[Locke]

Hey look, it's Shinken Pink!

I find Eternal Returns difficult to put into words, because on one level I enjoyed this a lot. NEVER are a cool bunch of characters with actors that have great chemistry with one another, and having them get a chance to fight without those shitty Dopant suits is about as much as I could ask from a prequel to A to Z.

But on the other hand...why does this exist? Eternal was a cool suit but it's hardly in this film, so I can only assume Katsumi was extremely popular in Japan...but why? I was done with NEVER by the end of A to Z, I honestly had no interest in finding out more about them. I mean sure it turns out to be actually pretty interesting, but I just don't get how we got here in the first place.

The other problematic aspect is how much this doesn't feel like a W film. Accel's film dramatically changed the tone and style of W but it still felt firmly grounded in W's universe. Since this film centres around NEVER, a movie creation which was only ever bookended into the show, before the film shifts to focus on another super soldier programme funded by Foundation X named 'Quarks' who were never in the show - although it's sorta implied it's the explanation for Utopia's floaty business - we only move further away from the feel of the core material. The fact that the main villain is a Dopant feels more like a toke gesture than anything else. You could easily just be watching some Japanese action flick and not a W film. And there is a problem there.

That isn't even discussing the way Eternal is used in this film. In A to Z the Memory had a singular purpose, so the fact it was able to create such an elaborate Rider that didn't relate to the powers of the Memory was bad enough. But this film brings up notions of destiny, with a suggestion that Gaia Memories have a conciousness and ultimately decide who they want to work with. Not only is this stupid, and doesn't gel with anything in the actual show but it directly contradicts pretty much everything A to Z set up about Memories.