The Other Side of Animation 290: Sword Art Online Progressive: Scherzo of Deep Night Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keep the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

Well, here we are back again with the Sword Art Online Progressive films. Well, you would hope with sequels that they would improve, build upon, and make up for any faults or flaws that the original had, or find a creative way to continue the story from the original film. That sadly isn’t always the case, as we have found out, with the retreads that don’t do enough to be worthy of following up the first film. A lot of anime franchise films have that issue due to a multitude of reasons, and it’s a shame because some have moments of greatness, but then feel like they were made because the first one made money. Of course, when a film hits it big, studios want to capitalize on it with similar experiences or follow-ups, but when you don’t take the time to take in why the original film was a success, then all you will be doing is hurting the original. Not that the original is going anywhere, but it’s more metaphorically hurting the original. With Sword Art Online, the least you can do is be better than the main original series, and with the Progressive films seeing how successful the Evangelion Rebuild films were, you know that they want to follow in that vein, but appeal to fans of the original series while also catering to new ones. Hopefully, with all that synergy, they will go out and check out the first film or the original show, and buy the blu-rays, games, soundtracks, and what have you. So, where does this new film land after following up the last one? 

Sword Art Online Progressive: Scherzo of Deep Night is directed by Ayako Kono, written by Yukito Kizawa, produced by A-1 Pictures, and distributed by Crunchyroll and Aniplex. We follow our gamer couple Kirito and Asuna as a month has passed since the first film’s story ended. We see them teaming up with another player named Argo, dubbed by Kimberly Ann Campbell. On top of trying to start and build up a thriving community among the players, they get caught up in a conflict caused by two guilds who want to take on the next raid floor to get a special item. With the future of the game’s world and players in the hands of what or who takes down the next boss, it is up to our two leads to stop a war from breaking out and also deal with a handful of players who get their kicks by killing other players. As a reminder, if you die in the game, you die in real life. 

Let’s get this out of the way first, this film does skip over Argo’s real introduction to the story after the last film teased their arrival from the last film. It’s underwhelming that for newcomers, it’s a bit jarring to see them interacting with this new character who has some ties with our male lead, who we haven’t been properly introduced to, and yet the film isn’t really interested in that. This is all about Asuna’s side of the story, but they set the story to a point that’s already set them up as friends with this individual. It’s like I missed an entire film or short that showed our characters meeting this new individual and how she just vanishes right after they beat the main threat of this film’s story, the boss on the 5th level. What’s frustrating is that the film creates some rather fascinating and interesting story beats that include the budding beginning of building a society of peace where all the players help one another and don’t try to kill one another. Obviously there are hiccups, and for some moments, the film does follow through with wanting those beats to be the focus of the story. It also introduces the element of how some MMOs have players who take joy in being player killers, but that doesn’t fully come back until the end as well. It’s pretty much the final conflict in the last 10 minutes of the film, and will be foreshadowing for future events. It’s a very lopsided story that doesn’t feel satisfying to be a part of, and the fact the film repeats not only moments from the original story but also the last film, it makes for a real downer of a journey into this popular franchise’s world. 

Now, they do have some good story beats. It’s not all just squandered and missed opportunities. For once, while still having to pop up as the secondary lead, Kirito is not the focus of the story as it puts Asuna more in the spotlight. Her moments when she reunites with her ex best friend and her bonding time with Argo are the best parts of the movie. It really does show how much better this franchise would have been if she was the lead and not the template for boring male protagonists for franchises to come. Once again, A-1 Pictures put in the budget for the action sequences, and while I was not really on the same level as the story wanted me to be, the action sequences are well executed, thrilling, and show off some fun spectacle. The animation overall is still pretty good in general, even if it just looks like a more polished version of the original show. They do combine the CGI elements well with the 2D assets and they feel cohesive. That is very hard to pull off unless you have a team that knows exactly what they are doing with the compositing, and making the overall visuals look good on the same screen. The voice cast is as good as expected with Bryce Papenbrook and Cherami leigh reprising their roles of the iconic duo from the franchise. We also get Derek Stephen Prince, Patrick Seitz, Arnairis Quinones, Howard Wang, Amanda lee, Bill Butts, AJ Beckles, Xander Mobus, Alejandro Saab, Yong Yea, Griffin Puatu, and as already mentioned Kimberly Ann Campbell. The music is once again great as it brings this fun celtic Dot Hack vibe to the overall world and it’s all thanks to Yuki Kajiura who also composed music for Fena Pirate princess, The Case Study of Vanitas, Erased to name a few shows they worked on. 

With this new sequel repeating similar story beats from the last film, still continuing to readapt certain tiring story beats and aspects from the anime, skipping entire story beats just to get to a certain point, and truly falling flat in terms of overall satisfying storytelling with the obvious catch that there will be a new one coming out soon, Scherzo of Deep Night falls flat as a follow-up. It makes you wonder why they couldn’t have just rebuilt everything from the ground up instead of just retreading tracks, but with a slightly different paint job. It shows the faults of readapting a first season’s storyline that wasn’t all that great or lacks great storytelling when you are willing to skip over more possibly interesting story beats. Like, yeah, fans of this franchise will love this film, but most fans aren’t thinking critically about the shows/films they are partaking in. They just want to see more media from their favorite franchises, and that’s fine, but after a bit it gets tiring to just see something made for a fanbase that isn’t looking for something better. Maybe they are, and maybe they will agree with this review and others calling out this franchise’s faulty storytelling, but at one point, they should be taking this opportunity of being able to retell the storyline that will sooner or later hit some rather problematic points and just give it something new. I mean, the only reason this film series is getting made is because of the popularity and financial success Evangelion had with the Rebuild Films. If you love the franchise and just want to see more of the same, then so be it. Go check this film out if you want to, and I hope you have a good time! Otherwise, hopefully Crunchyroll or GKIDS will bring over that First Slam Dunk or Blue Giant film or some other interesting Japanese-animated fare that we all should be watching. Now then, next time, we will be tackling something. Not entirely sure what will be written first, but we will be talking about animation once more. 

Rating: Lackluster

The Other Side of Animation 259: Bubble Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keep the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

Heads up: I was able to watch this film via a screener sent to me from Netflix. I received no other form of monetization other than the screener. Thank you Netflix for this opportunity.

Studio Wit is a rather fantastic studio full of talented artists that are mostly known for animating the first few seasons of the acclaimed Attack on Titan. It must have been frustrating to be stuck on such a big franchise, because for a while that is all that they helped make. Luckily, they broke free from that franchise’s clutches, because the production committee was being absurdly impossible to deal with. It seemed like after that, they were able to start working on shows and films that they are way more passionate about. This includes Vivy, Ranking of Kings, After the Rain, this spring season’s Onipan!, and are co-producing with CloverWorks the Spy x Family adaptation, to name a few of the projects they have worked on since or alongside Attack on Titan. Now, they have an original film that will be out on Netflix called Bubble that shows that hopefully, Netflix is still going to be committed to original animated ideas and features. 

Bubble is directed by Tesuro Araki and written by Gen Urobuchi. It follows a group of people who live inside a large bubble that has overtaken Tokyo after an environmental disaster where these floating bubbles that defied gravity appeared. The game played within the bubble is essentially a more extreme and dangerous version of parkour as teams fight for resources by traversing floating and sunken buildings, and avoiding undertow-like traps throughout the courses. Hibiki, dubbed by Zach Aguilar is a young male who has had a history of hating sound or being affected by it in severe ways enough to wear headphones at all times, but inside the bubble, is one of the top-tier parkour players of his team.  One night, he decides to venture to the Tokyo Tower where ground zero hit when the bubbles arrived on earth. As he ventures around Tokyo Tower, he encounters a mysterious girl later nicknamed Uta, dubbed by Emi Lo, who is new to this now sunken city and world of parkour. Can Hibiki, Uta, and their friends find a way to solve the mystery of the bubbles? What about Uta? What is her role in this fantastical story? 

So, who said they needed a film that combined anime with The Little Mermaid, and parkour? Because that is what this film is. It’s a modern anime take on The Little Mermaid with the mixture of anime, and, well, you do get a distinct take on the fairytale that makes it stand out from other animated films like Ponyo, Josee, The Tiger, and The Fish, and Lu Over the Wall. There is something fun seeing what studios do with incorporating elements or story beats of fairytale-like experiences and how they unfold within the narrative. However, it’s more like Belle from 2021 in some regards, because it’s not fully a Little Mermaid story, but more of how it implements themes of environmentalism, connection, bonding, and freedom to the Little Mermaid formula, and it works out pretty well. It even has some of those ethereal universal atmospheric moments you would see in Ayumu Watanabe’s adaptation of Children of the Sea. While this film sounds like it goes places and is action-packed, it does tend to have more downtime moments where the characters breathe and the world is expanded upon, which is always a nice thing to see. Still, when the film decides to focus on the action, there is this rush that you get only when you combine some incredible music and gorgeous visuals from Wit Studios. 

With this being a Wit Studios production, the animation is obviously some of the best that the industry can offer. The entire sunken city world inside the bubble looks like it took its multiple coloring and intense amount of detail from Makoto Shinkai. The human movements are fluid and fast-paced with this being partly a fun action-packed parkour showcase, and its mixing of both 2D and CGI elements are seamless in the combination of the two. It’s a visually stunning film, and I know it’s easy to take jabs at it because of how it’s taking a ton of inspiration from Shinkai’s work on a visual level, but when the end result looks this fantastic, well, that’s a good thing. The action itself is so much fun to watch. There are definitely different takes on parkour, and there are some shows that make fun of it, but when you take it into the world of animation, it makes it look thrilling and exciting. This is especially true with how the people competing make harrowing jumps from floating debris and try to avoid getting knocked into the water or these dangerous black hole-like entities that are placed all over the city. The designs by Takeshi Obata are definitely some of his best work and don’t feel like leftovers from his collaborations with Tsugumi Ohba. The music is a real deal hit with the music being composed by Hiroyuki Sawano of 86, Attack on Titan, and Promare fame bringing this majestic, awe-inspiring, and epic score that really elevates the already impressive visuals. Granted, the fact this film opens with an anime-like opening sequence with a song by the famed Eve is jarring due to how this is a movie, but Eve has been making bangers over the past few years, so that’s perfectly okay. The English dub cast is full of well-known names like Zach Aguilar, Keith Silverstein, Emi Lo, Erica Lindbeck, Robbie Daymond, Laura Stahl, Landon McDonald, Jalen K. Cassell, Chris Jai Alex, Kyle McCarley, Christina Vee, Bill Butts, Derek Stephen Prince, Aleks Le, Howard Wang, Kaiji Tang, Brock Powell, and Jeannie Tirado.

Now, as for the criticisms for Bubble, it feels like it was drafted in the first half to be an anime series before getting turned into a film. There is a ton of exposition, and it always isn’t the best paced. The film is full of distinct side characters, but outside of a few who get some subtle or upfront character beats or backstories, most of them are forgettable. They are there to help push the story along and that’s about it. Even the other teams don’t have too much to themselves outside of some visual characteristics. It comes off at points, again, that it was meant to be a TV show. It would have definitely helped give the characters who aren’t Hibiki and Uta more time to be fleshed out. 

While it may be light as a bubble in some areas, Bubble is a fantastic original experience from a talented studio and team that I would definitely be on the lookout for if they team up again to make another animated feature offering. It will be on Netflix April 28th, and if you like action, lush animation, and something a bit different from your animated films, then definitely put this film on your watch list. Now then, since we are talking about distinct animated experiences from Japan, I think it’s time to check out a film that should have been covered on The Other Side of Animation for quite a while. Next time, we will be talking about Tekkonkinkreet. 

Rating: Go see it!

The Other Side of Animation 257: Jujutsu Kaisen 0 The Movie Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keep the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

Heads up: I was able to watch this film via a screener sent to me from Crunchyroll/Funimation. I received no other form of monetization other than the screener. Thank youCrunchyroll/Funimation for this opportunity.

Well, here we are, we are talking about a shonen battle anime franchise film. For those that know this critic’s personal bias towards them, you know that these franchise films aren’t really all that good. Most of the time, these films are shallow non-cannon experiences that introduce elements that could have been useful in the main story and are never brought up again. You wonder why the showrunners never think about adding the film elements and making them canon, but no matter how good they are, they tend to be just shinier versions of the show with exclusive villains and storylines. There is a debate on which type of shonen franchise film is worse, the recap of an arc in film form, or the filler story that may introduce some new characters, villains, and story beats, but will absolutely not matter in the long run. Luckily, we are seeing a new trend where some franchises are adapting certain story beats into films. Like, why not pace out an arc for a film when it might not work in the form of a show? This happened with Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, even if they did then reanimate a chunk of it as a couple of episodes. Luckily, today’s review will not have that issue, since it’s a prequel to the overall anime! This is a review of Jujutsu Kaisen 0. 

The film is directed by Sunghoo Park, the director of the show, The God of Highschool, and Garo: The Vanishing Line. It’s written by Hiroshi Seko, and based on the manga by Gege Akutami. Our story follows Yuta Okkotsu, dubbed by Kayleigh McKee. He’s a high schooler who happens to have something looming over his shoulders in the form of a deadly and immensely powerful cursed spirit named Rika Orimoto, dubbed by Anairis Quinones. This spirit happens to be his childhood friend before she died and was cursed to stick to Yuta. After an incident where Yuta put some classmates into the infirmary ward, he is sought after by our favorite Jujutsu sorcerer/mentor Satoru Gojo, dubbed by Kaiji Tang. He decides to enroll him into the school where individuals who want to become sorcerers can train and save people from these curses. Unfortunately for Yuta and Gojo, the main villain of the series, Suguru Geto, dubbed by Lex Lang, wants to get Rika for his own desires to rule the world and kill anyone who isn’t a Jujutsu sorcerer. Can Yuta get a handle on his grief and save the day? I mean, obviously, something happens since this is a prequel story, but still. 

What’s so fascinating about this film is how it fits into the overall franchise. Unlike most films in battle franchises, this one is actually important to the story. You can literally start the franchise with this film and then watch the show. The film rewards you with watching it first by making a lot of the stuff that happens in the show have more substance to them. However, watching the show and then the film afterwards can also give you some rewards in a different sense by filling in those parts of the story that this film explains. It’s such a smart decision to adapt the prequel story into a movie due to how it really couldn’t work as its own small story arc due to how little substance there was in the original manga. The film itself has a rock-solid story of Yuta getting over the loss of his friend, and him metaphorically and literally holding onto his grief with Rika. There is also a part of the story dealing with the different ideals, and the ravine that separates two of the characters due to their backstory and philosophy. It’s a film with a lot more substance than “the heroes fight a movie-exclusive villain that doesn’t do anything for the main storyline”. 

Animation-wise, it does look fantastic. Despite the fact that MAPPA is overworking their animators like the rest of the anime industry when they shouldn’t, their animation is top-notch. The film might not look any different from the show, but considering how good it looked in the first place, that isn’t the biggest deal. The characters look great, the animation is fluid, and the action beats are incredible. There is a reason why most studios try to book MAPPA for action shows due to their incredible work. I am sure this is what the director is now going to be known for. The English dub cast is fantastic as usual, with a really good set of actors that are obviously in the show as well.  As I previously mentioned, we have Kayleigh McKee, Anairis Quinones, Kaiji Tang, Lex Lang, Allegra Clark, Xander Mobus, Matthew David Rudd, Bill Butts, Ryan Bartley, Sarah Williams, and Laura Post. The music hits all of those fun bombastic and action-packed notes, and they bring back the overall team of the show for the film. I mean, why wouldn’t they? They brought back composers Hiroaki Tsutsumi, Yoshimasa Terui, and Alisa Okehazama. Hiroaki is a well-known composer who also worked on shows like Tokyo Revengers, Dr. Stone, Orange, Children of the Whales, Monster Musume, and the infamously awful Koikimo. 

Now, criticizing this film is a touch complicated. Not that it doesn’t have any flaws, there are a few that could be leveled against this film, but some of those complaints are probably build-up for the second season coming out next year. For example, the side villains? They don’t get to do much. While a few of them have a lot more story importance with the upcoming season, it’s a shame some are simply introduced. Luckily, this show is tremendously popular and will have some story relevance in the future, but for the sake of this film, they aren’t really substantial to the story. There also should have been a lot more time for moments to expand upon the friendship and love between Yuta and Rika. The film does enough to tell you their backstories, but they really are the highlights. They were both kids with illnesses, they loved each other, and then Rika dies and gets cursed by Yuta and turns into this powerful cursed spirit. There isn’t much time for Rika to breathe as a character, and while a majority of this film’s story is about Yuta letting go of loss and the grief of cursing his childhood friend, Rika is used more like a prop rather than having her own actual character. Or at the very least, she isn’t as fleshed out as Yuta is, and that’s a shame. It’s essentially the big problem with shonen battle shows and Jujutsu Kaisen as a whole, where sometimes the story and writing aren’t taking time to give the characters time to breathe. 

Overall though, Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is fantastic, and once again, it’s one of the rare franchise films where you can literally start with the film and then jump into the show, or watch the film after the show, and get rewarded in many different ways. It’s a fascinating film that mostly works as a perfect introduction to a franchise, and it has substance within the franchise. It’s actually mandatory that you watch the film, unlike so many franchise films that you can pretty much skip. The franchise is pretty good, and is a much better battle show than most that get released. Well, next time we will be looking at another Netflix feature from a prominent director. You will just have to wait for the review in the near future. 

Thanks for reading the review! I hope you all enjoyed reading it! If you would like to support my work, make sure to share it out, and if you want to become a Patreon supporter, then you can go to patreon.com/camseyeview. I will see you all next time!

Rating: Go See It!