One of my all time favorites.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The show starts out rather strange with a plain suddenly exploding over a quiet little town. Then they suddenly talk about a boy named Hal who had passed away and a girl who seemed to be his girlfriend is taking it pretty hard. To me, this beginning just feels like it was a promo for the show instead of the actual show because we don't really get any information at all. We can speculate what's going on, but that's all. We don't get a full picture of what is actually happening. And then we have a robot that becomes human in order to help the young girl. I'm actually not sure if we could really call him human right away though as he doesn't seem to know how to actually act human or feel human. I know this is going to into philosophy but this really does ask the question, what does it take to be human? Throughout the whole show, we learn a lot about Hal. I mean the real Hal in fact, not the robot one. I like how we learn through Robotic Hal's way of learning then just being told straight out. It gives us a mystery to solve then just a romance. In the end, there is a point when Hal's past seems to haunt the two. And then in the end, it really changes around, making things a bit more confusing but making it really fun all the same. It's not like any other love story between a robot and human. It's hard to explain because of it being such a big spoiler that it would mess with you. You really should watch it if you are interested in knowing what the hell I am talking about with switch. And even at the end, there are one or two things that don't seem to not be closed up, things that should but don't take away from the story.The artwork is amazing, and the sort of playful toy aspect to this is rather cute. All the vibrant colors and amazing little adornments all over the place. I didn't really see any problems with the animation being poor, though I didn't like some of the design aspects they did for a couple background characters. It doesn't mess with the story but it makes me frown slightly at that. Still, the design of the rest was wonderful and made me happy to even watch the show.The English dub was so good; I couldn't believe how wonderful the voice acting was. Of course funimation did give it the dub so I shouldn't have expected anything less and yet I have seen some that felt like they needed a bit more. Each person sounded like what I thought they should sound like, even the ladies at the adult day care sounded good and those are normally the ones that would of sounded bad if there was a bad voice. The strange thing is that there were not that many names that stood out to me in the cast. I mean, there were people like Todd Haberkorn and Chris Burnett but the rest seemed like they did mostly background characters before this. They may still do background characters in this one too but the characters give a better connection with the world and emotions.This is one that I definitely think you should watch even if you're not into sci-fi or romance. It's not one or the other and it sort of opens up the idea of just what a Robot could be as well as just what a human could be.

I found out about HAL by just checking animeultima.TV randomly. I watched the first few minutes, saw the cool art style, saw robots, and figured it should be worth reviewing. Now, after watching the OVA, I feel drained in a way in which I wish I could cry.Characters & StoryThe story is set in a small town which just saw a tragedy. For reasons left unexplained, a plane explodes killing one half of the local young lovers. A grandfather and his robot watch this, and the robot does what it can to help the young lover left behind. So, the robot becomes the lost lover to help the living member cope, by giving them the opportunity to say the things which were left unsaid, and do some of the things the lost lover would have did with the living one if they were still alive. By the end of the film, it seems the person comes to terms with their lover's death, realizing that a part of them never left.PraiseI wanna take note of the follow thing: First and foremost this is an anime with a beautiful art style; secondly, it is an hour long; and third, if this doesn't make you cry it will make you feel a deep sense of sorrow. Somehow, despite being just an hour, this film quickly takes you from seeing a bunch of random faces to knowing their names, feeling like you know a good piece of their story, and though you know your ultimate wish of the whole situation being a dream is unlikely, it does exist within you. I mean, most movies can't hardly get a romance like this right in 90+ minutes, and yet this OVA gets you engrossed in 60. Proving sometimes animation is better than reality.CriticismWhen it comes to criticism, I really can't think of one. I mean, they could have possibly made it longer and shown more of Kurumi's back-story outside of her being the local sweetheart, maybe even showed a bit more of how she fell in love with Hal, but sometimes less is more. And really, as it stands I think adding that little tidbit would have been just some extra fat that may have gave a bit more flavor, but overall wouldn't have been that necessary.Overall: Must SeeIt's an hour, easily accessible online, and legal, to view so there is really no reason to not see this unless you are vehemently against reading subtitles. For, though short, it perhaps has one of the most beautiful, and sad, love stories and what is better than watching something which makes you feel? Hence why I say it is a must see, whether you are an anime fan or not.

To quote Wiki's summary, Hal movie's story takes place in a technologically advanced society in which robots can be programmed to behave like a complete human. A robot is asked to replace "Hal", who died in an accident, to help Kurumi, Hal's girlfriend move on in life. "Hal" struggles to understand the real Hal's past, Kurumi's affections towards Hal as well as the meaning of being alive.To me, this is one of the more memorable sci-fi movies of 2013. The film does not appear to be particularly emotional and easy to watch. But it has its touching moments. What I like about this movie is it paints a very realistic approach on robot rehab (even though it is not a commercially viable technology at this time).Much of my rating is skewed towards the greatest magic which lies in its very successful twist. Because that twist made this movie stood out amongst many other movies touching on rehab topics out there. Still, considering the subject matter, the movie is far from perfect, at least in my opinion knowing that the director had been involved in many other high profile anime works in the past (like Place promised in our early days, Attack on Titans etc)