Oscar-winning screenwriter Roger Avary on KonoSuba movie: “It’s the reason cinema was invented”

High praise from the co-writer of Pulp Fiction and Beowulf.

Recently there’s been a lot of hubbub about Martin Scorsese not being especially fond of the Marvel movies, not that that’s incredibly surprising. I’m going to go out on a limb and say Lars von Trier might not be the hugest fan either.

▼ Although I have an inkling that von Trier would appreciate our own bleak, claustrophobic take on Spider-Man

But more importantly, we as a society should probably be more curious about what these filmmakers actually like instead of dislike, and get turned on to some of the good stuff getting overlooked out there.

Case in point is the co-winner of the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award, Roger Avary who worked on some of Quentin Tarantino’s early works and wrote and directed the 1994 heist film Killing Zoe.

As a member of the cinema-themed social network Letterboxd, he recently posted a glowing 5-star rating of KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! The Movie — Legend of Crimson.

The anime feature is based on the light novel, manga, and anime series of the same name about a reclusive, neurotic boy who can’t even die right, but does so anyway. After his untimely demise, he gets transported to a fantasy world of wizards and dragons, only to learn that being a hero isn’t easy. In fact it mostly sucks.

According to Avary, it is one of the finest films ever made and worthy of a full five stars. For comparison, he also gave Thor: Ragnarok four stars, Power Rangers two stars (and then one star eight days later), and perhaps most telling is that he gave Spirited Away only three and a half stars.

Some who caught his review on Letterboxd where quick to respond with a “WTF?”

Unfortunately, for this particular film he didn’t leave a written review on Letterboxd as of this writing, but thanks to the magic of Twitter he responded to the previous tweet with his thoughts.

Avary also fielded a follow-up question of which magical girl from the series was his personal favorite.

▼ Megumin (Left) and Darkness (Right)

Meanwhile, many in Japan were surprised KonoSuba was even known outside of their country, let alone seen by acclaimed writers such as Avary.

“These are different times we live in.”
“Maybe one of his kids hijacked his account.”
“It’s an excellent lolita anime, but is it okay to show overseas?”
“I think if they take out the erotic elements it could be really popular in other countries, like they did with Sailor Moon.”
“Really?! There’s an American version?! It’s like we ended up in a parallel dimension.”
“Too bad he’s wrong. Aqua is the best.”
“Of course he likes it. It’s great.”
“All right! Let’s get a Hollywood version going then.”
“Sounds like his daughter took him to see it and he ended up liking it too.”

Having never seen any KonoSuba personally in either language, it’s hard to say if some of the more racy bits were toned down for the international market, but it certainly wouldn’t be anything new if they were.

I am intrigued by it now, however, given Avary’s glowing endorsement, and after perusing his other five-star reviews of Starship Troopers, Mad Max 2, Robocop, The Evil Dead, and Raising Arizona, his taste is pretty on-point. By the way, he appears to like and dislike Marvel movies on a film by film basis for those who like to get all worked up about that stuff.

Source: Letterboxd/Roger Avary, Twitter/@Protokhan, Hachima Kiko
Top image: PR Times
Insert image: PR Times
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Credit:
at 21:16

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