Full Movie Score : 8
Well I am a fair bit late on watching this, but after hearing a ton of good things about it. And wanting to watch the 2015 sequel during this season. It is time to sit down and watch what I guess became a modern Trigger standout series. And after the short 26min runtime, 23ish if you take out the credits. I can fully say that I am very impressed. And I can easily see why this got a sequel movie and a full TV show. Everything about this was a ton of fun, incredibly well animated, and a very good story in the short time they had to present it.
I will also say I'm surprised that this actually does classify as a movie and not an ONA since it did release in a limited theater run in Japan. I can honestly say I'm not sure if I can think of many, if any, other shows or movies that are this short and managed to get released in theaters. Sure it was only 14 theaters, but that exceeded by expectations for such a short film.
Characters right off the bat are just the amazing with a surprising amount of development for the runtime. I really love the overwhelming enthusiasm from Atsuko despite her not being very good at anything, but she has a ton of drive and won’t admit defeat it seems. Sucy and Lotte provided a great contrast to Atusko, both seemingly willing to go along with her hi-jinks but honestly not fully enthusiastic about any of it. And Diana, the obvious honor student who obviously cares far more than her initial appearance. Even Diana's followers manage to get some pretty good background reactions. Honestly I am kinda shocked at how much personality and character they managed to fit into 24min, somehow they did more in that time than most full seasons.
And for sure the animation helped a ton. I really love when animation is playful and a bit loose with what would be normal expectations. Body shapes that are more fluid because it leads to a more enjoyable scene. Or reactions from characters, or the dragon, that don’t really make any sense logically but boost the scene immensely by just being fun to watch. It is stuff I feel like I don’t see a ton of anymore, and I’ll be interested to see if they keep the same fun style into the second movie and the TV show. Is it something that they could only do by being able to dedicate a ton of time and money in a short movie, and they will have to revert to more stiff and less fun animation when they need to do more episodes. But it is Trigger, so will be interesting to see how it goes.
Have to say at the end that this was a very good short movie that far exceeded any of my expectations. And I am far more interested in following it up with the 2015 movie shortly, and that full tv-series in 2 years.
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