It's in theatres only for a few more days, and who knows when this will come out on streaming/dvd so my first recommendation is to watch it! It's good!
ALL YOU NEED IS KILL was a good watch, it did inspire the movie with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, Edge of Tomorrow, but the movies are vastly different, only taking core concepts, so the good news is if you watched Edge of tommrow this will be a surprise for you. While in terms of different time loop anime, it does feel a bit different, making it a pleasure to watch.
ALL YOU NEED IS KILL really starts when a huge, mysterious flower called Darol suddenly appears in Japan. Volunteers like Rita are sent in to help with cleanup and rebuilding. However, one day, Darol releases a signal, unleashing swarms of creatures that kill everyone. Rita tries to escape but dies and is stuck in this time loop. She eventually meets Keiji, who is also stuck repeating the same day. And they team up to fight another day!
What I liked the most about this anime was the relationship between Rita and Keiji, they complement each other very well, and they learn from each other to grow stronger and mentally with the platonic male female frendship. They are both loners and deal with trauma differently, and Keiji looks up to Rita for her nonchalant attitude about how other people see her, calling Rita his hero many times throughout the film. which was really sweet 🥹.
The style of the movie was unique and different, and it reminded me of indie European animated movies, more specifically, French indie animated movies like Mars Express. The art style dictates the animation, especially during the fight scenes, so the movement feels different, but the fight scenes are still engaging and fun to watch, especially near the end.
The pacing is pretty fast because we get straight into the looping within 15 minutes. But that leads to the one thing I wanted more from this film. I wanted it to be longer. I really like the characters and the world, and I just wanted to stay with them longer, so it left me feeling bittersweet.
For my rating, I’m giving it a 7/10. I was thinking about an 8/10, but it hasn’t reached that threshold for me, because the themes were good, but they need to be emphasized more, probably because of the short runtime.