It’s time to check out one of the movies based on a Level 5 title. It’s always fun to see one of their titles get the big screen treatment. Naturally you can’t ever squeeze a whole RPG into a single movie without losing critical details but it’s still fun to see the attempt. Although in this case they went with an original story so in a way you get to see a pocket size version. It works pretty well even if the film does have some logic issues as it goes on. There is still plenty of action and fun to be had here.

The film start off by introducing us to Haru, Yu, and Kotona. The three of them are good friends and the jaded part of you thinks a love triangle is being primed right away but look, sometimes the characters are all just friends and it works. I clung to that but my hopes were dashed when it turns out that Yu is in love with Kotona despite her being together with Haru already. Yu tries to cope with this as best he can and he already has it tough since his legs don’t work. One day, Kotona is attacked by a mysterious being from another dimension and she gets stabbed. Making matters worse is that Haru panics and the three of them get run over by a truck. Fortunately this was the Isekai truck and Haru/Yu wake up in a whole new world. In this world there is a lady named Princess Astrid who looks just like Kotona and she is plagued by a mysterious curse. Perhaps saving her will help Kotona out?

Okay so this is a pretty nice set up. They actually save the princess from the curse rather easily. A bit too easily to be honest, I know Yu is basically the chosen one here but I wasn’t sure about why he was able to just grab the sword like that. We get some twists near the end but I wouldn’t say they fully answer this. Yu is a solid character throughout though and easily the best one in the film. He knows to hold himself back in the real world and would never let Kotona know what he’s thinking. He fights against his best friend Haru in order to save lives and always makes the right calls.

He does sometimes know a bit too much though like when he decided to jump into the flames because attempting to destroy yourself is one way to travel across worlds. There’s no real way he could have known that and it’s way too risky to try and attempt on purpose. Realistically with most Isekai rules that would not have worked and he would have died. There’s a TV trope for this, I forget the name but basically it’s when an objectively wrong decision has a positive outcome and everyone in context just takes it in stride. There are constant moments like this where characters make massive leaps in logic and jut so happen to be correct.

Another big one is Haru at the end when he somehow figures out the final twist. There’s no way he should have figured that out. In fact, your first guess would be many other theories. We know it’s right just from how the narrative is presented but otherwise I would usually assume that he was completely off base. After all, there were no time/reality issues the way there should have been with how long this twist was in play. So I still have some doubts on the logic and that’s after seeing everything from a cosmic viewer point of view.

Then on the flip side, you have characters making the worst possible assumptions that make no sense. So midway through the film, Kotona gets sick again and so Haru jumps to the conclusion that obviously it’s because the heroes saved Astrid. One massive problem with this though, Astrid and Kotona had both been about to die before. Kotona only lived because they saved Astrid. So the natural conclusion here is that their lives are connected. If Astrid is alive then Kotona is alive and if one dies then the other will die. Somehow Haru twisted this to be the opposite, that only one could be alive. That makes no sense if you stop to think about how any of this works. They already know there are multiple duplicates.

I think the problem here is that this is the main reason why Haru and Yu end up having to fight and it seems forced. Even Haru saying that the world doesn’t matter or that it’s a dream doesn’t really make any sense. That’s just massive amounts of cope from Haru the whole time. I also felt like he just wasn’t a true friend with how quick he was to turn against Yu in the opening scene. There are different moments in the film where he seems jealous of Yu as well. I think this would have been expanded way more in a video game but for the movie there just wasn’t a whole lot of time. Ultimately I would say I just didn’t like Haru here. He gets better by the end but just wasn’t as heroic as you would expect.

While Yu is more likable, I do think he should have lost the fight though. Haru’s armor is said to multiply his strength multiple times over while Yu didn’t seem to be all that strong. Yu was having trouble against grunts while Haru was tossing them through walls. You’d think that difference in power would appear during the battles as well. Ultimately I suppose it was just a skill issue and Yu was the better fighter.

The main villain doesn’t have a whole lot going for him but he’s not bad. I appreciate that we got a good fight with him at the end. The fact that he was taking on all of the heroes at once was impressive. They even had a good formation at one point with Astrid firing projectiles from the back while Haru distracted him up front. The guy was just too strong. The movie has several climaxes and the final fight lasts for a good while so it definitely knew how to end on a solid note.

I also thought the heroines were solid. While Kotona doesn’t get quite as much to do, she seems like a nice person by all accounts and is considerate to Yu. Astrid can actually fight which is great. She’s probably a little too quick to try and throw her life away though like when she tried to convince Yu to murder her. Astrid needed to think this through for a moment and how her kingdom would quickly be branding Yu as a traitor for life. Additionally it’s not like that would help Kotona and the fact that anybody thought that for an instant is still crazy.

There is a little plot armor with how the heroes had to escape from the monster in the human world though. It’s way stronger and faster but sometimes gets hurt by normal objects. I don’t think its power level was very well defined here. Also, couldn’t Haru just jump into that guy’s sword to trigger the teleportation? It seems like he and Yu are functionally immortal due to that system. Although I still wonder exactly how that works. The first time it directly rewrote reality with Kotona never being hit by the car or stabbed, she even lost her memory but a day passed. Then the next time, more time passed but this time the events actually happened. The way time rewrites didn’t seem very consistent.

The animation was reasonably good here. It’s nothing that could compete with the average weekly anime of course but for a movie it’s not bad. I was glad we at least got some quick moving fight scenes and the glowing sword was good. The soundtrack is also decent. It was nostalgic hearing some of the classic tunes from the video games that I’ve played. That always makes for a good time all around.

Overall, This was a pretty good film. I did have a large number of issues with the writing as a whole as some plotlines just didn’t feel very well thought out, nor do the characters. At the end of the day though, it does still hold your interest the whole time which is the important thing. Additionally, the ending is solid in some ways (Mainly Yu’s part) but a bit less satisfying in others. (Never a big fan of amnesia) This is a film I could recommend to anyone as a fun adventure film though and due to how the rules work/don’t work it gives you a lot to think about. It’s the kind of film that leaves a whole lot to be discussed.

Overall 7/10