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SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!!

With a movie with a premise that is basically just if Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence was a romance anime, one would think Hal would be a pretty epic film. And it seems like a lot of people thought that it WAS epic and were pretty depressed after watching the ending. But personally, I couldn’t get past its major flaws enough to really feel invested.

The main problem? The characters. Which is pretty fatal considering that this is a movie on characters. It’s so disappointing because I think the film was great in all other departments. The art was excellent both frame-wise and conceptually. I loved ... watching their glimpses of the streets of Japan. And might I just add, the water in the climax was GORGEOUS (we will set what happened in that scene). The plot was also great. I love a good psychological sci-fi (although I, like a few others, wish that they explored this a little more). I thought the plot ended with a pretty interesting conclusion, even if it was a bit of a stretch. The only reason I didn’t get choked up by the ending was because I felt like I didn’t even know the characters, which brings me to my next point…

The audience must feel like they understand the characters in order to connect to them. Even if the character is “mysterious” at least that’s something the viewer can say about that person. But in the case of Hal, it feels less like the writers were being purposely ambiguous about the nature of their characters and more like they just didn’t take the time to characterize them enough. Even when some interesting ideas were brought up about the characters, they were very quickly skimmed over as soon as they were dropped. For example, I wish the writers had added a bit more about Hal’s backstory. The flashback to him and Ryu as kids was actually intriguing and I kept expecting them to connect back to it and they never did. I also wish that they explained the dynamic of Hal and Kurumi’s relationship. There isn’t really much there for us to learn about them and at some point it seemed from a flashback that they might’ve had kids together, but then we never hear anything about the kids again? The pace of their reunion was really wonky too. Where was the build up to that?? At the time, the audience was made to believe that HAL was the robot so wouldn’t make sense to have Kurumi be disturbed that her dead boyfriend is in front of her, but not really?? Of course eventually there would be a point where she would warm up to him, but the writers completely skipped over the “warming up period” which really bothered me. And as a result of all these problems, any moments in the film that were supposed to feel dramatic felt very “meh” to me.

In conclusion, if you like sappy love stories, I recommend this, but it is nothing groundbreaking by any means. I do think that this film took a rather mature look at relationships in contrast with most other romance anime which tend to be a bit more juvenile (not me trashing on romance, just objectively, they tend to target younger audiences). The movie is pleasant enough and doesn’t overstay its welcome.

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Score Breakdown:

~ Story ~
6

~ Art ~
10

~ Sound ~
6 (generic, but it gets the job done)

~ Characters ~
3

~ Enjoyment ~
6

~ Overall ~
6

The description does a terrible job of explaining the synopsis so I'll tell you here. Yuri So has had the ability to talk to ghosts ever since she was a little girl. With the fact that people are constantly begging her to communicate with their dead friends/family combined with a traumatic experience with a ghost when she was young, she has grown to hate ghosts and drifted away from people. She is excited to live in her new house alone but then after she moves, she discovers a ghost named Jun Ko who is around her age living there. At first she tries to ignore ... him because he assumes she can't see him, but that all changes one night after he suddenly kisses her and she falls out of bed, surprised. He is shocked she can see him. The story is about them learning to cooperate and become friends and possibly more than that.

Story (6): The story is this manga's weakness. It starts off good but starts to drag on, and slow down. Near the middle/end I started to get a little bored but my will to find out how it ended is what drove me on.

Art (7): The art was well drawn in each panel. It was not bad and the author did a good job so I don't want to criticize it, but the art was definitely not one of the story's most prominent features. The character designs were simple.

Character (8): The interaction and progression of characters was definitely the most interesting part about this. The author did a very good job making the romance seem unforced. A lot of times, manga authors force characters to fall in love at the drop of a hat, however, love finds it into this story in a slow, natural way which makes what they have with each other special. It is also what makes the ending all the more heart breaking. Another amazing thing about this is the character development of the main character, Yuri So. She matures and learns to face her problems instead of running away like she always did. She becomes a lot more compassionate towards people as well and forms a meaningful relationship, something her life lacked until then. She becomes a lot more assertive and confident in what she believes in.

Overall (8): I am writing this review a couple weeks after I finished reading. I couldn't bring myself to. I won't spoil things but this manga really f**ked me up. It has a really sad ending- the kind that you find yourself thinking about at random times in the day afterwords because it effected you so much. But please, do not let this turn you away. I personally read this on Webtoon (which is a very good platform for reading manga/comics) and it only took me a day to get through this one. I couldn't stop reading. I recommend this manga if you enjoy reading things with meaningful relationships and sad endings

*SKIP TO THE BOTTOM TO READ TO SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE WATCHING*

~ Story (9) ~

Each short, three and a half minute, episode explores a new character in this wonder parody harem. There are episodes about a man who can fly using the rotation powers of his spatulas, invitations to go romantically peeing together, fashionable wearing of sumo wrestler underwear (fundoshi), death by cat cafe and many other ridiculous things. Not much else to say but that each episode will leave you thinking both, "wtf did i just watch" and "i need more".

~ Art (10) ~

To me, aspects of an anime like art, music, ... plot, etc. should be scored based on if they help the anime or not. That doesn't necessarily mean it has to be good quality. That's why, once again, I will say I'm not joking or exaggerating when I give this a 10. The art is what makes the show for me. It's on the level of shitty drawings by a 10 year-old on Deviant Art. I'm no artist but I'm sure I could do better. But that's not what I care about. The art makes me laugh so hard, I cry. Every. Damn. Episode. I will never forget the iconic first forty seconds of the show when the main character walks into the classroom and his teacher turn around with a chin so long, it easily hangs to his nipples. I laughed for a good ten minutes, something anime has never done to me. Sure I've had my fair share of comedy in plenty of anime, but this one really takes the cake.

~ Sound (9) ~

The first time I saw the OP, I thought I was watching something pretty weird but then I saw the ED and the OP seemed pretty tame after that. This category kinda speaks for itself. If you google the ED for this, you'll see what I mean (or you could just watching the show lol). A hilarious ending to a hilarious show. They couldn't have picked a more perfect ED.

~ Character (9) ~

This is where the whole "parody" thing is most prominent, in my opinion. They have the uptight class president, the delinquent and team captain, the childhood friend and the serious guy with a soft spot. A lot of the characters represented tropes you'd see in other shounen ai. It's healthy to watch a good parody once in a while and this one is perfect. I know this fits more into the "art" section, but the character designs were also pretty clever. They chose the most common cliche designs for male characters.

~ Enjoyment (10) ~

This is easily the funniest anime I've ever seen. The enjoyment category is what really matters when you are watching a comedy and I give this one a 10. It keeps you entertained and just when it can't get any weirder, it finds a way in the most hilarious way possible.

~ Overall (9) ~

This anime tried something brave and unique I've never seen in comedy/parody anime. I applaud the creators for that. The three and a half minute episodes were appropriate for a show that would certainly get tired out otherwise. They did not stick with the orthodox way of presenting humor and thought outside of the box. You could tell that they were having a lot of fun with this one and it made it feel more genuine and refreshing.

*IMPORTANT: If you didn't already know or didn't read before, this is a PARODY and is not to be taken SERIOUSLY. It parodies common cliches and tropes found in shounen ai, romance and school anime. If you have not seen enough anime, this might not be as funny to you as it is to others. I'm not saying that if you're new to anime, you're going to hate it but I think it is highly likely you will enjoy less*