Scrolling through great anime series to write about this week and saw a good one that got my attention when my brother shared his screen with me. There’s a lot of things I can describe Hello World. I thought that through the synopsis, this anime is pretty much common. A guy from the future went back to the past, which is year 2027, to save the life of his beloved Ruri. Sounds cliche, right?
Let me get into the details. Hello World is an anime movie released on October 2019 and directed by Tomohiko Itô. This is about Naomi Katagaki, who is a shy kid and met Ruri Ichigyou, who’s very much like him. They both like books and a lot of things. One day, Katagaki saw a man who suddenly appeared in front of him, who later revealed himself as his future self. When you first watch this, you’ll think this is another “time travelling” type of anime.
I’ve read about dopplegangers and it is said if you meet the person who looks just like you, only one of you can exist — either you or the doppleganger dies. Based on urban legends, most likely you’ll die and the doppleganger will take over your place. There’s a lot of versions. This is what reminded me of when I started watching. Maybe everything will turn out fine and they’ll get back to normal?
What is normal in this anime anyway? This is anything but normal. You see, future Katagaki — or Master, as what he wants to be called by the past Katagaki — went to the past to save Ruri, who was said to have died on an accident. But then, that wasn’t it. I proved myself wrong several times while watching and I cannot count the times I’ve said “What?!” I thought this time, it was another anime where there are different alternate universes.
Spoiler alert : If you haven’t watched this anime yet, get to Netflix first, watch it, then resume reading from here on.
Master revealed that the world that Katagaki is living on is actually just a record or a memory. On year 2027, the government started recording everything — architecture and culture — in order to preserve it for future generations to see. Everything is saved on Alltale, a machine that stores its data. Master virtually went into the machine to somehow “change” the past. So, I thought, well, if Ruri died in the past, the memory won’t bring her back, right? He said he just wants to see her smile. She did, actually, few times while Master was in Katagaki’s timeline.
When Katagaki had “saved” from the unfortunate event from happening, Master took Ruri to the future or the real world. So what happened was, Ruri didn’t actually die. She’s in a coma and is brain dead. In order for her to regain her memory, he has to get it from the Alltale. This was the “Aha!” moment for me. Katagaki felt helpless and the world he’s in started crumbling. Literally. When Master took Ruri, it caused problems in the past and will surely create a domino effect. Katagaki decided not to be caught by the bots that looks like kitsune men but embraced getting into the unknown bright light.
But I was wrong. The “real world” that Master went back to, wasn’t the “real world”. The bots, who ran after Katagaki, followed him to Master’s “real world”. Put two and two together, and you’ll know it wasn’t the real world. So, that was it, right?
Nope.
Master decided that only one of them could live (my doppleganger theory at the beginning) so he sacrificed himself to be killed by the bots so Katagaki will be saved. Ruri and Katagaki went to back to their original world. And Master? It’s still best to watch the anime so you’ll know that none of this makes sense but will still make sense at the end. This reminded me of Kimi no Na Wa and the music video Shelter.
