All You Need Is Kill Gives New Life To The Classic Time-Loop Thriller
The anime adaptation of the Japanese sci-fi novel manages to break new ground even after Edge of Tomorrow.
It’s a simple but effective premise: Your hero dies. He awakens, only to relive his last day. He dies again. Over and over, this cycle happens until our hero has conquered the time-loop he’s stuck in, having become stronger, faster, and wiser in the thousands of times that he’s been resurrected. It’s the video game conceit, as a thrilling alien invasion story. That’s what turned Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s All You Need Is Kill, a sci-fi light novel published in 2004, into a wildly influential story that would go on to be loosely adapted by the Tom Cruise-led Edge of Tomorrow, a movie that has earned its own cult following.
But after getting the Hollywood treatment, is there anything more that one can do with the story of All You Need Is Kill? The eye-popping new anime movie adaptation, animated by Studio 4°C and directed by Kenichiro Akimoto, argues that there most definitely is. If you think the Cruise version of this story is the best, think again.
Despite finally using the awesome title of Sakurazaka’s original novel, All You Need Is Kill is not a straightforward adaptation. In fact, it takes even more liberties than Edge of Tomorrow does, turning the supporting character in both the novel and the live-action film, Rita, into the protagonist, and changing its setting to the beginning of an alien invasion that takes the Earth by surprise.
In the anime All You Need Is Kill, Rita is a volunteer helping to clean up Japan after the mysterious appearance of a massive alien flower known as "Darol." Darol has lain dormant for years, but one fateful day, it suddenly erupts, unleashing hundreds of monsters that slaughter every human in its path. Rita gets caught in a strange sonic blast from one of the monsters, before she, too, is killed. Then… she wakes up. It’s the morning earlier, and Darol is still dormant. Frantic, Rita tries to warn her fellow volunteers about the oncoming cataclysm. But it falls on deaf ears, and she dies again.
And again. And again. Left with no other options, the former wallflower decides that she has to learn to fight them, training until she manages to off a few monsters. But just as she’s started to feel hopeless over being trapped in this never-ending time loop, she discovers another person trapped in the same cycle: Keiji, a cowardly fellow volunteer who had elected to hide away during the invasion. Teaming up, the two of them finally start to figure out a way to flee the loop, and save the Earth from its terrifying fate.
The flower-shaped monsters that Rita and Keiji are forced to defeat.
Switching the protagonists does a few things: It’s a clever way to keep All You Need Is Kill from retreading the ground of Edge of Tomorrow, and it softens the edgier elements that may not have aged as well as the original premise. Instead, this All You Need Is Kill almost acts as an intimate character study of a solitary young woman’s further descent into loneliness. Rita was already an antisocial wallflower who aimlessly drifted through life, and this never-ending time-loop traps her further in her isolation. The first half of the film, before Keiji ever enters the scene, is almost painfully lonely. So when she finally finds a companion — even one as spineless as Keiji — Rita is relieved. This focus on Rita’s loneliness and the shared bond that she develops with Keiji strengthens the romance that always felt a little shoehorned in the original novel and Hollywood film. But here, it makes the emotional climax all the more powerful.
The unconventional animation provided by Studio 4°C, an independent studio behind such wildly imaginative indies as Masaaki Yuasa’s Mind Game and Michael Arias’ Tekkonkinkreet, also lends to the film’s more character-driven approach. The characters feel loosely drawn and shaggy, with limbs a little too long and faces a little too wide, making them feel imperfect, and thus, a little more human. And the backgrounds are all richly textured and deeply saturated, with the flower-shaped monsters looking like they’ve stepped straight out of Scavengers Reign. It’s a refreshingly vibrant and colorful approach to what could have easily been a dark and gritty retread.
While All You Need Is Kill doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to the time-loop thriller, or indeed even as an adaptation of Sakurazaka’s light novel, it still manages to feel fresh and new, thanks to its character-driven approach and vibrant animation. In a way, its title feels very ironic; its story of finding companionship amidst loneliness and trauma holds much more hope for humanity and its characters than previous versions ever did.
