Zegapain ADP

This will be one of the short ones, as there isn’t really much to say about this title, and I’m writing this one now mostly for clarifying some things just like I did with The Silent Service. First, this movie was somewhat infamous and mostly ignored among fans on the different anime databases when it come out because there weren’t any good subs of it available anywhere. Well, that didn’t change as of now, so if you plan of watching it, be sure to actually know Japanese or at least have LOTS AND LOTS of anime watched to be sure that you kind of understand whatis being said and what isn’t properly subbed. Second, despite appearing everywhere as a recap movie, it is not. It includes footage from the series through some weird flash forward/seeing the future sequences for whatever reason, but it is actually a prequel about the first missions of the protagonist before the series. With that cleared out of the way, the movie itself is pretty bad on its own. It has too much boring slice of life that doesn’t serve much purpose and takes up screentime, affecting the pacing, which in turn is sometimes too slow and sometimes too fast and rushed. The support and secondary cast is shown more here than in the series, but not actually explored in any meaningful way, so what’s the point? They are even simpler than they were in the core show so they come off as weaker versions of themselves as we already knew about them. Kyo is not affected by what’s happening in any way, neither emotionally nor psychologically, he was a much more troubled, interesting and looked into character in the series. And the romance of the movie, which was kind of very important in the show, is very short and superficial here. Basically, every character interaction here leaves a lot to be desired. The animation is better than it was a decade before, obviously, but even with more dynamic and flash battles, it is still not THAT better. The CGI is still weak, the older footage thrown in with a horrible filter in them stands out a lot, negatively, and since they are images from the future, it doesn’t even make sense how much worse they look. Plus the montage is very messy, jumping from one scene to another randomly, without an organic flow between them. The sound aspect was good I guess. In all, a very disappointing addition to one of the most underrated anime of all time that doesn’t leave me very optimistic about the upcoming sequel, that even feels out like coming out a bit too early, considering the previous release dates.