The second film adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s 2004 eponymous novel, this new one is considerably inferior to Edge of Tomorrow from 2014, Tom Cruise’s own Groundhog D1ay with mechs. It’s not a question of budget or aesthetics – simply a gaping hole of engaging characterisation and inner spark that makes this time loop a grinding chore, rather than a thrilling jailbreak from eternal recurrence.
Directors Ken’ichirô Akimoto and Yukinori Nakamura do, to be fair, switch things up. Instead of the original story’s extraterrestrial “Mimics”, they concoct an entirely new big bad: a dormant alien flower, nattily named Darol, that one day begins spitting out what look like killer nasturtiums. The protagonists have been swapped: the point of view in this version is Rita (voiced by Ai Mikami), the female badass working for the United Defense Force that surveys the colossal plant. Exposure to its quartz spores are what forces her to live her imperfect day over and over.
