhere, completely unannounced.

In Dreaming girl, we're shown compelling character drama after the very important revelation (that actually had build up). After that, we're shown two clear options: MC dies to save that girl or MC lives and stays with Mai. It puts us, the watcher, at the edge of our seats. However, in Knapsack kid, the MC just runs around talking to people and cries for no fucking reason for like 25% of the movie. No drama, no nothing. Nothing impressionable happened during the runtime of the show. I was like "is it already over?" when it finished.

The entire character arc is also just so shallow that the series would be the same if this movie never existed. This is the first time we're shown his mom and she's the cause for the adolescence syndrome. And the reason for the adolescence syndrome is actually way too unreasonable because the MC's feelings are hard to understand towards his mother. There could've been something else to give his adolescence syndrome some reason.

And the climax man, the MC just says a few lines while crying and then suddenly, the adolescence syndrome is cured and they start hugging while crying. This interaction took around 1 minute and that was the entire climax of the one hour movie.

To conclude, there was no character drama in this movie and you probably won't miss anything from not watching it. Waste of time.