ANI-MOVIES, *Deemo: Memorial Keys

With all the movies animated and live action based on video games lately, only one of them is based on a rhythm game, which means we're never getting that official Dance Dance Revolution film. Deemo was a rhythm game with an actual story to it that was released in 2013 that gained a big following, which was adapted into full-length anime movie in 2022 by Production IG and Signal.MD as their last project before Production IG bought them out and just after they completed Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop. The director was Shuhei Matsushita who also directed Doctor Stone, although there seems to be a supreme lack of effort put into this as its all CGI and looks like mid-2000s cel shading. The models from the video game appear better than those in the anime and the character movements are stiff like they're all lifeless puppets, plus the bad story pacing added to film's downfall.

The movie is split into two plots both playing out at the same time. One has an amnesiac young girl named Alice entering a fantasy world, so already they're just ripping off Lewis Carroll. The dream realm is like the inside of a castle with books and talking toys and a tall dark stick figure called Deemos who plays the piano. Whenever Deemos plays some memorable music other parts of the castle open up which eventually lead to the way out, so Alice and her friends are first thwarted by a masked girl who eventually joins in their efforts. After a while, Alice realized that all these characters were aspects of her life before an accident which killed her older brother who she lived with and the masked girl was an incarnation of her dream self, so this whole time Alice has been in a coma. Years later, Alice was adopted by her brother's old music instructor who teaches at an academy that she is a student at, but she had almost no memory of her time in the dream realm until she was given an incomplete song her brother left for her. With the addition of her finally gaining some friends in school, Alice's memories are restored and is able to finish her brother's piece.

Deemo: Memorial Keys is a below average production that stretches out a meager video game plot with the meandering antics of Alice's toy friends, and the narrative has an uneven flow to it as it switches between the modern-day events and those during Alice's extended dream sequence. The entire film is jumbled in its presentation and is difficult to keep cohesive with the only plus sign being the piano soundtrack which does help keep the movie's head above water. You can watch this on several free streaming services, but you'll probably instantly forget it after a single watch.