Content
- The Story In The HELLO WORLD
- The Shortcomings In The HELLO WORLD Anime Movie
- Overall – The HELLO WORLD Anime Movie
- My Recommendations
- Social Links
(Scroll Up To See The Headings After Clicking)
Introduction
I had a feeling that I’d like HELLO WORLD the anime movie but… not like this… This movie was AMAZING and because of how the movie was… I actually went and re-watched it. There’s so much to cover in this one movie.
I randomly came across this movie by accident, saw the cover and thought “you know what… this might be alright”… but I ended up sleeping on the movie for literally MONTHS and now, come quarantine time, when I have all the time in the world… I watched it…
The Visuals
The first thing I HAVE to mention is the visuals… HELLO WORLD uses CGI throughout the whole anime EXCEPT for the final, final scene (which I’ll touch on a little later). Despite mainly using CGI, I must say… this movie looked spectacular.
Character Models
I have mixed feelings about the CGI (visually). The 3D models of the characters weren’t that great, maybe for the use of 3D characters it was really good but compared to hand-drawn 2D animation… 3D has its own downsides and this anime displays that.
The character designs were almost great but the characters themselves didn’t look that good due to the CGI (despite how clean-looking they looked).
Consequently, the biggest problem with 3D models is that you can tell (just by how it looks) that it is a 3D model and 3D models compared to normal animation just look… “forced” (for a lack of a better way of saying it).
The Backgrounds
The backgrounds in this movie looked phenomenal, how the lighting made everything like water (with its reflections) to different surfaces look, it made the movie look amazing.
It’s not just the lighting, there’s so much detail in one frame and it ALL looks clean… no blurry backgrounds. As a matter of fact, there was nothing that had been smoothed over, it ALL looked clean and then you include the effect of the lighting… this movie looks astonishing.
I believe this is one of the benefits of CGI that traditional animes cannot do which most people don’t see or recognize.
I also noticed that the movement of things in this movie was extra smooth. When someone runs, you can see more of what’s going on and I believe it’s because of the CGI however, where I believe CGI fails is in the extreme movement that you see in regular anime; super speeds, abstract, hyperbolic expressions is where hand-drawn animation takes another win.
For a realistic approach, CGI isn’t a bad option at all (after seeing this movie). So the environment looked amazing but then you contrast it with the 3D character models, it gave me mixed feelings about the visuals, though I quickly adjusted to the 3D characters.
The Story In The HELLO WORLD Movie
HELLO WORLD is ultimately a romance story, set in the year 2027 between two high school students – Naomi Katagaki (the main character) and the heroine but after a certain event occurs, the fabric of their worlds begins to change, literally.
HELLO WORLD is a Sci-Fi drama movie with some psychological elements to it with a large amount of mystery.
The Characters
Despite this being a romance movie, the characters are not the strongest part of this movie. They’re not terrible but they are pretty mediocre, and that goes double for the side/background characters.
Having said that, Ruri is by far the best character in the movie. She’s generally an interesting character from the first time she appears on screen and I gained more respect for her as the movie progressed.
The main character isn’t terrible but there really isn’t anything special about him. In fact, Naomi himself isn’t really an interesting character, what happens around him is the interesting part.
Naomi is a reclusive boy that was trying to fit in but wasn’t having any success but after a certain event takes place, things begin to change for him.
Throughout the movie, there was a clear sign of character development – him conquering his fears however, even after the full character development, I still wouldn’t consider him to be interesting, I just have more respect for him now, especially when you understand the full story.
The Plot
Next, is the plot, which is complicated to understand so I’m actually going to break everything down. I rarely do this but to give my input, the plot needs to be understood:
Plot Part 1
***Click For Major Spoilers***
Naomi meets his “future” self (“from another world”) which was aided by the REAL Ruri and her team. Older Naomi guides his “former” self to end up with Ruri. It works however, Ruri synchronises with the Ruri in 2037 because “measured value to exceed the threshold” had been met, which leads older Naomi to betray his former self (young Naomi) by sending Ruri to his world. By doing this, it corrupted the data that was in the simulated world (because the data is physically missing – Ruri) so the people in the other world decided to delete a select amount of information to be able to recover the whole system before everything in the system becomes corrupted (the lack of Ruri’s death would have created a chain reaction of errors).Plot Part 2
***Click For Major Spoilers***
Naomi perceives this as what he saw at the beginning of the movie, a red aurora in the sky while things around him move, shifts, and become deleted causing his world to become distorted. Using the authority given by Ruri in the REAL world, she gave him permission to move to the world of older Naomi (that’s 10 years into the future – 2037) and save both of them from the Homeostatic System (the thing that’s trying to correct the 2037 world, it’s a digital world after all). For them to be in his world, this means that the older Naomi’s world is also a simulated world in Alltale like young Naomi’s, meaning, it’s not the real world that older Naomi believed in.Plot Part 3
***Click For Major Spoilers***
They all get to the place where it has the “optimal spatial coordinates” for them to return to their original world (the outside staircase of the Alltale complex). Ruri manages to transfer over but then the Homeostatic System targets the Naomis because there are two of them in the same world (duplicates) and older Naomi sacrifices himself to protect young Naomi, he knew that there could only be one Naomi (in the same world).Plot Part 4
***Click For Major Spoilers***
While all this is going on, the Alltale Management crew manages to shut down Alltale due to Naomi sacrificing himself which stopped the Homeostatic System from moving for a brief moment and by shutting down Alltale’s logic system (since the logical boundary was breaking down), Alltale essentially… rebooted. It turned off and turned back on causing the current world to disappear (that was the bright white light that swept the world) and create a whole entirely new universe. Both young Naomi and older Naomi’s worlds were erased due to this but with the guidance and permission of Ruri in the REAL world (his hand sparked while the creation of the world was going on, he was in a bubble), Naomi managed to end up in the same place as the Ruri of his world.Plot Part 5
***Click For Major Spoilers***
This is why in the end, Naomi said, “It’s a new world that no one knows about”. In the final, final scene, older Naomi awakes to the voice of the crow of the God’s hand but once his mind and body stabilises, the voice changes into the REAL Ruri’s voice and from that, he realises that the crow was the REAL Ruri all along and the scene draws back to them showing that IN THE REAL WORLD, they created a civilization on the moon meaning, this world is far ahead of the year 2037.Storytelling
If you took a glance at what happens in the movie, you’d have seen that the story is very complex lmao. When you understand what’s going on, it’s crazy just how much things actually make sense.
The directing (the telling of the story) was almost there but the writing (the story) is masterpiece worthy.
Despite how complex the story was, I was able to follow the movie all the way till the end though, I’ll be honest with you, when I watched it the first time, I thought there were some inconsistencies in the movie but when I re-watched it… everything made sense.
HELLO WORLD actually has re-watchability to it. On my first watch of the movie, I thought the opening scene was just some fancy abstract segway to the beginning of the movie but when you understand everything, you know exactly what’s happening at the moment and throughout the movie, they keep dropping these very small hints (in the background or off-screen) of things that foreshadow what’s about to come.
I enjoyed my 2nd watch of the movie more than my first because of this.
As I went over everything I had just watched, I remembered that Naomi saw the same red aurora lights when the crow entered his world and the crow went straight to him.
I remember thinking “why… what is that red light in the sky” just like how Naomi was asking and most of these questions actually get answered.
Unanswered Questions In The HELLO WORLD Anime Movie
There are two questions that this movie purposely leaves out:
When exactly does the final, final scene take place?
***Click For Major Spoilers***
How did the REAL Katagaki (IN THE REAL WORLD) become brain dead in the same way Ruri was brain dead in the 2037 world?Both of those questions are never answered in this movie.
The Shortcomings In The HELLO WORLD Anime Movie
The weakest area in HELLO WORLD is the characters and there are three main reason for this. The first is the length of the movie, how much content they wanted to put in this movie which affected the last reason – the pacing.
This movie pretty much was two movies in one, a romance love story in the first half and changes into a Sci-Fi drama movie in the second half but the pacing doesn’t allow the the viewer to be truly invested with any of these characters.
Missed Potential
If this movie was split into two, the first movie would be about the main character’s journey in how he fell in love with the heroine, the side characters would be given their much needed screen time so it could be something similar to the anime Anohana where each character is important.
Instead, we are given a cast of characters where 90% of them are literally forgettable, there wasn’t even any time to give these characters some clique anime tropes because the Sci-Fi drama in the second half took priority and after seeing what we got… I’m not mad about that.
What I will say though is HELLO WORLD could have been even better if it was an anime series rather than an anime movie, that would have given it the extra time to flesh out every area properly.
I wish they did more with Misuzu’s character. To begin with, she seemed like she’d play a prominent role and as the story goes on, she gets forgotten.
They never explain what was going through her head or why she was acting the way she was – hiding behind corners and walls when she saw Ruri. Does she like her or…? Is it because Ruri was the one person that never showed interest in her that piqued her curiosity? They don’t explain anything in the HELLO WORLD anime movie.
Overall – The HELLO WORLD Anime Movie
Overall, I enjoyed watching this movie, it was much better than what I was expecting it to be. The OST fits well for the emotionally impactful scenes but ultimately… it’s just meh.
Similarly, the audio design was average (for an anime movie) and the pacing was ok till things started to pick up an hour in the movie. You could say the pacing was slightly too fast but it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the movie to where I hated it.
With the time that they had to work with… they did a really good job but that doesn’t change the fact that things still could have been better.
The Things That Impressed Me
I’m extremely impressed with how complex the story was and they were able to have no plot-holes. The only thing that wasn’t fully shown was –
***Click For Spoilers***
how the REAL Ruri manipulated 2037 Naomi to be able to get his wish – to see Ruri smile one last time. I also find it absolutely fantastic that everything that happened in the movie was planned out by Ruri so 2037 Naomi could exceed the measured threshold just like what he did for Ruri in 2027.The most insane thing about this movie to me is-
***Click For Major Spoilers***
Alltale is ultimately a record of the past, but in THE REAL WORLD, aka the present, Ruri was already awake… Meaning, Ruri would have naturally woken up from her coma (since what 2037 Naomi did, didn’t bring her back, matter of fact, it killed her…). So everything 2037 Naomi did was ultimately redundant… In 2037, he had already waited 10 years for her to regain consciousness, if he had waited another 5, she probably would have woken up, after all, she’s awake in the present… That’s crazy! When you think about it, the reason why Naomi in THE REAL WORLD was in a coma could be because of all of those attempts to reach the 2027 world but in the original timeline, he failed… Time past and SHE was the one who woke up first… That’s honestly mind-blowingWho Was Behind HELLO WORLD?
Tomohiko Itō – who has directed animes such Sword Art Online, Erased, 86 EIGHTY-SIX (only for episode 7) and The Millionaire Detective – Balance: UNLIMITED, did a good job in directing this ambitious title.
Graphinica (the studio behind the movie), did a great job with the visuals when you take into account the movie mainly uses CGI.
***Click For Major Spoilers***
The visuals were CGI but in the final, final scene in THE REAL WORLD, all of that last scene was hand-drawn and it’s pretty evident that the 2D animation was used to signify that they were in THE REAL WORLD and the simulated world was all in CGI… – amazing.Visual Comparisons
Yes, this movie looks really good – from the vibrant colours, to how sharp each frame looks, with that being said, this movie still falls short of the top-tier animes.
The visuals for this movie are at a high A grade level but animes such as Violent Evergarden and movies such as Garden of Words are still above this anime.
Additionally, Made In Abyss has about the same visual fidelity (if not, even more), and Made In Abyss doesn’t suffer from having 3D character models while also using crazy amount of symbolistic themes throughout the whole anime (at that fidelity).
HELLO WORLD is sharp but lacks really fine macro details, the extra small things that make the visuals that much crispier which the other top-tier animes all have (making them S tier).
This movie may not reach S tier levels but to be able to compare the visuals to those animes… speaks volumes.
My Recommendations
For those that are just getting into anime, this movie might be a little too advanced to get into (due to the complexity of the story).
For those people, I’d recommend starting with anime movies such as Weathering With You or Your Name (Kimi no Na wa).
Animes such as KADO: The Right Answer is very similar to HELLO WORLD in terms of having a deep, complex narrative and KADO also uses CGI.
If you’re more into the romance aspect of things, A Silent Voice is a fantastic alternative and handles the theme of romance much better than this movie.
Who Should Watch HELLO WORLD?
For those that are familiar with animes and have watched around 100+ animes, most of you wouldn’t have even heard of this movie (since it flew under the radar) and I’d implore you to watch it.
HELLO WORLD isn’t the best movie or is class-leading in any area but it’s definitely a solid movie (once you understand what’s going on). This is one of those movies that has many major plot twists and it’s present all the way till the end.
Now, for the veterans. This is a perfect movie for you if you’ve somehow missed this movie. If you’re into multiplex storylines, mystery with a slice of romance, add in the good visuals, HELLO WORLD will be a treat.
Lastly, for anyone that decides to watch the movie or has already seen the movie and is confused as to what actually happens in the movie, scroll up to the warning toggles in The Plot section, I fully break down the events that transpire in the movie.
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HELLO WORLD
£18.64/$26.30/¥9,800 JPY
Pros
- The Visuals (once you get over the 3D character models)
- The interesting plot of the movie
Cons
- Most of the characters are nothing special (excluding the main characters)
- It may be TOO confusing for the average person
Great and informative article
Very in depth and detailed review on Hello World, I really enjoyed it.
Great review!! Pretty much agree with most of your thoughts. The scenes and backgrounds in this film are gorgeous but a lot of people get put off by the character models. They don’t know what they’re missing out on!!!
Yeah, on one hand, I don’t blame people, CGI has ruined a LOT of animes but at the same time… they’re definitely missing out on the Inception-type storytelling. I wasn’t expecting to like the movie so much going in but here we are lool.
I really appreciate you reading through this review, thank you 😊.
I pretty much agree with your thoughts. The scenes in this movie are beautiful but the character models put people off. Its a shame because they’re missing out!