Fr4anchise based movies have always been this interesting beast and I’ve noticed myself that it’s always difficult to rate them. I’m not sure why, but the format of a movie is rather difficult to correctly mesh with the format of a movie; that’s how different these two formats are. And on top of that, there are so many different ways in which to execute these movies: sequel, prequel, side-story, filler, completely new story, background movie, recap story, done in the same style, with a completely different style or a style that’s similar, but not quite the same, or just going for an entirely different alternate retelling. All these options have had their examples that worked really well and that didn’t work at all. Un-Go went with a prequel movie that’s done in the exact same style as the TV-series. And it delivers.
This movie is set to answer some of the questions that are left behind by the TV-series. Not all of them, unfortunately. We get to see a lot of details and new information on the two leads, along with Bettenou, and it subtly answers a few questions about the final arc of the TV-series. Characters like that one prisoner however never make an appearance. For me though, this series did answer as many of the most lingering questions without forcing things in and I’m overall very happy with the result. Shinjirou, Inga and Bettenou definitely emerged as better characters out of it.
Now, the reason why I’m not going to rate this movie is because it really is just another episode of Un-Go. It fits right in with the series, unlike for example the Eden of the East Movies. If you’d package this as a 13-episode series, you wouldn’t notice the difference. This movie blends in perfectly, it rocks for the same reasons as the TV-series, and if you’ve liked the TV-series, then there is no reason to not watch it.
The storytelling really packs the same punch that made the TV-series so good, combining interesting characters with a fast-paced dialogue and throwing in many twists along the way that lead into very satisfying conclusions. Again it succeeds in fleshing out quite a few new characters in a minimal amount of time; something that very few other series can boast. It’s all-around enjoyable and had me consistently fired up.
I don’t understand this review at all.
Potato
I guess psgels wrote this in a hurry… There are more typos and weird syntax than usual and also…
“I’m not sure why, but the format of a movie is rather difficult to correctly mesh with the format of a movie; that’s how different these two formats are.” <- uhmmm….. 🙂
Anyway, yeah, the movie was…. Good? But it really did feel like two episodes of the series duct-taped together. Not that that is a bad thing. But since it was a "movie" I had a bit higher expectations for some reason.
was it actually labeled as a movie? I was always just expecting a special episode ^^;
I think there was some confusion because it was shown in theaters, but they always called it “episode 0” so I thought it was going to be more of a special episode than a well-financed “movie”.
Personally, I liked this was way better than the series. You get to understand the main’s predicament and motivations a little more, and that created some emotional investment. Whereas the series felt a bit flat and incomplete.
i like how she decided not to rate it because of its open format.
i’m going to look it up now that i know its out there,
this site is really my only way of finding new releases
I don’t know what I was expecting but this was outside of it.
I’m happy that I got the back story, and now I understand why inga is the way he/she is.