I will try to keep myself from writing out every single description because it is worthy of it, I will try and cover the main stuff and not end up making a ridiculously large post.
After watching both seasons of the anime and having a general good impression of it, I did not expect a movie to be made of this caliber. The movie sticks to it's roots (which I enjoy) with no new characters randomly popping up only to meet their obvious demise. It's about 160 min long, and makes for a very interesting plot involving all the main characters, but mainly focused on Kyon's further development. The main thing that I loved about this was how well they portrayed Kyon's emotions; we get a real feel for his character and how he is dealing with the events surrounding him. This move was fantastic, everything was done well and made sense, plus a great tie-in to one of the episodes where they go back in time. The animation was top-notch quality and if you enjoyed watching the anime at any point, or even the characters, then I think you would enjoy this.
We start off with a typical day in Kyon and Haruhi's universe as December rolls in with Christmas nearing. The story takes off from the end of season 2 where the "endless" summer has ended and classes have begun. The group meets up in the club room with Haruhi announcing big plans for a Christmas Party. Shockingly enough, everyone is of course available. The rest of the day unfolds uneventful and we wake up to December 18th, the day everything changes and the story begins.
WARNING! do not read on if you haven't watched the movie!
The day starts off slowly, but sure enough the tension is built after noticing the odd occurrences.
While all these small things built up a few questions for us, the tension hits it's high moment as Asakura returns in an awesome build up of suspenseful music, slow motion camera angles, and of course, Kyon's expressions.
We find the ironic situation we're in as Kyon learns that everything appears as a "normal" day, meaning a world without Haruhi's god like powers. Kyon finds himself alone in the world with the S.O.S Brigade non-existent. We see Kyon in a confused and panic state as he struggles to cope with the current situation, a much more frantic emotion than we have seen during the episodes. It seems we have entered an alternate universe, or world line as described in Steins;Gate, without jelly of course.
As we continue to follow Kyon's emotional roller coaster I couldn't help but laugh at this moment when Kyon asked to see Mikuru's mole on her chest. After realizing everything has changed, Kyon collapses mentally as he doesn't know what to do. Kyon's emotions are quite awesome as we get to see every stage of this shock and realization of his situation.
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| Just as always. |
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| Kyon's usual expression when it comes to Haruhi. Priceless! |
WARNING! do not read on if you haven't watched the movie!
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| Epic Miss! |
While all these small things built up a few questions for us, the tension hits it's high moment as Asakura returns in an awesome build up of suspenseful music, slow motion camera angles, and of course, Kyon's expressions.
We find the ironic situation we're in as Kyon learns that everything appears as a "normal" day, meaning a world without Haruhi's god like powers. Kyon finds himself alone in the world with the S.O.S Brigade non-existent. We see Kyon in a confused and panic state as he struggles to cope with the current situation, a much more frantic emotion than we have seen during the episodes. It seems we have entered an alternate universe, or world line as described in Steins;Gate, without jelly of course.
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| Mikuru Punch! |
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| It was pretty obvious to us |
It was the perfect moment to roll in the clues that would help Kyon fix everything. The computer as well as the note found from the original Nagato telling him to gather the keys and activate the program, which seemed pretty obvious once we found the answer. When we come to meet Haruhi again I never realized how much different she was, she was a totally different person and this was appropriate since she never met Kyon or had the S.O.S Brigade and thus was bored with the world, additionally, the altering of each character was done very well.
Skipping ahead, after Kyon gathers everyone up and executes the program Nagato sent him, Kyon finds himself 3 years in the past when we had helped a younger Haruhi, and talked with future Mikuru. This was tied in very nicely with the actual episode as we find out the purpose was to make sure Kyon first go back in time with Asahina in order for him to currently arrive here once again. Finally we find someone who understands Kyon and remembers the previous time-line, err, in this case future time-line since we are 3 years behind Kyon's time.
The entire time-line is quite something, but it all makes sense in the end and I have left a thorough explanation of it in case you got lost along the way while watching. Kyon and Asahina talk for a bit and it seems she is the only person with knowledge of the original time where Kyon is from. The two meet Nagato at her apartment, right after their past selves arrive to sleep in the next room in frozen time. Another funny moment when Kyon wants to sneak a look at their past selves while Asahina becomes embarrassed at the thought of Kyon watching her sleep. We also learn that Kyon hasn't entered a parallel universe, but that the current time line was altered on December 18th 3 years from now, meaning it can be fixed.
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| This shocked me and made me happy that the movie isn't revolving around Haruhi as all the episodes did |
Now that we have learned the exact time of the alteration, Kyon and Asahina time-travel there, armed and ready to fire, and ultimately fix the time alteration cause by non other than Nagato herself .Once again awesome sound effects, colouring, and camera angles with Kyon's expression really high-light this scene. Originally I thought the culprit would be Mikuru, however learning that it was indeed Nagato, things became a little clearer and I was so happy to see the movie revolve around Kyon and Nagato and not be based upon Haruhi.
We learn the reason behind Nagato's decision to alter the world, a "bug" had developed of unknown origin, but really Nagato was developing emotions and because she has no idea what emotions are, she reacted drastically to it at the point where she wanted to re-create the world. Nagato had wanted Kyon to make the decision. This was an amazing weight on Kyon's shoulder to choose which world he preferred, this scene where he has an internal battle with himself, questioning which world he would choose was awesome, we finally see a Kyon who does something to make a decision rather than the normal Kyon who leaves things to others, the movie really captures Kyons progress to being able to dive in and take charge, being mature and responsible to make a decision like this was what made this movie so great for me.
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| The gun looks so futuristic. |
This is the moment where we are once again shocked and stare in awe at what happens when Asakura comes from nowhere stabbing Kyon. This scene was too epic for words and very well done.
What a shocker, I know this should have been obvious but they intentionally left her out of the picture for the entire movie besides the intro so it would slowly fade from our memory that she was even here to begin with, in case you don't understand how she got here Nagato did just recently change the world and brought her back. If you want to know why she was brought back read the description after the review below.
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| Cute, but deadly. |
This scene was the best moment in the entire movie, mainly due to the sudden change of mood, only installment of violence and blood, and amazing sound and slow motion effects with great shots from the camera angles.
This moment really confused me as to how on earth does it all make sense, but if you read on it actually completely fits in to the entire time travel issues.
Waking up in the hospital was a return to the normal time, with everyone thinking Kyon fell and hit his head, when actually we can assume that Nagato's program changed everyone's memory while keeping the seriousness of Kyon's injury relevant. The end was done pretty well with no holes that I can think of at this point, again read down below for full explanation. I absolutely loved the way Haruhi was sleeping beside him the whole time, showing more subtle glimpses at their relationship and how neither of them wants to admit it as it is pretty obvious they like eachother. The only thing I didn't fully understand was the "phantom girl" who apparently pushed him down the stairs, I suppose that would be a better explanation than just falling down by himself and more believable to the others.
Another great scene with Nagato and Kyon, this time Kyon threatens the intergrated data sentient entity that he will tell Haruhi that he is John Smith if they were to take away Nagato. Which would certainly bring utter chaos to the world, this was quite a nice moment to see that Kyon would look after his friend. Again more mention of Haruhi, why doesn't he ask her out or something? I really wish we got to see them get closer.
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| Kyon-kun! |
I absolutely adore his little sister and how she manages to pull Kyon and Shami off the bed like its nothing.
A great happy ending, Kyon has definitely changed and now enjoys his world with Haruhi and the rest of the Brigade a little more, he ends it with the notion of planning to go back in time to save himself to complete the string of events, but first, he wants to try Haruhi's cooking.
This Movie was awesome, watching it over again for the post really showed how well thought out all the events were which was something I did not expect from this show.
Characters: Kyon and Nagato were awesome, with Koizumi, Haruhi, and Asahina being minor characters this time around was a nice twist. 8/10.
Story: The plot was great, it made sense and tied together with a few episodes nicely. The story was something you wouldn't expect at it's performance in comparison to the show. One of the best movies from a series I have seen. 9/10
Animation: I would have to say great quality, amazing scenes were done with the colour/audio/camera effects to create amazing moments in the movie. 9/10
Personal Satisfaction. Kyon's character progression was what made this movie for me, the great moments and scenes were well done and captured each moment. This was spectacular in comparison to the episodes of the series. 10/10
Overall a 9/10 is a given from me.
Now I have explained the entire sequence of events in relation to time travel and the altered time space and made sense of it for you. It is quite the read and I hope I have explained it clearly for you, let me know if anything doesn't make sense.
Let me break this down,
Nagato used Haruhi's powers to change a period in time and it's events, however the past and future still remain true because Kyon had already chosen his world with Haruhi and thus no change in the past or future can be created. There is no alternate dimension or time-line, just an altered time period with everyone but Kyon's memories being altered.
Now for future Asahina, she is from the future, and so Kyon had already gone through these events, you can call it fate. Since Kyon has already chosen his world with Haruhi, Asahina retains her memories from these times and remembers saving this Kyon when he was stabbed. Asahina cannot however travel directly to the altered time-line without altered time line Kyon, hence the reason for normal Mikuru taking episode Kyon to younger Haruhi's time, enabling a meeting ground between future Asahina and the current Kyon in order to travel to that Kyon's altered time line. I really hope your still with me since this took a bit to wrap my head around.
Carrying on, everyone else's memories were altered, and so Nagato wished to create a different world, giving Kyon the choice between the two, however when she does this she knows she will be changed to this shy and rather cute Nagato, she brings back Asakura to protect her and to seriously injure Kyon. [Ill explain this in a bit but it is super important.] In order for Kyon to choose between each world, Nagato placed the clue in one of the books telling him to gather the keys and input the program, since Nagato has used the computer before to save Kyon, she knew this would need to act as the link between worlds. Once Kyon gathers everyone and inputs the program, he is purposely sent 3 years in the past, also, Nagato's warning about it potentially failing is just to make sure Kyon understands his situation and chooses with his heart.
Kyon is sent to this moment in the past in order to meet up with future Asahina and talk with past Nagato, the original and normal Nagato who will now send them both back to the altered time with the solution to shooting time altered Nagato and return everything back to normal. Also both of them have a protective field to shield them from any possible effects due to the time travel and place in time they were travelling. Notice how this also ties in nicely with the shoes, if you paid attention at Nagato's apartment during the episodes, there was an extra 2 pairs of shoes when Kyon and normal Mikuru awake from their frozen sleep, these are the shoes that current Kyon and Future Asahina leave behind. I am very happy that they payed attention to these small bits of detail. Now you might be wondering why this Nagato simply cannot fix everything here and now, well the Nagato of December 18th erected that barrier so that this past Nagato cannot fix anything but can only help Kyon so that he is able to make the decision himself.
Now we have arrived at the moment where everything gets fixed, Asakura MUST injure Kyon because if Kyon is not injured then there is no reason for "future" Kyon to arrive and save himself, remember how Mikuru was with him? well this is needed in order for future Asahina to have any memory of this event and have the knowledge to meet up with current Kyon and to take him to Nagato's in order to get back together to this particular scene, it also explains why Asahina looks sad while at Nagato's since she knows she must witness Kyon's stabbing. Now it's safe to assume that "future" Kyon shoots Nagato with program gun and all is returned to normal, however in order to explain the apparent fall and hospitalized Kyon, that's pretty easy, Nagato had altered everyone's mind, but still its nice to see the seriousness of the injury was kept, the only thing I don't fully understand is the "phantom girl" who pushed Kyon down the stairs in everyone's mind, but I just assume this was done to add a more serious and mysterious effect to the event, since falling down on his own seems ridiculous, plus Kyon was saying that this seemed consistent.
Wow, reviewing a movie is harder than I anticipated, especially when it carries off a series.
~Djr7
