Pros
- Interesting premise regarding AI and computing
- Some interesting twists and turns
Cons
- Some flaws regarding the mind transfer seem fairly obvious
Hello World Review
On the surface, Hello World is a romantic science fiction movie about one man’s desire to restore the love of his life to consciousness. And at first, Naomi Katagaki’s goal to restore Ruri Ichigyou’s consciousness seems noble. But as the events unfold, viewers are forced to consider a simple question: should there be a limit to the death and destruction in Naomi’s seemingly reckless pursuit of his goal?
The setting for Hello World is a somewhat near-future Kyoto where one company has developed a quantum computer capable of limitless storage and processing. This computer, called Alltale, an apt name considering the stories being told, is responsible for collecting every datum of information about Kyoto, its residents, and its environment in order to store it and perfectly replicate it somewhere in its mysterious machinations.
Living in Kyoto is a shy teenage bookworm named Naomi who, through a series of events, falls in love with a more outspoken but cold Ruri. However, these events aren’t random.
Instead, these events are predestined or contained within a future Naomi’s journal. A future Naomi, approximately ten years older, manages to break through Alltale’s security in order to save future Ruri. To do so, he needs to guide past (or present) Naomi through a series events that will ensure their relationship. In order to avoid confusion, future Naomi calls himself Sensei.
Some comedic scenes occur, like the revelation of Naomi’s stash of girly magazines. Or Naomi’s seemingly random visit to a location—these seemingly random events serve to reinforce Sensei’s knowledge and credibility, both to the protagonist and to audiences.
As the story progresses, Naomi is granted god-like powers through the God Hand, or a manifestation of a crow and glove that symbolizes administrative access to Alltale. Naomi uses this power to rewrite his reality.
But how does Sensei’s knowledge and Naomi’s god-like power to rewrite reality save Ruri? The answer to this question is a bit weak, especially since the the answer invites some obvious flaws like Ruri’s retention of her memories and personality, making Sensei’s act all the more repugnant for both her and viewers. Ruri’s reaction is all too expected when she awakens in Sensei’s world.
The movie invites some obvious comparisons and parallels to our own world. Given a powerful enough computer, can it replicate every iota of information such that the people it replicates are not aware of their constructions? And in such a system, death wouldn’t be the end of life—the spirit, or whatever could be construed as the spirit in such a program, could continue to exist in the afterlife—another world constructed by the powerful machine.
Love stories do sometimes feel a bit one-sided in that the protagonist, a male, generally pursues his love interest. His love interest, whoever that may be, needs to be saved in some way such that the protagonist can prove himself. Whether that’s saving the princess from some fire-breathing dragon or whisking the princess away in the dead of night from a sworn nemesis, that love interest can’t be too strong.
While Ruri’s headstrong personality does overshadow Naomi’s more meeker personality, she still needs to be saved in Sensei’s world. But this salvation isn’t necessarily one sided, as the movie will reveal.
Hello World is an engaging story of love and betrayal that raises some interesting philosophical comparisons to our own world. The first surprise in the story may be unexpected, but subsequent ones shouldn’t be too much of a shock.
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