When it comes down to it, the main selling point of Isekai Quartet as a whole is watching characters from across entirely different series interact—and often in comical ways. Does this film do this as well as the TV series? The answer is a simple “yes.”

The film begins with our heroes being transported to a post-apocalyptic fantasy world and promptly being attacked. This, in turn, splits them into three main groups. The majority end up with Subaru—though notably without the rest of the titular quartet and Emilia. This allows for lots of humorous interactions between the characters as their leaders are all notably absent. At the same time, Subaru is forced into the role of de facto head of the class and serves as the main point of contact between our heroes and two of the characters already occupying this world, Alec and Pantagruel.

Meanwhile, Ainz and Kazuma (who make a great odd-couple pair) meet up with the final inhabitant of this world, a woman clad in the same style of uniform as Tanya, named Vera. She reveals that she had been isekai’d to this world and is attempting to return to her old world at the head of an army of golems to bring an end to the war. This has brought her into conflict with Alec and Pantagruel, as they wish to stay in this world and are against her returning to her own.

This brings us to the main themes of the film—loneliness and lies. Vera is a woman suffering from extreme betrayal. The Saga of Tanya the Evil world’s equivalent of a first-generation German-American, she suffered greatly once the war in Europe began. She found herself and her family shunned by the community she had grown up in—and vowed revenge on those responsible.

Yet, in this ruined world with Alec and Pantagruel, she found peace and a new family. Subsequently, being betrayed by them—being lied to about not being able to return to her old world—has made her even more distrustful of others and hyper-focused on her original goal.

However, Vera wasn’t the only one alone. Pantagruel spent 400 years on this desolate world as its only conscious inhabitant. With the arrival of Alec and Vera, she finally had someone to talk to—to live life with. Giving that up, even when she knew she should tell Vera what she and Alec had discovered about traveling to other worlds, was too hard for her to do.

Though this web of lies and loneliness puts Pantagruel, Alec, and Vera at the center of the film’s story, that doesn’t mean our heroes from across the Kadokawa multiverse are unrelated to it. The golems that populate the film are related to both the KONOSUBA and Overlord worlds. Likewise, Alec himself has deep ties with the past of the Re:Zero world that set up the problems Subaru and Emilia now face there.

Yet, the deepest connection in the film is that between Tanya and Vera. While Tanya does not know Vera, Vera most certainly knows about the infamous Tanya “White Silver” von Degurechaff. And through her, Tanya is confronted with her own role in starting a world war. But the real meat of their shared story is the question of how much, if at all, Tanya has changed since the start of Isekai Quartet. Is she still the overly rational, empathy-lacking, stickler for the rules she always was in her own anime? Or has she grown to the point where she can sympathize with the plight of a stranger—or, perhaps, even an enemy?

One of the best-selling points of this film is that it actually feels like a movie. Rather than the school setting of the series, we are instead treated to a true fantasy world of ruins, deserts, forests, and golems. Beyond that, the cinematography is greatly improved with surprisingly clever camera work and some legitimately striking moments of visual composition. And then there’s the big extended fight scene at the climax. It’s far beyond anything we’ve seen in the TV anime, and not only does it look good, but it also creatively uses the characters’ powers and backstories from across all the different series to achieve victory.

Isekai Quartet The Movie: Another World is clearly made by a group of people who have an insanely in-depth knowledge of all the series they’re combining. It’s full of fun moments and comedic beats—but also manages to delve into a surprising bit of heartfelt drama. Of course, the insane bar for entry is the weakest aspect of this film, as it’s best if you’ve not only seen all four main anime plus The Rising of The Shield Hero but also the previous two seasons of Isekai Quartet. However, if you’ve seen at least two of the big four anime Isekai Quartet is based on, I think you’ll be surprised at how much you enjoy this film.

“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” arguably the finest work in August Wilson’s 10-play series chronicling the African American experience in the 20th century, is set in a boarding house in Pittsburgh in 1911. The Great Migration is underway, with millions of Black Americans moving from the rural South to the industrial North and Midwest in search of opportunity and freedom.

Gregg T. Daniel, who has been making his way through Wilson’s decade-by-decade cycle at A Noise Within, has infused his revival of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” with a sense of momentous transit. The characters who stop for a time at the boarding house owned and operated by Seth (Alex Morris) and his wife, Bertha (Veralyn Jones), understand that this is a way station, a place to collect oneself before continuing on the fraught journey to an unknown future.

Slavery didn’t end with the Civil War, as Herald Loomis (Kai A. Ealy) knows only too well. He has arrived at the boarding house with his young daughter, Zonia (Jessica Williams), in tow. For seven years, Loomis was held captive in Joe Turner’s chain gang, abducted for being Black, forced into hard labor and separated from his wife, whom he has been searching for since his release.

Loomis has a turbulent presence that casts an anxious pall over the boarding house, re-created with a background view of Pittsburgh’s bridges by scenic designer Tesshi Nakagawa. Bynum (Gerald C. Rivers), a conjure man who serves as a spiritual guide for the other residents, understands right away that Loomis is a man who has lost his song, the imprint of his soul. But Seth sees nothing but trouble from his new guest and tells Loomis he must leave by Saturday.

The timing works out because Saturday is when Rutherford Selig (Bert Emmett), a peddler and touted people finder, is expected to return with news of the whereabouts of Loomis’ missing wife, Martha (Tori Danner). Before he can press on as a free man, Loomis needs to know what happened to his wife.

Life keeps racing ahead whether the characters are ready or not. Jeremy (Brandon Gill), a new resident who’s part of the construction team of a new bridge but would rather be exercising his considerable skill on the guitar, is being harassed by the police when off duty and exploited by a white man when on the job. He romantically takes up first with Mattie Campbell (Briana James), who comes to Bynum to see if he can mystically bring back the man that left her. But after Molly Cunningham (Nija Okoro) flirtatiously moves in and Jeremy loses his job, his amorous attention turns to her, leaving Mattie once again in the lurch, though Loomis has already noticed what a fine “full” woman she is.

Gerald C. Rivers and Brandon Gill in “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at A Noise Within.

(Craig Schwartz)

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Daniel’s production, put into sharper focus by Kate Bergh’s costumes and Karyn Lawrence’s lighting, is at its best in capturing the rhythms and rituals of daily life. The ensemble (full of A Noise Within Wilson alums) melds miraculously as the characters share meals, stories, musical ecstasy and fits of laughter. Wilson had a genius for depicting how people do and don’t get along when they haven’t much choice about the company they keep. Jones, who was so brilliant in Daniel’s production of “King Hedley II” at A Noise Within is just as luminous here as the calming force at the boardinghouse. Her Bertha is the kindly, nurturing counterweight to Seth’s badgering boisterousness, a quality Morris infuses with just enough avuncular affection.

The more time we spend with Gill’s Jeremy, Okoro’s Molly and James’ Mattie, the more we can appreciate the fine-drawn nature of their portraits. The revival has some acoustical static and moments of mumbling, but “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” grows more lifelike and absorbing with each scene.

The spiritual standoff in the play is between Ealy’s Loomis and Rivers’ Bynum, and both actors bring a muscular reality to a reckoning that can no longer be postponed. Daniel’s staging loses its grip during the more hallucinatory scenes between the characters. The natural is a good deal more theatrically convincing than the supernatural in this production. But Ealy intensely conveys the threat of Loomis’ angry-somber brooding and Rivers lets us see that the source of Bynum’s otherworldly power is his humane vision.

Bynum is a seeker as well as a seer, inseparable from the struggles of his people. He shares that living sense of heritage that Wilson, who died in 2005, made the principal subject of his art. This production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” seems like a gift from the other side, that mysterious, creative realm where history is spiritualized.