A grown-up level comedy that still has the prerequisite lessons about friends and fate. Ridiculous comedy is embellished by shocking gags. Not for kids, this anime is great for a laugh.

I know this movie may be shuffled into a bin marked, “Martrix rip-offs”, but that’s frankly just not true. Whatever moron put that movie review onto the cover art does it a hideous disservice. This is not the Matrix. The Matrix is about mathematics reality conceptions – this movie is about beauty and the human soul. This movie did not shake my perceptions to the core of my being. What it did was re-awaken something small but important inside my mind. This movie is a well-acted reminder that the best reasons for living and caring about living are all the same. Life is beauty, and aside from Gothamesque settings and 1984-inspired civil servants, this movie made a simple, almost whispered statement that human spirit alone isn’t enough to live on; you need reason to do so.

And the martial scenes are great, too!

In a life filled with reading manga and ingesting Japanese culture, this manga made me stop and read. I can so closely relate not with the details of the characters’ lives but with the raw, unfettered emotion they exude. It may turn out to be too short, but so far I haven’t felt this story has bad pacing. I definitely recommend it to anyone who lvoes manga or who was ever a sad teenager.