ANI-MOVIES, *For Whom The Alchemist Exists

For Whom The Alchemist Exists was an RPG that ran online for a decade before it was shut down. Also known as The Alchemist Code, the Japanese video game got a full-length anime movie in 2019 whose chief director was none other than Shoji Kawamori who originally designed Optimus Prime. Animated by Satelight, the film took the steampunk fantasy gameplay and rewrote it into being a slightly original isekai despite the fact that the borrowed quite a few concepts from 90s anime titles like Rayearth. This entire movie could be seen as a copy/paste of both the Escaflowne movie and Leda: The Fantastic Adventure Of Yohko where the shallow concerns of an emotionally damaged schoolgirl somehow compared to the plight of an entire world being consumed by evil.

Set in the alternate realm of Babel, alchemy has been the source of much chaos in this world's development where magic users can summon up heroic spirits called Phantoms from the past to join them in their battles, similar to Servants in Fate. From the discord arises a multi-headed dragon called Destruk who wraps itself around the central Tower of Babel which cuts off the alchemists' powers, seals the Phantoms away, and plunges the land in darkness with giant robots called Dark Mages. Two alchemists, Liz and Edgar, use some of their last caches of magic to summon a Phantom to help save the world, but instead they get Kasumi, an original character to the movie who is a teenager from our world given the powers of purifying dark magic by an incidental interdimensional gatekeeper that acts as the god character in isekai who reincarnates people into another world. Kasumi has no idea how to activate her powers, but the kindness she shows some of the refugees and her home cooking helps them to lighten up and temporarily regain their alchemy. The former Phantoms are now corrupt and working for Destruk who are sent to collect Kasumi. Edgar leads an assault against Destruk after the alchemists reunite with some of the secondary characters from the video game while Kasumi purifies the Phantoms and they join their former comrades in battle. Kasumi learns that Destruk was originally a serpent sacrificed in the previous wars that was transformed into a giant dragon, so she uses her white magic to free the cursed reptile while sending herself back to Earth. Turns out the whole thing that was holding Kasumi back in her world was working up the courage to stand up to her mother on pursuing her dream as an actress, but that slightly stressful scenario is supposed to be equal to liberating a magical realm is a wonky piece of storytelling.

For Whom The Alchemist Exists is hard to compare as how it adapted the video game, especially since the online servers were shut off years ago. The production is fine, and the CGI used for the mechas and magical tanks is honestly implemented fairly well, but it doesn't seem to be that it was above the quality of a TV series and not totally up to theatrical release standards. Anyone expecting to get the deep storytelling of Fullmetal Alchemist is going to be for a disappointment, and even any fans of the game might find this movie lacking in any stimulation.