Anime: Accel World: Infinite Burst b4x2e

NOTE: I have a review about the whole franchise on MAL, but since it has already been reviewed by others (and better) here, and I'm not happy with how angry I sound there, I'll just leave a short opinion of the previous entries and my complete views on the movie itself.

The tv series has an interesting concept and some attempt at showing people’s change of attitude by the dependence of advance technology and less social interactions, as well as some attempt at showing how we would abuse of some power or facility gave to us if we have the chance to get benefits from it, along with some development for the main character, everything failed in the long run. If there are some positive aspects in the show, those would be the visual and sound department, the character designs are generic, bland, and Haru and the avatars are ugly and retarded, and the voice acting is nothing special; but the backgrounds, the motions, and the special effects are well done, and the sound effects and soundtrack range from fine to good, making the world they play in and their fights spectacular on a superficial level. I don’t want to waste more time in this, I’m moving to the rest of the franchise.

The tv series was followed by two ovas that were silly ova material about a pumpkin hunting other players full of fan service, even more retarded designs and melodrama regarding the not couple from the show and another one about onsen, Haru being fat and having to lose some weight in order to a medical exam in school, what does this have to do with gaming? Well if he doesn’t lose weight he can’t play videogames for stupid reasons. That’s it, don’t lose weight to gain better health and appearance, do it so you can go back to play videogames for another person. Overall good pacing, visuals and sound apart, there’s nothing more to these ovas, moving on.

After that, another studio released some two minutes specials about every character being even more retarded, barely trying to hide their fetishes (Haru’s best friend is literally treated as a dog by his girlfriend in these specials) and, of course, everything is shown in a crappy chibi style.

And finally, four years after the tv and ova series finished, Sunrise released a movie, and it’s easily the worst thing in the franchise. It tried, and failed, to be a recap movie, a sequel to the former entries, a stand-alone entry, and an adaptation of some volume of the light novel series to please the fans that were waiting for a second season, all at the same time. How is it possible to fail that hard? Well, like this:

-Bad as a recap movie: It only covers part of the series, leaving some details from the show off the summary.

-Bad as a sequel: The events here happen way after the tv and ova series, if it is watched by a person that never read the light novel series, said person would ask him/herself: Who are all of this new people? When and how did the long time characters gain so many new abilities? (Said abilities are pretty op btw) Why are the two factions still allies when they already accomplished their common objective in the series? Shouldn’t they go back to be enemies already since they want to reach glory (if you can call reaching the top of a mmo that) by their own? What are the new areas they go to? When and how Haru got rid of his curse?

-Bad as a stand-alone entry: You may think that this movie shouldn’t be judged as such because it doesn’t try to be one, but it is. Why would it include a recap then, if it wasn’t? The people that watched the series already knows the story, and the same goes for the people that kept reading the light novels, of course. Yet the movie starts with a recap that lasts for half its duration, and wastes said duration in stupid things instead of telling the viewer all of its important details. That aside, it’s also just a bullshit mission about two factions fighting against a feminine player that somehow allied with a monster in the game for escapists reasons, and she was defeated by the power of lame speech about love and friendship, and bullshit op new abilities. But that does not mean that the film can’t include some silly moments about the main (not) couple, right? Talk about wasting screen time in nothing.

-Bad as an adaptation: It is not even good as an adaptation of its source material because it changed some important details from the story it’s supposed to be adapting.

Good animation and sound apart, this movie is a complete disaster, there is not a single good thing about its script and thus, it does it deserves a low score.

And that’s it for the franchise, the tv series alone is slightly better but, as a whole, is the anime equivalent of the third Spy Kids film, and that’s definitely not a good thing.