Comment

Jun 05, 2017scribby rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Entertaining anime mash-up of Ender’s Game, War Games, and Ghost in the Shell. There’s a lot that’s familiar here: most of the characters are anime stereotypes who employ histrionics in the usual anime manner, the computerized virtual “Oz” looks a lot like the hackers’ matrix in Cowboy Bebop, and there is the expected brush with apocalypse. And yes, there’s a lot of kawaiiiii. However, everything is put together in new and interesting combinations: one would not expect, even in anime, for the rogue A.I. to appear as a malevolent Balinese deity, or the wise old grandmother to grab a samurai pike off of a display and wield it with considerable skill. There is an incredible amount of detail in the animation (there are scenes with at least ten major characters all in one shot, and all moving separately), and there are some lighting effects straight out of Makoto Shinkai. The plot is silly (in a good way), cyberpunk, and satirical all at once (it pokes fun virtual reality). All in all it’s a lot of fun.