This Week in Anime

For Whom The GalPalchemist Exists

Jean-Karlo
You know Nick, I've never read Hemingway, but I'm pretty sure the age-old question "for whom the bell tolls" has been answered. But Shoji Kawamori dares to ask... For Whom The Alchemist Exists?

Must be a new addendum to the Nier raid... Anyway, Nick and I are proud to say we watched For Whom The Alchemist Exists this week. Produced by Satelight and apparently based off of a mobile game, this... sure is a movie?

Thankfully, this movie isn't terribly complicated, so it's not like there's much to get lost in if you've never heard of Satelight, FWTAE, Macross creator Shoji Kawamori, or movies.

"Phantom soldiers. Totally not Heroic Spirits. We couldn't afford Aoi Yuki to voice the oni, anyway." The story goes that in the world of Babel, the power of Alchemy kept the gears running. Alchemists used their powers to summon phantom soldiers (for some reason) and do Alchemist-y things until war broke out and everyone made a pinky-promise to not misuse alchemy anymore. Until one day, giant robots named Dark Mages appear and a dragon named Destruk takes over the Tower of Babel, sealing alchemy and plunging the world into darkness.

As it turns out, this isn't just a gacha game adaptation—it's also an isekai!

Kasumi is a nice girl, but not very gifted in either academics or athletics. Her mother is a little overbearing, too, insisting she get her head straight and get into a good college. Meanwhile, Kasumi flirts with the idea of acting, but otherwise stumbles her way through life.

At least it wasn't Truck-kun this time.

I definitely got those Magic Knight Rayearth vibes here, but let's not get too far ahead. So, Kasumi is summoned to Babel by Lizbeth (Liz for short) as a Phantom. This is bad for a number of reasons. First, it means Kasumi is dead. Second, whereas Phantoms are meant to have some kind of magical power, Kasumi doesn't.

Well, she does have something better: she can cook!

Let's put aside the gender politics of "female isekai protagonist saves world with home economics", because as it turns out when your entire village has been displaced and all you've eaten are raw vegetables, a good stew can change your life.

It's definitely nice to have a setting that isn't some vague medieval Europe knockoff, even if it means you have eyes in your soup.

The cave refuge may well be my favorite part of the film in terms of aesthetics and writing. Kasumi can't do fancy magic, but she still cares about the people around her. And in the struggles they're going through, a little care goes a long way.

Edgar! He's a good bean. He's got the lame line about not letting girls cry, but he's a legit good man. He too feels the weight of the world on his shoulders, being that he's also a depowered alchemist. He's also got a sweet Alchemy-powered motorcycle.

Just alchemists bein' pals.

This could have been the whole movie for me; you could make a series about Kasumi reinvigorating the lives of the people of Babel with simple, earnest heart-to-hearts and cooking, something like a Log Horizon that doesn't take place in a ~DATABASE, DATABASE~ . Maybe have a bit where the people realize that hey, we don't even need alchemy. Human connection is what we need.
But.
Alas.

Turns out, Kasumi is kinda, sorta restoring everyone's Alchemic powers just a little—enough for Destruk to take notice. And it turns out he decided to summon the Heroic Spirits Phantoms to fight for him.

Just as the Phantoms are about to wipe the floor with the resistance, Kasumi learns she does have magic and controls one of the Dark Mages for long enough to send the Phantoms scurrying. And from there, Kasumi, Edgar and Liz go off to face off against Destruk because what else are they gonna do?

I still think Edgar's bike is cooler. And the turtle tanks, but as we said: those are for later...

This also meant Kasumi was less willing to take a chance on her true passion: acting.

Look, you can't question the epiphanies you get when you're stuck in Evil Darkness Alchemy Goo.

The Phantoms, you see, resented being summoned time and again to do the bidding of Alchemists, and Kasumi herself is fated to disappear if she continues to serve as a Phantom in the fight against Destruk.

But Liz doesn't want to let her girlfriend go, so that "disappearance" business gets put on the shelf for a bit.

There's a nice bit where Edgar tries to convince Kasumi to let him handle Destruk alone because he feels guilty about having failed everyone and doesn't want Kasumi to get involved, but this part of the movie had me check out a little bit. What was more interesting was learning Destruk's background! We don't get specifics, but it seems like he was an unwilling sacrifice meant to appease the power of the Tower of Babel's Philosopher's Stone. So his war against Alchemy comes off as entirely justified.

Between Alchemy being fueled by a forsaken snake-child and the Phantoms being forced to be undead servants, yeah, maybe Alchemy isn't that great in hindsight. It's not too late to go back to making soup, folks!

But it's the best because it turns out, this movie has some degree of self-awareness and reveals that Kasumi does have a magic power. She's literally the Alchemist of Sympathy, which is why she can control the Dark Mages.

Also, the little mascot creature turns into bootleg Unico.

It looks like it belongs in an entirely different movie, but hey, you can do worse than a pink pegasus.

YES YES YES
I WANT TOYS OF IT
IT PULLS THE CANNONS OFF ITS BACK AND SLINGS THEM LIKE PISTOLS
"Look, I'm really sorry we keep disturbing your final rest just so you can be our meatshield. BUT ALSO, CHECK OUT THOSE TURTLE TANKS YO."

Kasumi redeems Destruk and turns him back into a cute baby snake, Babel is saved, and this No Game No Life-looking girl sends Kasumi back to Earth. Yaaaaay!

Hey yeah, why didn't Kasumi sing? She had the costume and everything.

Kawamori goes so far as to bring back the weird Arjuna "see yourself in the vegetable" thing, but no pop song? That feels a bit like a robbery.

But like a good Isekai from the 90s, Kasumi returns home better for her adventure, and not only manages to patch things over with her mom but gains the courage to pursue acting too. So happy ending all around!

This movie is okay, but definitely not that impressive. The CGI for the Dark Mages and turtle tanks is fine, but I don't think it says much about this movie that it looks about as good as I'd hope it would for a TV series. And that's kinda the thing? For a movie, this just looks like a really good episode of a TV show.

It doesn't help that a gaggle of alchemists and Phantoms are dumped in the big climactic fight without so much as a "how do you do".

It's far from the worst thing I've ever had to see, but I'm glad it had the dignity to just be a 2-hour movie and not a 12-episode series. I'm not gonna remember For Whom The Alchemist Exists by next week, at any rate.

Yeah, I'll join in on that one. Legged vehicles for everyone!