Labyrinth Review: Shōji Kawamori’s warped epic about clout chasing is a cumbersome reflection on self-worth and internet fame
PLOT: High schooler Shiori’s dream of online stardom turns into a mission to save the world from brainrot after an embarrassing video of her goes viral, and she’s trapped in her smartphone by a nefarious alter ego.
REVIEW: It used to be that when I would grouse about social media addiction, clout-chasing, and predatory algorithms, I’d feel as if I were screaming into the void. However, the rapid evolution of AI is so frightening, resource-hoovering, and disconcerting that others are starting to talk, and filmmakers are fighting back against the rising tide by sharing poignant cautionary tales about the dangers of “living online” for everyone to consider. In Shôji Kawamori‘s Labyrinth, a 17-year-old girl named Shiori is about to discover that validation doesn’t come from the amount of likes you get from strangers online, but from within. She either comes to accept this or dies figuring it out.
After watching Labyrinth, my brain felt like it was running in circles, desperately searching for a way to talk about the movie that made sense. The truth of the matter is that Labyrinth left me feeling all kinds of strange and ponderous, like I’d missed several vital pieces of information for my understanding of Kawamori’s latest mind job. You know what? Let me back up a bit. Give you some context.
Shiori Maezawa is an emotional wreck. Perpetually suffering from chronic anxiety, she hides from the world, her insecurities a shield for their prying eyes. She’s jealous of her friend Kirara’s social media presence and desperately wants her sliver of the spotlight. She even has a secret account called DonkeyEar that she uses to shitpost and vent her frustrations. When a video of Shiori falling down a flight of stairs goes viral online, it sends her into a tailspin. She’s constantly checking the comments, watching the share numbers go up, the attention taking a bite out of her confidence with sharp teeth. She breaks, and so does her phone. When the phone shatters, Shiori becomes part of an inscrutable, labyrinthine parallel world within it. At the same time, an outgoing, fame-chasing doppelganger takes over her life in the real world. It’s a hell of a setup for a story about tech-dependency, social climbing, and finding your inner strength.
Visually, Labyrinth has its moments when the presentation is so grand that it oscillates between gorgeous and befuddling during the overlong two-hour stretch. While the real world is mostly what you’d expect, the digital world is a carnival of sights, with environments constantly distorting as Shiori ventures deeper into the digital maze. Keeping Shiori company in the digital world is Kimori, a three-eyed pink bunny sticker trapped in the app, XG, for the past 7 years. Kimori’s memory is a bit fuzzy, but one thing remains clear: like Shiori, he’s punishing himself for who he could be, rather than being content with who he is. In that way, Shiori and Kimori are alike, but unless they work together, they’ll never return to the real world.
I’ll give Labyrinth this much: it’s never boring. It’s too long, but at the very least, it introduces enough twists along the way to keep you engaged. The concepts presented throughout the movie are interesting and complex, the kind of stuff you think about when you’re alone, in the shower, or lying awake at night. How dangerous is your phone? Your likeness, your banking information, the parts of your life you choose to present to others; it’s all there in a complicated pattern of ones and twos. While Anxious Shiori fights an internal battle within the digital underworld, her outgoing counterpart lives the dream of becoming an online celebrity in the real world. The struggle between the two Shioris is where the film gets most of its drama. Outgoing Shiori thinks Anxious Shiori is a hindrance to her true potential. With each “like” she receives from her adoring fans, she grows closer to eradicating apprehension and pain from her tarnished soul.
Labyrinth gives audience members a lot to chew on throughout the story, constantly switching between the two Shioris as they work toward opposite ends. Also, if any of this is confusing, wait until we get into the villain’s side of the tale. I’m talking about Suguru Kagami, the mastermind of the XG app, whose goal is to create a better world and “liberate everyone’s ideal selves.” Striving to make amends for a mistake he made several years ago, Suguru wants himself and Outgoing Shiori to be the Adam and Eve of a new world free of anxiety and doubt. Unfortunately, as we all know, that never works. If everyone lived as their ideal selves, what would there be left to aspire to? No one can be equal if everyone’s crowding the top of the mountain.
Considering Kawamori’s history with the Macross series, you’d think that Labyrinth would be a better movie. He’s a master of his craft with decades of storytelling experience, but Labyrinth is kind of a jumble of ideas that come at you too fast to feel impactful. It was only after the film was over that I had time to breathe, let the concepts swirl around my head, and give them time to settle. Suguru’s goal seems clear, but in the end, it’s just another brick wall on the path to accountability and a good therapist’s office. He doesn’t need to change the world; he needs to change himself. Shiori and Suguru both. If you can’t love yourself, what hope does anyone else have?
It’s blowing my mind that this is the second time in one week I’ve watched an anime about social media dependency, and a 23-minute episode of Needy Girl Overdose gave me more to ruminate on than Kawamori’s two-hour movie. Labyrinth earns a lot of points from me for its beautiful environments (the underworld is impressive and constantly introducing new spectacles to behold), and I adore this trend of filmmakers calling out tech and social media for helping destroy our concepts of self-worth. Still, in the case of Labyrinth, there are a lot of questions with no satisfying answers. I may need to start doing drugs again and rewatch it. I don’t know.
Overall, Labyrinth gives anime fans something sparkly to fixate on while racking their brains with themes of self-reflection that show a distorted image of a character having a difficult time drawing a line from A to B. Shiori’s dad should have given her more hugs than Judo lessons, and Suguru desperately needs to touch grass. If you like visually-compelling anime with grandiose concepts that make you question how you spent the last two hours of your life, Labyrinth provides the type of mental gymnastics that could both exhaust and delight depending on your tolerance for self-reflection.
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