Ranked #5297

Ame to Shoujo to Watashi no Tegami

Rain the Little Girl and My Letter is a work of an amateur, who just published his work in the net.
He calls himself (帝国少年) Empire Boy.
it's a moving story of a first love of a girl. It's hard to imagine that this story is told by a man... i can't help noticing the similarity to Senkai's "She and her cat". This very rainy scenery returns you to your barefooted childhood. Everything is so naive, that it won't leave you indifferent to the girl's feelings of being offcast.

Unlike most short anime that I've seen, Ame to Shoujo to Watashi no Tegami (The Rain, the Girl, and my Letter) is more narrative-heavy, with its art being second in priority. It puts an interesting twist on the "love confession in a shoe-locker letter" setup, but its subpar art was distracting, and it was too short to convey anything meaningful. There isn't really any subtle symbolism or greater message, but anyone who's ever felt heartbroken over a rejection will probably relate well to our protagonist, and find appeal in her reaction.

Despite some mediocre drawing, the style in which the environments were crafted were unique, if only because they seemed so out of place. The conversation in the classroom looked as if the room were afloat, almost like the inside of a flying zeppelin. Most of the story passes in a book store, and if not for the fact that it was, well, lined with books, the store itself had the architectural stylings of a feudal Chinese palace. Even the clock, whose ticking the anime devotes quite a bit of time to, is absolutely bizarre in appearance (looking more like an ancient compass than something that's actually readable). The instrumental track playing in the background contributes to the outlandish setting. Over the sound of clockwork and heavy rain, the music goes from a standard strings piece to a cacophonous mixture of steel pan drums and xylophone.

As previously mentioned, the anime's short length prohibits any sort of meaning, despite being riddled with dialogue. Towards the end of the short film, an interesting character appears, only to contribute little to the story itself. However, this little girl, dressed in a traditional chinese outfit and living out of a suitcase (which seems to have its own sink, bed, dining table, and shelves) could probably have an anime adaptation of her own.
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