For Whom the Alchemist Exists

EDIT: after rewatching it, i realize how underwhelming this is. a movie base on the mobile game, Alchemist Code MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS! While the Alchemist Code provide an entertaining material, it does have a lot of flaws and forgettable moment that you'll forget as soon as you distract yourself from the other thing, and leave you unanswered to unsatisfying result. Start off to the character. The original cast and members that are main in the game deliver a decent role. Lisbeth however is very notable as she show an important play as she help and her friend-role to Kasumi. compare to her previous role in thegame. Lisbeth here is much mature and taking the problem in good way. she left off her cliche-magical-girl version to a better self. Edgar is slightly less significant than Lisbeth but did better job in this movie. Kasumi however is the most let down. she is neither annoying nor amazing but very underwhelming, bland or dull. the greatest flaw is the lack of character development. true that she obtain power at the end but it is rush and straightforward without delivering any excitement. 2nd is she wasnt introduce very entertaining, her first appearance in the movie holds a very tasteless role that neither catch the excitment of the audience, only because she is an "Original Movie character", the rest, very minor. as the movie progress, you didnt see a changes or development to her role which should be important considering that she is the center of the movie. only the "powers" inside her deliver some "changes" but that didnt change her view to her importance and remain to the "clueless" girl but in boring way. although she isnt amazing, she is not really that bad and likeable atleast. just very bland and brightless. Next is the Story, the start was great and will keep viewer to figure out what is happening as they introduce a villian no one knows(not even the game). the beginning is well written. However halfway, the story become boring and lack in excitement in the paper. The biggest and bad part of the movie is the final battle where the invasion became very danger-less. imagine a world was plunged by darkness, lowered the alchemy power, and reshape the phantom yet the location is very easy to invade and lack in excitement. it become very generic or lazy "invasion-like" battle. the main villian show very weak as it got easily defeated by few magic, slash and arrow. this kind of villian(specially in game story, not gameplay i mean) takes lot of plan to put down. the final battle of main characters versus main villian is very easy to predict and a letdown, excluding the part where Kasumi gain her power and fight back because this looks more solution because of her powers dwelling inside her. the Phantoms show MUCH better danger that the audience can feel them as better villian than the serpent despite being just "servant"-like. Visual are great, it is perfect for the tone of the gamestory and the game. however the animation such as battle are very less appealing and underwhelming. only the battle between setsuna and logi show much better effort compare to the rest of battles where it is no difference for tv show(and some tv show anime show better quality). i would consider the fights very good for tv show quality, but this is a movie. aside from logi vs setsuna battle, the CGI Demon are surprisingly well made. the music, voice acting deserve to praise. some lines are repeated base on in-game but this is less ignorable as maybe they want to keep the "game"-vibe--and they did, even if it is a movie. Overall, the movie is passable watchable and its animation which atleast bearable and seeing your favorite characters in big screen(mostly this) will atleast what half-distract you from its boring and color-less like, or bland, undsatisfying- underdevelop story and Protagonist. Story = 3/10 Art = 6.5/10 Sounds = 9/10 Characters = 4/10 Enjoyment = 4/10 Overall = 4/10

tl;dr bad story saved by great animation DISCLAIMER: I did not know that this was based on a game before watching this. There is probably a lot of background knowledge I don't have that would have made this a better film to watch. The movie starts with a really strong opening. 1st there's some exposition on the setting which is kind of boring but needed but then it goes straight into an action scene where you see what is essentially the apocolypse. After this strong opening it then goes straight onto introducing the main protagonist of the movie. It does this all in a way that feelsnatural and the pacing flows well. I will avoid spoilers here but from here on out the pacing changes in a janky and inconsitent way. It goes from really slow scenes to ramping up the speed to where it can be a little difficult to keep then going right back down to moving like a turtle. I won't give a direct spoiler for the ending however if you do want to watch this film you may want to skip the rest of this paragraph. The ending is probably the worst "power of friendship endings" since soul eater and that's pretty impressive considering soul eater had high school kids beat a villain that literally god couldn't. The saving grace of this movie is literally everything else. The animation is stunning, the CGI fits in well (that's right actual good use of CGI in an anime deserves a watch just for that). The music was well done, voice actors did a great job. in conclusion if you watch this don't expect much from the story but you will enjoy every other aspect.

*spoilers ahead* After watching this, my only thoughts are : "why was it made", and "why did i watch this". So yeah, right away I'll tell you - I DO NOT recommend this to anyone! The only good things to say about this movie would be - its pretty well drawn, and its very emotional. Everything else is absolutely dreadful. There are a few ways i judge a show - first of all, does it deliver what it came to deliver, and how well does it deliver it? Did it deliver a good or amazing spectacle? Did it relay something important to the viewer they cantake to reality and their life, or at least something to ponder? And will you remember it in a couple months or years. The answer to all of those is a hard no. The core premise, (probably?) is that bad emotions are one's weakness, and you must... What? Don't know. Either accept them and move on, or process them, or remember, or have your friends help you with them, or... No, seriously WHAT? Okay, let's break it down, the big bad thing sealed magic (which is called alchemy in this world, but there's also actual magic too, which is different, and they CAN still use it, but actually can't for reasons unknown) away, killing a lot of people, converting some into servants and magic mechs, and the rest ran away to form the resistance. The bad thingy will destroy and restart the world. The explanation on where magic and 'alchemy' come from is super vague, but the way the baddie twists it has a lot to do with negative emotions, because of course it has. Since this is all about emotions, and the female lead mastering them, let's break down all the relations in this movie. First, MC. She used to be a lively, emotional girl that wanted to be an actor. Then, at a very early age, she fell from some climbing playground thingy after winning, got a head injury, and her mother (and possibly friends and society), being the retroactively caring and now uselessly overprotective moron that she is, ended up emotionally abusing (and somewhat guilt tripping) her into an ambitionless, apologetic, passive, dazed shadow of a human being, her desire that she repressed as much as she could, holding her back in life. Lovely mother huh? Also can't help but wonder WHERE THE FUCK IS THE DAD in all these modern crap shows. Next we have the fantasy world. For reasons vague to me, they beat up some little worm-lizard thingy in some mystic ritual, yeah, that's now also the creature currently trying to destroy the world, big surprise, who'd imagine retaliation is a feeling sentient creatures feel?? Then we have the people in the world that beat up said creature, who are also using long dead heroes by summoning them from the past, and the movie being unable to decide if these heroes are okay with being used like that or not, because at the start it seems they are, when they're 'converted by EEEVVVIIIILLL' they seem to say they hated it (while seemingly having seemingly full freedom too but just due to 'surrendering to their negative emotions' of them being used prior), and in the end they say they don't mind to be summoned to help again. So... WHAT? Make up your mind will you? And did they force them before or not? Did the worm force them?? No idea. No explanation. The people of the world also waged war among themselves it seems, and used the heroes i think, but very little of that is mentioned. And finally you have the people summon MC, a 'hero' from another world, against her will, and apparently killing her in the process, or believing they did. So... FUCKING SELFISH?? What's more, when she can't do anything, the majority are disappointed with her and immediately dismiss her as useless (just what her mother and her old society said!), rather upset with her, and all but the summoner girl kind of giving her a cold shoulder... Until she cooks for them and suddenly everyone comes to like her somewhat, and when she shows her power just ONCE, they suddenly come to adore her, the person they selfishly summoned and seemingly killed. Like sorry, but all in all, bad situation or not, they're FUCKING ASSHOLES. And what's the resolution? MC gets kidnapped and converted, faces her negative emotions. Then the summoner girl, the only one who seems to actually regret what they did to her, puts herself in danger and reaches out to her, managing to pull her out, but getting injured, or rather 'contaminated by darkness' in the process. So MC sets out to the final battle to save her because if the darkness consumes her she dies or something (no one else that got corrupted didn't tho??). In the battle she's as useless as ever, until everyone's on the verge of losing, and she is knocked out. Then she sees her friend thinking about her, her mom crying and her 'friends', or rather assholes of this world struggling, and obviously awakens into some shitty magical girl thing, summoning her pet that's, I KID YOU NOT, a cartoon pony unicorn thing (which drawing style doesn't even fit with the world and looks hella childish and somewhat drawn). She is now 'the hero of empathy', and understands everyone's feelings and forgives them (despite them being assholes who don't really deserve forgiveness because they made NO effort for it nor really even seemingly tried to understand their mistakes, heck, till the end they don't seem to know the worm thingy hates them cuz they beat it up and scarred it long ago, the worm also gets no punishment for the slaughter he brought on, aside losing and... going for reincarnation i guess?) for 'doing their best' (guess emotional abuse mommy's the best she can do because she got too worried that one time~), getting her ambition and passion back and becoming a whole person again, getting magic powers and boosting all her 'friends', the phantoms/servants come back to the 'good' side because they're freed from their negative emotions (without dealing with the problem obviously~... why? cuz fuck you, forgiveness and friendship, you may have had a problem bad enough you where ready to kill over, but poof, now you don't~) defeats the worm and restores peace, going back to her original world. So yeah, its well drawn, and very emotional, perhaps even TOO emotional, because all of these emotions are hollow and don't have a proper root or treatment and consequence... 5.3~/10 garbage that earns 5 of that just for the art, not AT ALL recommended.