I was a big fan of the 2014 Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow, which is based off the same light novel as this new anime adapatation. The die-wake-repeat motif is what makes both these movies so good, giving us that video game premise in real life and, with it, the opportunity for satisfying concept design, cool action scenes and interesting explorations into an evolving character and the psychological ramifications that comes with such an experience.

I’ll start by talking about the visuals, as it’s the biggest selling point. I was surprised to learn that despite the film’s very 2D feel, Studio 4°C’s approach was almost entirely created from a CG workflow. Impressive! They’ve definitely captured an authentic, hand-drawn aesthetic, but one that still has plenty of fluid movement and perspective-shifting action that feels natural and pleasing to view. There's also some fantastic concept design, giving off Evangelion vibes at times, and a vibrant color palette for some trippy, flora-based sci-fi designs, which I thought were an amazing direction to take the Mimics in.

Director Akimoto discusses a few of the techniques he and his team used to achieve his “limited” approach to animation. If the 3D models contain too much surface detail, your eye “sticks” to the object and the motion stops feeling snappy or stylish. Their response: strip the model down — “as few textures as possible,” leaning on color planes and linework instead, and even dropping frame rates to as low as 8 frames per second, which Akimoto describes as “satisfying” and giving a “certain flair — a touch of theatricality” to the final product. It puts more emphasis on the viewer completing the gaps in motion, and for whatever reason, that just works visually.

In my opinion, CGI has been a total disaster for animation in the last two decades. Anime feels more mass-produced and generic than ever, and has undergone a complete artistic regression. Although there have been occasional moments of CG brilliance, the soul and charm that made you revel in the beauty of the medium have almost completely vanished. It’s been almost 40 years since Akira, and despite all the technical advances and effort, nothing has since surpassed it.

So the question remains: can CGI eventually reach a level of quality and technique such that it can successfully reproduce the same conscious and subconscious delight the brain experiences with real hand-drawn animation? All You Need Is Kill gives me confidence it might — it’s a genuine step forward for the industry. It’s one of the best-looking animated films in a long time, but as beautiful as it is, I’m still not sure if it’s as goosebump-inducing as what your average anime series was producing in the 80s. We’re still not there, and one has to wonder whether purists will continue to wait and watch studios make marginal gains for another decade, or if AI is going to step in and start outperforming them aesthetically through its ever-growing skill of replication.