TheStampede01

So after looking for this anime seemingly for years I finally found it. So did it live up to my expectations? Actually kind of yeah, althought the animation was a little shaky at parts and even though I felt like the run-time could have easily been cut in half, I still really enjoyed this a lot.

Story- So without getting into spoilers, theres quite a few biblical references in this movie and it's not very subtle about it either, they are quite overt. the main premise is a girl named Linne has "died" and been sent to Hell, which apparently is an Academy for halloween themed monsters/humanoids. Well it's more than just an academy, its actually more like a city just full of these monstrous humanoids. So who rules this place? None other than demon Elvis, appropiately called Helvis. So the story is pretty much about Linne trying to get out of Hell and return to her mom, who she apparetly cares about a lot, which is nice. There are a few good twists and turns in this, so it's not all just pretty pcitures.

Animation- Simultaneously the best and worst part of this movie. I have to give major props to Hiroshi Ohno (Art Director) and Kazuto Nakazawa (Char Design) because this anime really doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before. The originality and creativity in the art is really astounding. Theres a gothic-like almost Tim Burtonish look it has going. The characters also look very stylized the men mostly skinny beef cakes (it works somehow) and lets just say the females have generous proportions. The negative sign of this though, is that there are quite a few still frames and static animation. Despite this though. I believe the postives outweigh the negatives. I found the art extremely enjoyable and refreshing.

Sound- Lots of awesome rock music and great inspirational music in general. Theres also a cute J-pop song in the end, which is nice enough. It's not the highlight of the movie, but it works well for this. Voices are great, really loud and powerful, at times it feel like an 80's shonen.

Characters- I love the characters in this, they're fantastic. Linne starts off as a scared little girl and by the end shes as manly and awesome as Kamina in TTGL. The side characters are also extremely entertaining including all of the monster girls and the various other demon/monster things and ofcourse Helvis is frikin awesome. His whole "baby" thing at the end gets a little annoying sometimes, but his general awesomeness cannot be questioned

Overall- Really unique and rewarding experience and I reccomend it to anyone who likes crazy over-the top stuff like TTGL or Jojo's Bizzare Adventures or even people who just like gothic and Tim Burtonesque art. Like I mentioned before I found the run-time a bit excessive, but overall I don't think it hurts the movie very much.