Quick note - I mentioned one spoiler in the pacing section and this is also my first review. So please bare with whatever errors, typos, or problems that you may find in my writing.
So this movie is rated unbelievably high on MAL. A lot of people love it and a good amount of people hate it. I've read the reviews and comments from both sides and I've come to a conclusion as to why this movie is so high on the rankings. That conclusion being, people are either going into this with a lot of bias from the tv series, or they are willingly ignoring
...
the flaws that are present.
Story - 6/10
I thought the premise itself had a lot of potential. The tv series always hinted at the mystery surrounding Shouko Makinohara and hearing this would be the focus intrigued me. Add some time travel stuff in there and there you go. So how was the execution? Terrible. The time travel aspect was completely glanced over and made very little sense. They explained it over a small number of exchanges and it almost feels as though the writers are saying, "blah blah blah. Don't think too hard about it and just trust what we are saying." Well the problem is, this aspect which is actually a major and I mean major plot point isn't explained in a coherent manner nor is it properly developed which is just completely off putting. In the end, my reaction was just ok… nothing special.
Art - 4/10
There is absolutely no change from the tv series to the movie. You're telling me that one of the most trending anime during its airing couldn't improve the art quality even by a little for a movie release. Is that a joke? Like I get that what makes bunny girl senpai so compelling is the story and characters, but at the very least, for a movie, I would expect some improvement. I simply cannot rate this any higher and I can't see why fans themselves would rate it higher than a 5. The art has always been average maybe even less and the movie does nothing to improve on that.
Characters - 7/10
The characters are the same. The one thing worth noting though is Mai and Sakuta's relationship gets focused on/developed so if you wanna see those two interact with each other (which I personally did) then yea the movie might be worth at least trying.
Sound - 5/10
To be honest, the soundtrack wasn't memorable for me. The voice acting was pretty good.
Pacing - 4/10
The pacing is very very weird for the opening scenes. Things kinda seem out of nowhere and I felt lost as to why certain scenes were the way they were. The pacing gets better over time, but throughout my entire experience, it never felt right. Probably because the pacing is jumpy and inconsistent. As an additional note, this movie lacked emotion. Not in the sense that it didn't have emotional scenes, but rather it failed to evoke emotion out of me. For example when certain characters supposedly died, I felt nothing. Like legitimately nothing. My reaction was mainly oh… that happened. I knew they would come back and the movie was simply being dramatic to make the situation more tense than it actually was. Now, being dramatic isn't a bad thing, but the way it was handled alongside the pacing was just bad. If I may compare, thinking back to the Kaede arc in the tv series. That arc was easily my favorite, and the final moments when Kaede "died" and the old Kaede came back made me tear up. From the way Kaede's manner of speaking changed to the slight shift in Sakuta's voice. In that scene, we the viewers knew what had occurred and we also knew how much it hurt Sakuta. But in the movie, as I've already said, it doesn't reach that same effect. In fact, it's nowhere close to it.
Enjoyment - 5/10
If I haven't made this clear already, this movie is meh. The story had potential, but turned out meh. The art is still meh. The sound is meh. The pacing is bleh. The one thing that's good is the characters and that's mainly because I ship Mai and Sakuta.
Final Thoughts - 5/10
I'm a fan of the original series and seeing this movie was a huge disappointment. Apparently the top reviews loved this movie going as far as to rate 9 or 10, which it clearly is not. But maybe you'll like it idk. From my perspective, this movie was bad, but I rated higher because of my bias to the original. Personally, I wouldn't recommend this unless you really love the tv series. And even then, you might not really enjoy it. My suggestion would be to turn your brain off and maybe you won't get annoyed by the terrible pacing and lack of detail. In the end, MAL rating are driven by its users. And those users are fans of this show. Hence, there is bias and a whole lot apparently as I thought the first and last arcs of the tv series were far greater than what the movie offered. Hopefully the rating changes in the future when fans come to their senses.
Jan 6, 2020
Quick note - I mentioned one spoiler in the pacing section and this is also my first review. So please bare with whatever errors, typos, or problems that you may find in my writing.
So this movie is rated unbelievably high on MAL. A lot of people love it and a good amount of people hate it. I've read the reviews and comments from both sides and I've come to a conclusion as to why this movie is so high on the rankings. That conclusion being, people are either going into this with a lot of bias from the tv series, or they are willingly ignoring ... |
