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This is absolutely a must watch. You'll probably like it even if you weren't a huge fan of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. It could maybe be seen as a prequel to the show, but it's mostly telling it's own story (and it's first and foremost a showcase of the music anyway). The visual style is seriously impressive, especially for a music video. The story, though obviously simple due to the time constraint, is surprisingly touching and takes a much more serious tone than most of the mainline show. Highly recommend to any fans of the genre or to anyone who simply likes some sweet eye candy.

As others have said, you'll probably like this show if you're a Kamen Rider fan. However, if you're not, I would be hesitant. As someone who had no prior knowledge of Kamen Rider, I was totally in love with the first episode. It was stylish, the characters were intriguing, and things were kept fairly serious. However, the second episode quickly changed things up by adding the Kamen Rider elements of transforming into the hero with different cartridges that gave different powers. While I could see this being fun, this isn't what I was hoping for in this show, and it didn't seem to match with ... the more serious detective stuff. If you do try this show out, know that the first episode is fairly misleading and not very representative of the rest of the show. It's gonna have a lot of silly stuff.

I’ve heard a lot of great things about this movie, but for a few years, I’ve never quite been in the right mood to watch it. I’ve had numerous chances where I could have forced it, but I really wanted to make sure to do the film justice. Finally, I felt ready and put it on. Unfortunately, I was left pretty disappointed.

Story/Characters (MEDIUM SPOILERS)
I liked the story for a while, and I felt like it was growing on me. I had major issues with Haruki due to his character not developing much at all and him generally being really unlikable for me, but I ... was still enjoying it. That is, up until the incident in the bedroom. Here, Sakura totally became manipulative. She seemed a little manipulative before, but this scene was insane. There was no question about it. Haruki also made a pretty bad decision, and it just became a really unfortunate and uncomfortable situation. From then on, it was tough for me to like either character. The story seemed to devolve as well, and I especially hated the twist. There was no reason for it to be there – it didn’t add anything.

These major issues also made me question my feelings for the film from the first half. I don’t think Haruki was a good choice to be the lead male character. He stays too antisocial/disinterested for far too long. I don’t really get how Sakura could stay so cheerful interacting with someone like that. Yes, I get the attachment given that he was the only one to know about her secret, but come on. There’s no way anyone could want to keep talking to a guy like that. But as for Sakura as a whole, I really loved her character for a while. It was an incredible breath of fresh air to see a female character have so much agency and be so bold in a movie like this. I was not expecting that at all, and I really appreciated that. For a while, I was thinking that she may have been one of my favorite characters ever. But then, the bedroom incident happened, and my feelings about her character soured. In the end, I still like her character, and I think she’s well realized, but that one scene is tough. The other character that has to be mentioned is Kyoko, who may be the most insufferable character I’ve ever seen. Ever single scene she was in, she was ridiculously mean, and it was just annoying to sit through.

Art/Sound
Art is great. The studio clearly made great use of the movie budget. And it may have my favorite firework sequence in any anime. Sound is also great, especially the credits song.

Enjoyment/Overall
To avoid spoilers in this section, I’ll abbreviate what I wrote earlier and say that I was really liking this movie up until a certain scene around the midpoint. From there, I was left with a sour taste in my mouth about the characters, and I felt that the story in general was pretty weak after that. I’m not sure how I’ll look back on this movie, as I really liked the first half and honestly really disliked the second half. As a result, I’m not sure that I’ll want to rewatch it again. Would I recommend it? Maybe. If you love tearjerker movies, I’d say give it a shot and hope for the best. Otherwise, I’d say probably pass on this one. There are better movies out there if you’re looking for some good drama and characters.

Contrary to most, I actually really liked S1. I enjoyed the characters and the slice of life moments a lot, but I was hoping for a little bit more once the characters got developed. The last few episodes of that season set up some really interesting ideas, so I was really looking forward to what came next.

S2 was strange for me. It starred the original cast despite already working with a large cast of characters set up in S1. It also seemed to be setting a lot of things into motion. By the time it had finished, it was hard to evaluate it on ... its own. Despite that, I was still eagerly awaiting the finale to see what was in store.

So how did I feel about season 2.5? Pretty disappointed honestly. I strongly believe this show was at its best during the slice of life moments of S1. This season is just trying to do way too much.

Story:
Now I'm not the most attentive of viewers, but I like to think I can pay pretty good attention to things. I could hardly comprehend what was going on in this show, and it's something that I kind of felt about S2 as well. There is so much lore being thrown at you with the backstory of how the entire system was set up, and by the end, I just felt very confused. The final payoff with Iroha's sister was also super underwhelming and was not something that I personally liked.

Character:
The biggest flaw with this season for me. With so many characters and so much plot to get through, there are pretty much zero character moments or developments here which is a shame since I thought S1 did a great job developing characters. The side characters from S1 get no screen time. The OG cast, who were supposedly going to be main characters after getting a whole episode, disappear as well. I'm not sure they even get a single line of dialogue (I certainly can't remember if they did). Kuroe's character in general doesn't make any sense to me. She's a bit character in S1 and then randomly becomes a main character in S2. Then she is just somewhat of a side character here until she gets this whole undercooked backstory and then is just gone from the story in what I found to be an incredibly mishandled scene.

Sound:
Great stuff. Not sure who the composer was since no one is listed under this season (maybe Ozawa Takumi since they're listed under S1?), but they did a great job. Legitimately got chills just due to their soundtrack, so kudos to them.

Art:
Not the best, but generally good. I love the look of Shaft's art for Madoka and Magia Record. However, the animation got super sloppy at times. I know Shaft is kind of infamous for this and for fixing it on their blu rays, but some of it was a little egregious. Still, I would say it was overall a very positive experience.

Enjoyment/Overall:
I really wanted to enjoy this season after really liking S1. And for parts, I actually did enjoy it, as there are some things to like here. I still enjoyed seeing these characters, and the story was intriguing and unique. The problem, however, was that both the story and character developments were vastly undercooked and full of missteps. They weren't BAD, per say, but I was really hoping for a lot more from this show. I genuinely think it could have been great. It's an unfortunate end to the Magia Record story.

Following up the True Route of the Chaos;Child visual novel is certainly no easy feat. Myself and many other readers found that segment to be the absolute best part of the novel and what cemented it as a masterpiece. So where does this novel go? Without giving away too much, it's essentially an extended epilogue to the true route, and it follows some of the characters from their perspective as they deal with the aftermath and moving on with their lives.

Story - 9/10

As stated, readers need to keep in mind that this is an EPILOGUE. Don't come here expecting a sequel, and don't come ... expecting action or more psychological horror. The absence of the psychological horror is likely to turn some readers off, as that is really the bread and butter of the Chaos visual novels, but with that in mind, I think it's about as good of an epilogue as we can get. Most main characters get a whole, lengthy chapter dedicated to them, and we get to see each of them grow and mature well after the events of the original work. That's not to say that it's all sunshine and rainbows though, as there are still some suspenseful and emotionally powerful moments here, just not as frequently as in the visual novel. It's a great mix of both drama and slice of life, which leads to an extremely enjoyable, though fairly episodic story.

Art - N/A

It's a novel!

Character - 10/10

The sticking point of the novel. Each character, save for an obvious one, gets at least one major arc to go through. While not every arc is equally impactful, all are super enjoyable and really add to the characters in ways that the final hours of the visual novel couldn't. With all of the major drama in the past, the characters can now relax a bit more and focus on their futures. There's a lot of soul-searching here, and it's really interesting to see which direction each character chooses to take.

Enjoyment - 10/10

I think it's probably pretty obvious by now that I absolutely loved this novel. It's everything I could've wanted from an epilogue to what is, in my opinion, one of the best stories ever.

Overall - 10/10

I can't recommend this enough to others who loved Chaos;Child. To more casual readers of the Science Adventure Series, or to those who only just kind of liked Chaos;Child, I would say to probably skip out on this one. It was definitely made for the fans.