Ranked #3149

Digital Juice

Digital Juice is a compilation of random anime shorts all done by the same studio.

I'll be looking at each short individually, as they are all unrelated and each present something totally different from one another.

The first short is The Lord of the Sword. It does something I have never really seen done before in anime--it parodies movie trailers. Specifically samurai movie trailers. It shoves random, silly, meaningless words at the audience in-between the actual footage. Nothing is explained, we're just shown random showdowns, a lot of "meaningful" running sequences, and pointless sexuality. It is certainly grin-worthy, especially if you understand how purposefully melodramatic and direction-less the short makes those stereotypical movies seem. The art style is interesting: it uses traditional and historical Japanese art with modern twists. It is sketchy and has a dark look to it. It was well-animated, especially the scenes where there was extensive yet highly pointless running.

Chicken's Insurance follows, and it's completely different from the first short. It looks at a down-and-out insurance salesman trying to hustle some punks into buying 'insurance for their soul'. Except, well, they're chickens. Walking, talking, meat-eating chickens. It is a pretty stupid short, actually. It was made to be goofy and to play on the gags and it works, but only a little. It wasn't really exceptional, nor did it truly tap into its comedic potential. For the art, it blended in 2D and 3D. The 3D art wasn't that great, but the overall look was decent. Everything seemed to be covered in dirt, and there were a lot of dark tones. It went well with the environments, as the scene takes place in a slum-like setting.

The third and shortest anime in the anthology is Kin Jin Kitto. Honestly, I have no idea what this was about. It appeared to be just about a girl running away from people chasing her. That's it. Despite the lack of story, it makes up for it with the amazing technical aspects of it. The music was mechanical and chilling. The visuals were fantastic. The look, art style, direction, camera angles and animation was brilliant. There was a lot of detail in the art, and this was the best looking short in Digital Juice.

Now, the fourth short is one of the oddest. Watching In the Evening of a Moonlit Night or Tsukiyo no Ban will leave you asking one question: 'What the...?' I cannot really say what happened in this short. Set to the backdrop of a very pretty song, we're taken into a futuristic city where a young girl or boy meets the man of his/her dreams and has an unfortunate relationship of being together and being separated for whatever reasons. Now, I cannot specify the gender of the protagonist. It may be a girl, it may be a cross-dressing boy. However, this doesn't really matter, as the story isn't about anything but music and love. The second most important character is an older gentleman with a foot fetish. Neither are truly developed, and this is the weak point of this short. The animation was very good. It paid attention to minute details such as fingers working the guitar strings individually, the flick of a wrist when throwing a coin into a can, the slow but purposeful trawl of legs walking. The character design is a little sloppy though.

Table and Fisherman is strange. Showing us a movie is a table and a fish-man. In this movie, runaway lovers go to a Vegas-like setting in an alternate world and make their name there. This is probably the weakest short in the anthology. The art and animation was noticeably weak. There was a brief amount of humour, but it doesn't overshadow the poorer aspects of this short.

And lastly, there's Aerial Bar. It gives us a beautifully drawn futuristic bar in the sky. The entire story is told from an interesting perspective: through the glass of the owner. It fills, empties, refills throughout the course of the story. Although, there is a twist involving that glass and the owner, and I'll leave you to see it for yourself. Aerial Bar gives us character, setting, and other details through its dialogue. The animation and art inside the bar is definitely not as good as that seen in the first and last scenes. It doesn't really go anywhere, and unless you like listening to people ramble on and on, then it isn't exactly enjoyable to watch or listen to.

To sum up, Digital Juice is really a mixed bag of treats. Some you'll like, some you won't, others you'll just look at it and go, 'Wuh?'

It isn't exactly easy to rate the entire OAV based on adding up each anime. I did my best. The art was generally good, vacillating between extraordinary to bad, the sound was also decent. The stories that are told won't be for everyone, but most were humorous or had unique storylines.

If you're into experimental, odd anime, then by all means, try it out. You never know which "Juice" might be your flavour. read more

This 1 episode OVA is a compilation of various short stories. Each one of them has it's own world: it's own art style, it's own plot and it's own characters; they aren't related with one another at all. Due to the length of the stories, character development is basically null. The voice acting and the soundtrack suits it pretty well, too.

It is decently funny and enjoyable.