Saga of Tanya the Evil - the Movie -Plot: Solid, good at showing battle*(7.3/10)*
Characters: Same as the show, with a new basic vengeful woman (7.3/10)
Visuals: Great animation on the fight scenes*(8.2/10)*
Audio: Good timing is the only thing it's got going for it (7.2/10)
Enjoyment: Pretty good I guess (8.5/10)
Plot (7.3/10)
It was alright. It wasn’t bad, but there wasn’t anything outstanding about it either. The emotions of the soldiers were mostly brushed over, save but a few instances such as when celebrating victory or a few moments when they’re in the trenches. Battlefields are the natural habitat of a frontline warmonger like Tanya, and I feel like the movie did a great job of portraying the chaos of combat, with bullets whizzing past, shells exploding seemingly at random, brimstone from above, and hellfire from beneath, with war cries and screams. Other than that I honestly can’t praise it or rebuke anything. It did its job, it was entertaining, solidly written, but overall lackluster.
Characters: (7.3/10)
I’m assuming you’ve seen the first season, and therefore are somewhat familiar with most of the characters already. You got: spiteful loli, bubbly underling, plot fodder subordinates, that one guy, and some grumpy old man. The audience is introduced to a new antagonist relatively early on, and she may have been alluded to in the original series but I don’t remember. Anyways, she’s your basic “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." type person who is somehow incompetent but also extremely overpowered through the magic that is vengeful spite and willpower. A few other people are introduced, but she’s the only one consequential enough to mention. Like I said before, well written, definitely not bad, but pretty average compared to most other anime.
Visuals (8.2/10)
Pretty dang good actually. There’s a lot of flying and fight scenes, and they’re all detailed. The camerawork (I don’t know if I should call it camerawork since there’s not technically a camera) is really well done, and does a good job of showcasing the ariel battles. It’s constantly showing different angles and rotating a bit to get a full picture of everything going on, while also not being overly busy. There's one scene near the end when they're flying through a city, and it was, well, good enough for me to mention here. Animation wise, everything’s also pretty solid, especially when fighting, which is like half the movie. The color scheme is well suited to the theme, and backgrounds have a decent amount of effort.
Audio (7.2)
I thought the music did a good job of capturing the emotions of the scenes, which was needed especially since the rest of the focus seemed to be directed elsewhere. The sound effects were also kind of satisfying. Both those things were perfectly used in the right times and places, however, good timing and a few particularly nice effects and pieces is all the movie has going for it in this aspect.
Enjoyment (8.5)
Despite it sounding like I’m just calling this movie average with a few redeemable qualities, I did enjoy it. Was I on the edge of my seat, eyes glued to the screen, anxious to know what happens next? Kinda. I mean, it’s good, at the risk of sounding redundant, not great. It's not something that's going to leave an impact on me where I'll be thinking about it months from now, but at the same time I can't say anything bad about it. Luckily, a movie doesn’t need to check all the boxes of whatever criteria there is to be entertaining and watchable. It was solid the whole way through, and while having some room for improvement, there was even less for critique.
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