I’ve learned to approach feature-length movie retellings of familiar stories with a lot of caution. To put it bluntly, at best they’re unsatisfying summaries and at worst they ruin what I liked about the original in the first place. In the case of Eve no Jikan, one of my favourite pieces of animated SF in recent years, I prayed it would be an exception. Fortunately it does Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s screenplay justice from start to finish, and even though the majority of the film is pretty much the same as that of the six-part ONA there’s enough extra material to keep the old fans happy but it retains that unique winning formula.

The best part of all is the fact that this is in full HD: the series was from the outset a cut above the made-for-TV fare in terms of details in the artwork and fluidity in the animation, so the big screen treatment is what it deserves. If much of the content itself is the same then seeing it all in such glorious resolution is in itself worth the experience…and of course the increased detail means you’re less likely to miss some subtle yet potentially important plot point.