One year ago, a giant, alien plant called Doral landed on Earth and took root in the Earth’s crust, and has lain dormant since. For the past year, teams of young volunteers, armed with high-tech suits and gear, wake up every day and hack away at its roots - a cosmic pruning, if you will. One of those teens is Rita, a quiet loner just doing her part. She wakes up to what feels like a normal day and heads off to work. Suddenly, Doral wakes up, unleashes a wave of deadly creatures, and Rita and everyone else are killed on the spot.
But then... Rita wakes up. Same morning. The same alarm jarring her awake. The same neighbour in the next room over is banging on the walls and protesting her alarm too. It was like nothing ever happened. She goes out to work, Doral wakes up, she dies, she wakes up, back in bed, again. Something is not right, and if Rita does not figure out what is happening, not only will she repeat the same morning over and over and over again, but Doral will eventually take over the whole planet.
Kenichiro Akimoto directed Yuichiro Kido’s adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s 2004 sci-fi novel All You Need is Kill. The anime powerhouse Studio 4°C was responsible for this new production. The lauded novel is finally getting an anime adaptation after it got the manga treatment back in 2014, as well as the sleeper hit action film, Edge of Tomorrow, starring Emily Blunt and some other guy whose name escapes me.
We will speak from the perspective of someone who is a fan of the 2014 American sci-fi film. Points were deducted for not knowing about the source material or the existence of a manga, which we all know probably went into as much depth and detail as the light novel did. So, with that in mind, All You Need is Kill does feel familiar in terms of structure and narrative progression, yet it offers a fresh perspective on the story.
For instance, this animated movie reverses the roles first established in the novel. The original lead, male character, Keiji, is now second to Rita. Nor are Rita and her fellow volunteers dedicated soldiers like the novel and the movie. We weren't hung up on these changes, expecting differences; we still couldn't help but anticipate the same beats in the film happening in this animated feature, which kind of do and kind of don't happen. That’s on us, the inability to shake that expectation.
The character design is retro-futuristic, with a suit design that looks like something that Ralph Bakshi could have dreamt up. The creature design is new as well, taking on a look that looks similar to the creature design in the movie, straying away from the balls with teeth design in the manga. They’re like giant, angry flowers that chase you down on four legs!
The action sequences are amazing, and the main reason why you shouldn’t miss this when the chance arises. They keep growing in size and scale as Rita learns more about their enemy and equips themselves with stronger and stronger defenses to defeat it. Humor is deftly intertwined with each discovery, or each new upgrade - such as, she’s going to need a bigger axe. Obligatory action poses are a must when dealing out this much sci-fi action on-screen. If the action scenes were not up to par, boy, would this have been a massive failing on behalf of the studio.
Cannot shake the feeling that even this feature-length format and time it permits doesn’t allow for much beyond typical story structure, beyond the awesome action. The characters’ train of thought is, ‘There is a problem. We recognize there is a problem. We realize that someone else has figured this out and can help us fix this. We understand something drastic will have to be done in order to break away from this deadly cycle and defeat the giant space tree. But at what cost to ourselves? What do we personally lose if we break this cycle completely?'.
And scene.
That’s pretty much it, and we can’t help but be a bit disappointed that the inevitable final act and the story's conclusion felt so... atypical. Perhaps it was the dramatic change in pace as well. After such a rip-roaring escalation of events and one battle scene on top of another it all but grinds to a halt for a good while. This is about the pace and sudden energy change, not the story itself.
But, if anything, this feature-length adaptation makes us more interested in getting our hands on Sakurazaka’s novel. It has us yearning for something more profound than what constraints any feature-length run time can give us.