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This movie was, how should I put it? — A bit of a mess. It definitely has an interesting story, but in my opinion, it’s executed very poorly.

Story :- It’s a story about, parallel dimensions. It’s not exactly what is explained in the story, but to get a simple idea, it’s about 2 earths. I actually started watching the anime, expecting a romance slice-of-life with some science fiction mystery sprinkled on top, because, the genre tags are Drama/Romance; I guess that was my bad. I actually did not expect this to be an action packed science fiction adventure with some romance sprinkled on top instead. ... But either way, the pacing of the story is a bit off. The scenes felt odd, everything was happening really fast. At times, the plot was moving very fast, and the relaxing slice-of-life type scenes were oddly placed at the middle. The story was not that good.

Characters :- Characters have their own goals and motivations, which I appreciate. The characters who don’t at the beginning, will understand their goals later. So it made sense about what and why they were taking the actions they took. I always like when writers include character development into the story, I’m more of a character focused story fan personally. There was character development. But that character development, did not feel satisfying or logical. The emotions and motivations of the characters (most of them) just changed with mere words by another character. It just felt so unnatural and unsatisfying.

Animations :- I personally am not a huge fan of 3D animes. But I’ll look at this anime with a non-biased mind. And I think the animations are quite decent. The animations looked a little bit unnatural to be completely honest. They were not bad by any means, the movements of the characters were robotic. I always thought that since these animes are 2D, the animators might not be experienced in 3D animation, and that’s why the animations are bad. But it was until I saw a specific episode of Osomatsu-san, where Jyushimatsu was animated in 3D—which was amazingly well done. I wish more animation studios implicated those methods. In my opinion and personal taste, the animations don’t need to be realistic all the time; they just need to be pleasing to watch.

At the end, I did enjoy the anime quite a bit. The story idea was interesting and it isn’t so bad that I absolutely hated the anime or anything. I think it had a lot more potential to do something much better.

Redline a visual spectacle of a movie, which I believe every anime and non-anime fan should definitely check out. I started watching the movie expecting so much from a racing themed anime, but was blown out by how much it offered. Throughout the whole movie, I was eagerly waiting to see what happens next, not because I was invested in the story or anything, the whole movie itself is a one big adrenaline rush.

Story:- The story is basically about racing in other planets, in the future, on Hovercars (except for our main character, who uses wheeled cars for a reason i didn't quite understand). ... If you are going to watch the movie, expecting a grand story, then don’t. There is a story indeed, but it’s not even worth mentioning. The story is there to merely set the setting so the action could take place. After all, this is a racing themed anime, putting a story in there, isn’t that easy. There’s some romance sprinkled on top, which I’m always a big fan of, and other than that, I honestly did not pay attention to the story much, and it did not make any sense either. Sometimes the story was hilariously ridiculous, which I think is purely intentional.

Characters :- Main characters have their character goals, winning the Redline—as expected. And other minor characters have their own goals as well. There is not much character development here, other than a minor romance arc. But then again—that is not the point.
I should give a lot of praise to the character designers though. They’ve done an outstanding job of creating entirely unique characters. All the characters have their own unique characteristics, everyone is unique. Even the characters that appear just for 5 seconds. I can see how much of an effort has gone to designing these character designs. I enjoyed them to the fullest.

Animation :- I believe this is where this anime should get the most praise. The art style is astounding, sound design is absolutely amazing and the animations are breathtakingly beautiful and action packed. Every second, there’s something happening. And as I said before, it’s an adrenaline rush the whole way through. The action packed races, are absolutely amazing. Just the mere feeling of speed and momentum was extremely satisfying. The over exaggerated movements and emotions of the characters, were hilarious and extremely well done. This is one of the best animations I’ve ever seen. It’s absolutely amazing.

To finish off, you might have guessed by now, I enjoyed every second of the movie. I wish there was a bit better story, but I honestly don’t mind it that much. And I would recommend this movie to anyone who is interested, and if you are, then definitely check the anime out, you will not be disappointed for sure.

This is my first time writing a review, so i apologize if there are any faults in my way of viewing this anime.

Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a very good, well-paced slice of life anime with elements of science fiction and fantasy sprinkled on top. I definitely would recommend this anime to anyone searching for a slice-of-life science fiction/fantasy anime without an overly serious story or action sequences. But it’s not without its faults.
I give this anime a 7/10 rating. I’ll try to make the review as spoiler free as possible, and I will include a warning if there’s a spoiler ahead.

Compliments
- Plot: - ... The anime is mainly slice-of-life, with elements of Sci-fi and Fantasy added to it. I enjoyed the story quite a bit.

- Characters: - The relatively small cast of characters were well established with defining character traits; I enjoyed how all the characters interacted with each other, for the most part at least. The playful and arrogant nature of Haruhi was enjoyable but it did get annoying at times. The only character who wasn’t developed very well was Koizumi, in my opinion; he didn’t have so much of screen time or significant plot relevance, relative to other characters.

- Animations: - Character designs and animations are pretty low quality from today’s standards indeed, but personally I enjoyed the animations since they were quite pleasant and the animations aren’t as bad as I thought they were going to be, after all, this is made by Kyoto Animations.

Criticisms
- You might be thinking, why I didn’t give this anime an 8 or 9 out of 10, or even a 10/10 even when I complimented pretty much the entire anime as a whole. Well, the reason for that is, for the most part, personal interest, so if this factors does not bother you, then definitely you should give this anime a try, you will surely enjoy it.

*MINOR SPOILERS ABOUT CHARACTERS AND PLOT POINT ARE AHEAD*

- I personally am a story writer as well, and I’m the kind of a person who looks for the logic and reasoning of everything. It’s just my personality. Fantasy animes and Supernatural animes lack logic for the most part, and sometimes, even under the rules of its fictional world.

What annoyed me the most about this anime is how Kyon reacted to Haruhi. He was clearly annoyed by Haruhi’s arrogant nature, but he sticks around her and the SOS Brigade. We aren’t given a clear reason to why he stayed in the club, until the movie at least. He has every opportunity and right to leave the club. I know that this will ruin the plot, since it revolves around Haruhi. But there are ways to deal with these kinds of situations.

Take Kazuma and the gang from KonoSuba. Aqua, Megumin and Darkness are clearly useless and an annoyance to Kazuma. I was annoyed with KonoSuba regarding the same reason, at the beginning. Why doesn’t Kazuma just leave Aqua. But soon, I started to enjoy how they reacted with each other a lot and wanted more moments where Aqua annoys Kazuma. The reason is, the way Kazuma reacts to them. He is clearly annoyed, so he acts that way, argue with them, scold them and sometimes even acts selfish towards them. Because of these facts, the annoying nature of Aqua balances out with Kazuma and makes it enjoyable.

But in Kyon’s case, he just puts up with everything Haruhi says, which annoyed me a lot. The only moment I felt satisfied about the way Kyon acted was around the episode 23 or 24, where he almost hits Haruhi because she uses Mikuru like a toy. This reaction was completely logical since Haruhi was clearly stepping over the line.

I don’t mind the way the guy reacts towards the girl/any other character, as long as they give a reason. Kyon acts kindly towards Mikuru-chan because he thinks she’s cute. The writer could have given a reason like that for the behaviour of Kyon.

Mikuru-chan’s “classified information” excuse is also another point. This is another excuse the writer uses to not explain the reasoning, but I don’t mind it. It is quite funny, and again, there is a reason. Even though it is pretty pathetic.
So yeah, this criticism is entirely personal taste, so if those factors doesn’t bother you, then definitely go check out Meloncholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

*SPOILERS FOR THE PLOT ARE AHEAD*

- The only other criticism I have about the anime are about the episodes of the time loop arc. The plot is good, I always enjoy time travel stories, and time loop stories even more. So at first, I was clearly interested, but after about 2 or 3 episodes, it became extremely repetitive. In most other animes, the time loop arc would end in about 4 or 5 episodes. And if it didn’t, then each, or most, time loops will have a significant impact on the story and the plot. But in this case, there wasn’t any, variants of the same loop occurred for a about 10 episodes, which became quite repetitive.
Those are the only criticisms I have about the series, and other than that I enjoyed the story and the anime, a lot, and would recommend it to anyone.