Aura - Koga Maryuin's Last War
Beyond the Boundary - 2/13
Galilei Donna - 2/11
Ghost in the Shell: Arise - Border:1 Ghost Pain
Gingitsune: Messenger Fox of the Gods - 2/12
Golden Time - 3/24
Hal
Hunter x Hunter (2011) - 100/?
Kill la Kill - 2/24
Little Busters! Refrain - 1/?
Majocco Shimai no Yoyo to Nene
Monogatari Series: Second Season - 13/26
Patema Inverted
Space Brothers - 77/?
Steins;Gate - The Movie
Scotland Loves Anime 2013 was a lot of fun! I watched six films in two days, and here's what I thought of them:
Majocco Shimai no Yoyo to Nene was the mystery screening, so I hadn't read up on anything about it beforehand. It's about some magical "Cursery Sisters", one of whom accidentally slips through dimensions to reach Earth where she tries to stop a particularly potent curse. It was everything you'd want from a children's film - colourful, generally upbeat with lots of character variety. It was a little corny, but it was also a lot of fun. Yoyo was pretty brash, so I expected her to annoy me, but she actually grew on me fairly quickly. Nene was hardly a feature, though, and it would have been nice to see more of a dynamic between the sisters. Fun film, though.
Patema Inverted involved two types of people, for one of which gravity works upside-down. It was a good story, and it was a lot of fun seeing the little mysteries unfold, but some bits I didn't like. The villain was one of those oh-so-diabolical types, and while that was sometimes funny, I don't think he worked for the film. The second half suffered from excruciatingly slow pacing, repetitiveness and a necessity to explain pretty much everything in exhaustive detail, and yet the characters still didn't feel fleshed out enough. I think I would have enjoyed the film more had it been shorter. A lot of people at the screening loved it, though, so don't let me put you off watching it!
Aura - Koga Maryuin's Last War was about a high school boy cajoled into befriending a high school girl who lives out delusions. Sound familiar? The premise is very similar to Chu2Koi, but the story of Aura unfolds very differently. Everything worked really well in this film. The characters were great, it was very funny in places, the drama worked perfectly, and nothing really felt forced. It was fascinating to watch the relationship between the two leads evolve, because it was changing all the time. The drama was great throughout, but it peaked at the end, making for a really emotional conclusion. By far my favourite of the films I saw. I highly recommend this one.
It was wonderful to see the cast of Steins;Gate again, but I felt the story of the film was fairly weak. It was ironic how much the film talked about déjà vu, because it often felt like it was repeating themes or situations from the main series a little too overtly. I mean, it was a good watch, but it didn't bring much new to the table, so I didn't find it that fulfilling.
Despite the subject matter of a robot helping a woman get past the death of her boyfriend by taking on his appearance and personality, Hal was surprisingly easy to watch. Maybe part of that was down to how gorgeous it looked. A good way to spend an hour.
I don't even know how I feel about Ghost in the Shell: Arise. The mystery was good, but I wasn't emotionally connected to anything that happened. But I came away from the film feeling glad that I'd seen it.
