Review of Aura: Koga Maryuin's Last War

*Spoilers ahead* Unlike the poster that gives the impression to the potential audience that the movie will tell a fantasy and/or magical centered story, Aura: Koga Maryuin's Last War is a movie about a female character that is in a state of chunibyo, which seems like a delusion of something happening on a certain character doing an activity that is not connected with the reality. Oftenly related to magical stuff. That action is obviously considered to be a weird habit to have, especially if done by someone that's not fit with their age. The said female character, Ryouko, then meets the main male character, Ichirou, byaccident. Their journey begins after the encounter.

Now, let's get to the review

Story: 4/10
As I explained as an opening before, this movie tells a story centered on the female character that's in a state of chunibyo, Ryouko, and the "normal" male character, Ichirou. The movie starts off with a comedic and kind of cutesy approach for it's character introduction. Giving the audience an expectation that it would tell a heartwarming story. While it's true, the drama here is actually pretty heavy. After giving the audience a nice and calm introduction, the movie took a sudden turn with it's overly dramatic complication on the center of the movie's runtime. The drama is heavily focused on a horrible practice done by a bunch of students, which is bullying, targeted at Ryouko.
The sudden turn came in rather unexpected, in a bad way. It feels like a forced drama because there is no actual explanation for the bully to take those horrible action targeted to Ryouko. There's also this unexplained action taken by the said bullies to threaten Ichirou not to help Ryouko dealing with the bullies. Though the overly dramatic part of the movie might sets off the mood of the audience, the last part might bring back the audience's mood because of it's cute and heartwarming approach. Even so, the last part also came in with a flaw. A confusing act done by the main characters that are somewhat deviated with what they have experienced before.
While i know it's supposed to tell a philosophical story, it's just that the movie didn't explains much with how and why these things on the screen happening.

Art & Animation: 7/10
Nothing special with the overall art quality the movie gives. It looks like the overall quality is coming from a TV series as it just looks plain, but i guess we could look past that because it still looks nice. There's a scene with a detailed touch on the characters face, nicely pictures what reaction/expression the characters are having on some scenes. The animation is smooth and stable throughout the movie.

Sound: 8/10
Now, this category might be the one that the movie did best, especially the voice acting. The voice acting for almost every character here sounds natural. Their screams could even make some goosebumps, you could feel what the characters feels from their crying scenes, and there's a scene where a certain character talking with a calm tone which could make you feel sad and relaxed at the same time. The music is okay. The choices of the music placed on an important scene is good enough to set the mood for the audience. The sfx here is good. If you decided to watch this with a headphone on, you could even feel like you're in the movie because of the nice atmosphere the sfx gives.

Character: 6/10
As i mentioned before, the main characters of the movie are Ryouko and Ichirou. While being the main character of the story, the movie didn't give out much info and/or backgrounds of the main characters. It forcefully shoves up their backgrounds in the middle of the overly dramatic sequence of the movie, and didn't explains or even shows it properly. Making the audience confused with the overall actions taken by Ryouko and Ichirou when dealing with their problems. Even so, Ryouko and Ichirou's journey dealing with all the drama they experienced throughout the movies and their relationship development could make the audience cares about them and interested to watch their journey on the movie. The other characters though? Seems like they exist only to be a plot device. Not enough screentime to make the audience at least lay an eye on them. The side character's action is also did not explained clearly. There's a scene where one of the bully is confused with what is happening, and why their action became a bullying act, then in the next scene, they willingly bullies Ryouko just because of self satisfaction. Again, no clear and proper explanations.

Enjoyment: 8/10
I watched this movie with an expectation of it being a fantasy+action+romance anime, what i got is something unexpected that i didn't know i somewhat needed. It's a cute movie with a big turn of tone in the middle then ends with a nice and heartwarming moment. It's a pretty good movie to watch overall even though there's a lot of downs from the movie.

Overall: 6.6 -> 7: Good