ANI-MOVIES, *To Every You I've Loved Before + To Me, The One Who Loved You

The double deal anime movies of To Every You I've Loved Before and To Me, The One Who Loved You was released in Japan in 2022 based on the two books that simultaneously came out from author Yomoji Otono. Each one of these sci-fi romance novels centered around the premise of parallel worlds, or multiverse for most MCU fans, where there's a reality for nearly every decision we make and its alternative folds out in another. The actual scientific terminology they use in it is profoundly wonky and could usually be brushed aside as the type of technobabble you would run into on Star Trek, but if you could figure out how the concept of time travel worked in Your Name then you shouldn't have too much trouble keeping up with it. The plot spans multiple worlds where things are mildly similar to only somewhat different, so nothing heavy like out of What If?. The two movies were produced by separate studios and directors, although both are easy to meld together into a single feature if you watch both, and there is no particular order to which one of them you would watch first, but we'll take the route that is a little easier to follow.

To Me, The One Who Loved You was directed by Kenichi Kasai and animated by TMS Entertainment. Koyomi was a normal boy who decided to live with his father Shodai after his parent's divorce who just happened to be working at an institute dedicated to Imaginary Science where they can transfer someone's consciousness into a version of themselves in a parallel world in a process called Parallel Shift. The dog of Koyomi's grandfather passed away and this causes the poor kid to cry which gets the attention of Shiori, the daughter of the institute's director Genko, so she uses what she knows about the Parallel Shift method and stuffs him in a capsule that takes him to a world where his grandpa's dog is still alive but his grandfather is the one who died. Koyomi spends a night in this world and then wakes up back in his own world where we later learn that his counterpart had transferred into his body. Shiori wants to go to a world where her parents are still married, but Genko stops them, so Shiori and Koyomi grow up to be friends, and of course fall in love. Years later, Shiori and Koyomi are shocked to learn that their parents are getting married which for them shoots down any plans they have for getting hitched in the future, even though they didn't know it's legal for stepsiblings to marry each other. In a panic, they Parallel Shift to a world where both their original parents aren't divorced, but Shiori gets hit by a car while she's there and upon Koyomi's return to his own world finds that Shiori is now brain dead. After sometime, Koyomi coordinates with Shodai and Genko that Shiori's spirit is stuck at the same street corner in every world they shift to and that it's possible to put her back in her body, and the young lad takes up his father's practice spending years learning all about Imaginary Science and working at the same institute, even though Shiori's body eventually gives out. Still researching Parallel Shifts, Koyomi gets an assistant in Kazune who knew him in high school even though he never noticed her. Kazune helps Koyomi in his efforts to relocate Shiori's ghost to reality where the two of them never met in an effort to untether her, and after looking into the chemical dynamics of beer Koyomi figures out how to achieve this concept called a Time Shift. A few decades later, Koyomi and Kazune are married with grandchildren of their own, but the elderly Koyomi has finally worked out the figures for a Time Shift. This results in Shiori finally being set free into a different reality, while Koyomi wondering why he left a note to himself to meet a street corner since neither of them are aware of their past lives.

To Every You I've Loved Before is the other side of the bridge of this story which was directed by Jun Matsumoto and animated by Tatsunoko. Picking up where the other installment left off, the elderly Koyomi figures out the ghostly form he encounters at the street corner was from a far-off Parallel Shift. Years earlier, the story jumps to the world that the previous Koyomi first went to where this Koyomi moved in with his mother after his parents divorced, although he still has a faint memory of shifting to the other Koyomi's world. Later in high school, Koyomi meets his world's version of Kazune and the two start a friendly rivalry, and eventually begin working at the Imaginary Science institute, as well as get married and have a child. There is some tension with their son nearly getting killed and an alternate Kazune dropping in on their reality because the son in her world didn't survive, as well the Kazune from the other movie's timeline interacting with theirs preparing her to help her Koyomi meet Shiori. The fated meeting happens, but the older Koyomi returns to his Kazune as she has been the one at his side all his life.

Comparing To Every You I've Loved Before and To Me, The One Who Loved You to each other is a tall order. Each one is its own distinct story that deal with similar characters but that took very separate paths in their lives. It is possible to watch To Me on its own without watching To Every You since there is a good deal of footage from the latter was already shown in the prior which makes To Every You ten minutes longer than To Me. Your mileage may vary between which film you see first, even though To Me does a better job of explaining the theory of Parallel Shift and we get a better view of Koyomi where he dedicates his life to free the spirit of his childhood sweetheart. With two different studios handling the production of their own film which is bound to another made it difficult to fill in all the gaps that the viewer will notice. It isn't as confusing as Tenet, but when watching both of these movies you have to accept that each one is its own story set in their own world but slightly similar, and there are times when these stories intersect. Overall, the joint production can resonate with anime fans, and it also fits non-otaku since there aren't any big tropes that usually go with the genre. Since both movies are sold together in the same Blu-ray pack, it's easy for any potential watchers to enjoy their purchase, although you might find it more fulfilling if you catch them on streaming first.