I’m an old-hand with Anime films, and so quite used to feeling that some key Japanese cultural reference is sailing totally over my head. However, this film is a whole new level of experience, and opens into a confusing sequence of scenes which are knitted together in seemingly random order, and with only minimal backstory or explanation of what is happening. Sadly, it doesn’t improve as the film progresses either.
The story is also completely two dimensional, and full of gaping holes that make no sense. Whilst at the same time it also desperately tries to come across as deep and meaningful. If it was a person, it would be moody emo kid who communicates only in grunts, but yet has a self-image of being culturally-significant: “you just don’t understand me!”
The result is that I was left feeling that I had watched a cut-scene from an Anime game that had been padded out into a full-length film. One to avoid.