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A movie that will go down in vocaloid history.

As a ProSeka player, it's an excellent movie, and for anyone new, regardless of whether they're a fan of vocaloid or not, it stands up on it's own well enough as an entertaining movie.

To summarize:
Strong points - Animation, Visuals, Editing, Miku, Voice Acting / Vocaloids, Songs
Weak points - Pacing, Side Characters, Script
Neutral - Directing, Plot, Music, Main (ProSeka) Characters

+++ ] Strong Points:
... Miku.
I think this is something that really gets overlooked when looking back at this movie.

For the first time, Miku is the main character of an anime story. And despite thousands of media portrayals, they were able to create a character that is not unnatural or uncanny in anyway shape or form. Unlike Project Sekai stories, movie Miku isn't bound by the quirks of a specific sekai and she is no longer a supporting character but the main character. She's somehow both familiar and new. When something is good, it should be unnoticeable and movie Miku perfectly encapsulates this.

Visuals are excellent. The character designs which I thought looked strange in the PVs actually blend incredibly well with the backgrounds and draw out the charms of each character. Every character has at least 2 or more outfits and it was impressive how intricate some were, especially since all the dance choreography was fully 2D. Animation throughout the movie was good, but not necessarily a sakuga fes or anything.

Environment had a lot of thought given into the atmosphere of each setting & Sekai, (shooting stars in the school sekai, extra angles of WEG, Kanade & Ena's rooms, Tenma siblings house, etc) Seeing different angles of the in-game locations was pretty interesting as a player and they did a very good job bringing life to the story backgrounds.

Voice Acting / Vocaloids are all in all good, especially Miku where her speaking voice doesn't come across as uncanny or too unnatural given how she has the majority of lines. Unfortunately, the script doesn't really provide many opportunities for the voice actors, however, their performances in each song were excellent.

Insert Songs
Songs, all great as expected from an all star lineup of vocaloid producers. Standout songs are Fire Dance where you can feel Giga's influence on the arrangement and is the first insert song to play, instantly setting the tone for the climax, The Light That's There or Soko ni Aru, Hikari is the closest in terms of the movies theme and sets the tone very well, and SToRY where you can most definitely feel and hear kemu's arrangement on DECO*27s melody, making for a very memorable and one of L/Ns best songs.
FUN!! and Smile*Symphony are well suited for MMJ and WxS but don't really stand as they're sandwiched between the other groups and the partially used insert song Kimikoi Quest is honesty a banger.

OP/ED
Hajimari no Mirai is a great opening and very much a 40mP and sasakure song. Worlders is good and very loaded with every character singing a part. It's also quite different from what you'd normally expect from JIN or teddyloid, intentoionally made to be an upbeat, group oriented, sing-a-long song as per JIN's comments.

Climax Insert Song
Hello, SEKAI is the perfect "climax" song. It's a blend of modern and older deco*27, similar to classics like Ai no Kotoba with the upbeatness found in deco's current works. It's also remiscient of livetune, who's music supposedly inspired deco*27 to start creating vocaloid songs and resembles many of the magical mirai theme's. However, regardless of whether these similarities are intentional or not, it does use leitmotifs for both SEKAI (ProSeka Theme Song, deco*27 x kemu) and Journey (ProSeka 2nd Anni Song, deco*27) doubling down on it's ProSeka routes while appealing to a broader vocaloid audience.
All in all, it's a song that encapsulates Miku, Project Sekai, Deco*27, and the themes of this movie.

--- ] Weak Points:
Pacing was pretty poor with the movie trying to balance introducing a new concept, the plot, and 30+ ProSeka characters including the Sekai vocaloids. It's not particularly a problem, but it is undeniably noticeable at certain points, specifically the setup to the first "twist/conflict" and the setup to the climax, where the shift and stakes instantly shoot up without any transistion whatsoever. An extra 5-10 minutes at each point would have dramatically improved the overall pace of the movie.

Side characters are possibly the worst aspect of the movie and are little more than plot devices. Despite being the core target of Miku's conflict, none are given more than a minute of screentime throughout the entirety of the film and have no more than a couple of lines each. Their short appearances, pretty much cameos, are sandwiched between the main units, so their actions and motivations feel jarring. Going from a short "introduction" showcasing a random collection of somewhat sad/depressed/disheartened characters giving up, to hysteria and anger by their next apperance for the sake of the plot. A lot of the shouting, screaming, and hysterics were a bit over the top and is followed by monologue explaining to the audience why this character suddenly exploded.

Script also suffered in several places. The most notable being "Kito todoku hazu" the first line(s) of Hello, SEKAI, which is "sung" in a capella repeatedly and crosses over to annoying and/or immersion breaking. Unfortunately, the song Hello, SEKAI is started around 7+ times throughout the movie, depsite only playing in full once. Miku will sing "Kito todoku hazu" every several minutes and at it's peak it is played consecutively 3 times back to back by different characters. The line's prescence works against itself, as it's too memorable to be played so frequently. Unlike a catchphrase or saying, it's an a capella song being started and stopped repeatedly during the same story beats, and with Miku's vocals and the limited runtime of the movie, it quickly becomes repetitive and dull, a "We get the point" moment if you will.

There's also a noticeable divide in lines relevant to the plot and lines relevant to "building character", where a character will talk to themselves or out loud, for a "I am this type of character, this is my character trait" line. Basically, a quickstart character trait guide for the audience that has not experienced ProSeka before. Unfortunately, this does not help a new audience warm up to the 30 or so characters on screen, but rather just paints them as a 1 trait cookie cutter character, especially for chars with fewer scenes. Ultimately, the script really struggles at certain points with it's core audience and ends up flip flopping between new viewers and existing players, rather than striking a good balance.

=== ] Neutral Points:
Directing was fine, for an anime movie, I really wish there was a more creative or dynamic "camera" but it does it's job. Notably sticks to very close shots and character + environment shots. Good posing, captures characters well and N25 vocaloids coolness left an impression, but pretty basic other than that.

Plot was interesting, but is really held back by the movies weak points and lacks a clear and strong resolution. "Focuses" / Revolves around near-non-existent side-character plot-devices and doesn't have enough screentime to really build up. Also uses some strange and one-time "mechanics" to build conflict and tension that are never explained and even new to ProSeka players, before wiping the slate clean with a reset.

Music* (OSTs) were good with a caveat. All the OSTs in the movie were original to the movie afaik and did an fine job at adding to the scene, one or two even stand out. Unfortunately, the only ProSeka in-game OST that plays is the weekend garage bgm. NONE of the incredible story osts made it into the movie which could have gone a long way in setting the emotional atmospheres for certain scenes. The runtime also isn't long enough for any of the movies OSTs to be played enough to leave a lasting impression and the insert songs cannibalize into the OSTs as the entirety of the climax revolves around them.

ProSeka Main Characters
All the main characters (ProSeka Characters) are fine, but really lack any real focus or development. Without prior knowledge, it's hard to associate anything more than a trait to each one, and not all characters get an equal amount of focus. Nene, Mizuki, Shiho, Honami, Toya, Shizuku, Akito, and Airi in particular probably having the least amount of screentime and the rest getting most of their screentime from group settings, minus Ichika. None of each groups goals are touched upon in the movie, but can more or less be surmised from the conversations, however, WxS suffers due to their eccentric natures and their focus on shows, despite the lackof in the movie. Emu & Rui in particular, since their characters are especially quirky and they lack individual screentime to elaborate much more than that.

It's also hard to tell the relevance or importance of the units as their history/prestige/accomplishments are never touched upon and none actually perform until the climax. Another point where the movie struggles between existing players and a new audience, where a short performance by each unit at the start of the movie would have gone a long way.

Surprisingly, aside from Miku, the character with the most development is Wonderlands Showtime Kaito with his own short conflict and resolution, fleshing out his character more than my impressions from the in-game stories.


=== ]

Good: Animation 8.5/10, Char Designs 9/10, Environment 9/10, Editing 8/10, Voice Acting / Vocaloid 8.5/10, Songs 9/10
Bad: Pacing: 6/10, Side Characters: 4/10, Script 5/10
Neutral: Directing 6.5/10, Plot 7/10, Music (OSTs) 7.5/10, Main Characters 7.5/10

The ProSeka movie is entertaining. Although it could have been better, it also could have been a lot worse. There are some great highlights and some parts that hold it back. An extra 10-20 minutes could have gone a long way and it's definitely not "see it 4, 6, or 26 times (lol) good" but,
I believe it's worthwhile to watch in theaters on the big screen at least once regardless if you've played ProSeka.

Genuinely underrated.

Fluid, 2D, dance/idol scenes, TWO D . 5 ending songs, FIVE. An interesting cast and universe, that doesn't rely on ridiculous quirks or tropes.


Overall: 8/10
Heroine Tarumono is a fun SOL anime with some drama sprinkled in between. There isn't an extremely serious story. The drama isn't deep, in fact it's fairly cheap.

What works are the characters and the universe. All the chars feel genuine and have great chemistry! And most have their own story and lore as they've acted as main chars of their own anime or honeyworks MV's. It's almost like a giant collab work or a bunch of cameo's, which is ... what makes this anime as enjoyable as it is!

----

Art/Animation: 6-8/10
The quality has it's ups and downs and there are scenes that are noticeable worse than others. The backgrounds are fairly average, but the style, colors, and char designs fit well. Most importantly, the idol live scenes are fully 2d and surprisingly really fluid and have varying angles, rather than a still front facing shot!

Sound: 9/10
Honeyworks make great music. Five endings. Multiple insert songs. All of which are fairly popular songs.
The voice acting is great, as expected of the cast. But the ost's on the otherhand are lackluster, or completely forgettable tbh. That being said, they do their jobs of setting the scene, and the honeyworks songs usually follow right after, which more than makes up for it.

Characters: 8/10
Interesting enough to browse their wiki pages. They all have great chemistry, interesting backstories, and don't rely on tropes or gimmicks to work.

Story: 7/10
The biggest issue with this anime is the pacing. There's barely enough foreshadowing for any of the drama that happens and the resolution to these events are short and lack any genuine consequences. Although the mc is Hiyori, the focus shifts to the idol duo often, which adds to their idol-manager relationship, which is a large part of why this anime works. Except, Hiyori and lipxlip act separately for the most part. All the drama focuses around Hiyori, while lipxlip usually has a straightforward practice/idol routine before appearing for a resolution and "climax" live.

---

Final Thoughts:
Ultimately, the first episode feels unnecessarily long for an introduction and I only truly began enjoying the series through the second episode. Conversely, the final "arc" or event feels a bit rushed despite being the most important event of the series.

The anime definitely would have benefitted from skipping a few ops (despite being a honeyworks anime) and having another ep to make it a 13 ep cour. That being said, the series was a fun watch and I'd definitely want to see an anime of some of the other characters, especially Sena and Mona!

Actually great. Given how Asuna's character and the entire franchise was practically butchered in Alicization, I pretty much dreaded the idea of a Progressive movie with Asuna as mc and a bunch of anime original content. I had serious doubts about this movie and high expectations and I have to say, A1 did a pretty good job.

Story: 8.5/10
Out of all SAO anime media, I think Aria the Starless Night may have the best story. Unlike the TV anime or Ordinal Scale, the cast of this movie boils down to 3 people, 2 for the most part. Rather than a large messy, basically God+Harem ... cast, the characters in this movie are Asuna, Mito, and Kirito. For once, SAO is able to properly flesh out genuine and relateable characters. The world building is done right and the scenes do a great job adding real weight to the conflict and plot.

Art: 10/10
This was probably where most of my doubts were coming in. Ali's sakuga was beyond awful for most of it's runtime and Shingo Adachi, animation director for SAO 1-Ordinal Scale, was nowhere to be found in this movie. Which was a disaster for Alicization, wowever, the scenes were consistent and the sakuga was definitely beyond what anything A1 could have done with a TV anime. While there were some noticeably dopey looking faces here and there, the action was solid and the visuals were cinema worthy.

Sound: 9/10
Sound effects don't break the immersion anymore. Whatever janky surreal attempts at sfx they tried in Ali is no longer there. The themes aren't dialed to quadruple bass remix nightcore edition and Yuki Kajiura made some great tracks?/remixes of Swordland, Luminous Sword, etc, the OG themes. While I personally can't recall any new special theme for this movie except the ED from LiSA, the music and sounds were pleasant, not distracting, and greatly added to the movie.

Character: 8/10
Asuna is the main character of this movie, if you haven't heard yet, and Mito, a new anime original char, plays a supporting role in the story. Contrary to expectations, Mito's portrayal felt so natural, I would even say that Asuna never would have worked as the mc of this movie without her. Kirito, despite having most of the LN development cut, has his character fleshed out subtly. The chemistry between the characters feel significantly more natural to the audience and the comedy was finally able to work thanks to this. Overall, Kirito, Asuna, and Mito were all relatable and realistic characters to them, despite how SAO has portrayed them before.

Overall: 9/10
A very interesting adaptation. A1 did a great job balancing the source material, anime original content, and linking it to the 2012 TV anime. Obviously, there aren't any mind blowing developments in this movie given when it takes place chronologically, but the world building and character development that was sorely missed in the original tv anime are on point for once. The animation and music are definitely a cut above Alicization and the TV anime and Aria of a Starless Night did not disappoint.

Despite having poor seating and the lights being left on for half the movie, I ended up enjoying this movie quite a bit and I'll probably watch it one more time before it's out of theaters.

Unfortunately, A-1 is continues to fail to live up to their Ordinal Scale success with WOU P2. Both the art quality and direction have been dropping since the beginning of Alicization and ironically, the reviews for this anime are equally as bad, with the top review claiming to have seen all 11 episodes before the 4th ep even aired or praising the art/animation as the only thing of merit when it's clear that there's been a significant drop in quality.

Story: 6/10
War of Underworld continues to get butchered by poor decisions leading to the audience lacking a clear understanding as to what's going on. Major issues ... stem from the lack of details in Alicization and WOU P1, however, that isn't to say P2 is without fault. Many deeper elements of the story are skimmed while 'key' points of the story are spoon fed to the audience with monologue. To put into perspective, an iconic scene from the lightnovels, depicting Kirito's trauma's and development as a character has been replaced with an anime-original recap sequence which not only confuses the audience, but also changes the premise of Kirito's character in the anime entirely. Another notable cut is the removal of Kayaba's stating a potential reason for trapping 10,000 players in SAO and the explanation of his character which ties into the core premise of SAO as a franchise.

Art & Animation: 6/10 [+1] (7/10)
The Art and Animation are aspects that are exclusive to an Anime Adaptation of a written work which ultimately play a huge role in determining whether the adaptation has any merits or not. However, the backgrounds were the only thing praiseworthy in this adaptation of Alicization until the 8th episode. If you've been paying attention to the many fights in the adaptation of Alicization, there's a clear trend of battles being prolonged with "sword locks" or two characters having a shoving match with their swords, instead of a real battle taking place (most likely to save time and effort rather than drawing out extended battle scenes). Some scenes look horrendously out of place with characters eyes replaced with literal cartoon dots and curves or just an absurd lack of detail and incorrect proportions. And the severe lack of any form of fight choreography in certain battles ruins the immersion.
[+1]
However, during the 8th Episode, a lot of these issues are redeemed with the climax of the arc taking place. It's not to say the quality of the entire episode is on a different level compared to the rest of the season, but the most important scenes are clearly of a higher quality than anything that took place before, comparable to the visually appealing Ordinal Scale movie.

The biggest fault in the art and animation has to be the inconsistency as the quality of the art bounces between good, decent, and terrible without a clear standard or bottomline, as if every animators works were improperly stitched together, making it difficult for the anime to be engaging or immersive if the quality of animation distracts you.

Sound: 9/10 [-1] (8/10)
The music and sounds in an anime are the 2nd and only other element completely unique in an adapted work and play a large part in engaging the audience and provoking specific emotions. The original soundtracks for SAO by Yuki Kajiura have and always will be incredibly impressive. However, due to poor directing or management, a certain episode starts off blaring with climax music (variation of the iconic Swordland) with no build up, focus, and straight in the middle of a large scale battle and another episode has the climax music inserted way too late with the most intense portion of the song playing when the battle has already concluded. The ost building up the climax elevates Alicization WOU P2 sounds to a 9/10, however, the poor placement of every other ost leads to the [-1].

Characters: 9/10 [-2] (7/10)
The Alicization arc praised to be the best Arc within SAO and undoubtedly the longest within the novels has the most character development as it should. Or at least it should have. While it's undeniable that the characters develop the most during this adaptation, a major issue is, that a lot of the development is cut short or cut entirely compared to the novels. Any side character that was introduced in this adaptation will only have an introduction with absolutely no development and any future appearances severely cut short, and our main heroine Asuna suffers the most with more than half of her battles, thoughts, and emotions cut from the anime. The anime-only reappearance of Eiji and Yuna was poorly executed and leave more questions than answers and the greatest flaw is the incredibly poor decision to add an inappropriate anime-only recap into a crucial portion of a main character Kirito's internal struggles leading to Kirito's portrayal not only feeling lacking compared to the novels, but completely straying away and undeniably more unrelateable.

Enjoyment: 7/10 [+1] (8/10)
While enjoyment of an anime is very subjective, anyone who has followed the anime up until this point won't find this conclusion boring with battle after battle, every single one of which significantly better than what we've seen against the integrity knights in Alicization cour 2. Thanks to an engaging and visually impressive climax battle, it's safe to say a fair amount of viewers won't be left completely disappointed with this final cour.

Conclusions:
Although there's no doubt SAO Alicization War Of Underword Part 2 is not as good as it could have been, it definitely is not a terrible conclusion to the Alicization arc. Due to some unfortunate and poor decisions, the experience an anime-only viewer gets is incomplete and leaves them to come to their own conclusions in more than one points in the story. This final cour to a ridiculously ambitious 4 cour anime project, scheduled only a single year after the release of ordinal scale, was met with not only staff issues, according to rumors, but a global pandemic occurring at the original scheduled release of this season, which can only be summed up as unfortunate circumstances experienced by the viewer.

Retelling 24 episodes in a timeframe shorter than episode 1. If that sounds like an impossible feat, you're absolutely right. There's nothing new, enhanced, or special about this recap and it doesn't substitute for watching this first 2 cours. I can't help but wonder why reviewers are putting up scores of 8, 9, or even 10s on a recap episode.

[5] Story - they cut 2 cours into a 24 minute episode, it's not going to substitute for watching the anime, it's not that entertaining imo as to rewatching the entire first 2 cours, and it doesn't add anything new.

[6] Art - no major improvements here, ... which may be upsetting. I would have liked to see some revisions of blu ray quality or even redrawn scenes for a recap airing on SAO's 10th anniversary year, but alas nothing new.

[9] Sound - Alicization has good ost's. They're not going to make a new soundtrack just for a recap so same as Alicization.

[9] Character - Same old characters, nothing new, just scenes cut into a 24 min recap.

[6] Enjoyment - Not sure what you're expecting from a recap that's shorter than the first episode. You really can't get much excitement out of a recap that doesn't do something incredibly unique or creative.

This recap episode may be for you, if you enjoyed the first 2 cours of Alicization and don't rewatch anime. Perhaps if SAO isn't the only media you consume and you don't memorize the sequence of events and key story elements, this can be helpful in enhancing your War of Underworld Experience. But it is most definitely not a 9 or an 8. Again, this will not substitute for watching the first 2 cours of Alicization.

Artistically speaking, definitely among the top, but the story felt a bit rushed.

Story: 8
Great story but it definitely feels rushed even with 2 hours. Tet recalls the story of 6000 years ago before he becomes the one true god and it pretty much explains who everyone is and the survival of imanity, however, they just go over way too many things and loses the entire "no game no life" part of NGNL. To elaborate, they have to cover the great war, romance between two characters, and focus on several characters in just 2 hours, which isn't enough imo. What really pushed this movie from a ... 7 to an 8 was the fact that it was a recollection done by Tet, who makes an appearance at the beginning and at the very end, which may explain the amount of content covered. Still interesting and very enjoyable though.

Art: 10
To me NGNL will always be way up there in art, the colors and the unique designs and fantasy setting all work together to create a vivid and interesting experience and NGNL Zero does it even better. The setting is much darker than the original, but it was still an incredible experience to see in theaters to say the least.

Sound: 9
Sounds were great and built up was on screen nicely. The ost playing as Tet concludes his recollection really made an impact, however, none of the OST's in the core part of the movie stood out as some of the more iconic themes did in the anime.

Character: 7
This was another problem for me with the anime, as all the characters were great, except Shuvi, which is somewhat of a problem as she's our heroine / Shiro replacement. Her entire premise as an ex-machina, and robot yet human felt out of place and just continues to feel out of place while she develops. As for the others, a majority of the characters resemble the cast of the original NGNL anime (since they're technically their ancestors), and to top it off, the movie has a much nicer looking, less annoying Steph.

Enjoyment 8/10
I point out a lot of the issues I had with the movie and the truth is it was great. I`m probably going to go see it again before I`m out of Japan but it`s something you have to see if you even somewhat enjoyed ngnl.

Btw if you saw it in theaters(Japan) you can buy goods and you even get a free little manga-like mini-pamphlet for free. Pretty nice!