Buta

I don't get why everyone associates this one-off as a furry anime. Have none of you seen Ducktales, Rescue Rangers, Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Looney Tunes, or Tom and Jerry??? They are anthropomorphic animals. Big deal. It didn't focus on anything sexual or anything related to furries. It just so happened that all of the characters were animals.
I really liked this one-off. I wish they would have made a series for it because I enjoyed the characters and wanted them to develop more. I was engaged in the story even though there wasn't really much to go off of. The animation is enjoyable as well. ... It isn't the greatest thing out there but it wasn't horrible either.
The characters were pretty cliche but that is fine because it worked out. It was more about the relationship that the samurai pig and kid fox were developing.
I would definitely recommend this short to friends and fellow lovers of anime because I enjoyed it so much.

There was a period during the short that I was wondering how long it was going to take to get to the end. Chalk that up to boredom or whatever, but I feel like I was amazed that the short was actually the length of a regular anime episode.

Young Animator Training Project/Anime Mirai short reviews: Part 5/12

Buta is a story about a lone samurai guy helping a kid find some lost treasure. Except the samurai is a pig. And the boy is a fox.

Yes, all the characters in Buta are anthropomorphised animals. Anthropomorphisation does have narrative purpose beyond trying to appeal to furries. Sometimes it’s about grafting these animal traits onto human characters to emphasise that characteristic. Sometimes it’s about distancing us from the reality of events so we’re able to take a step back from the reality and spend more time analyzing the symbolism which is the reason why Night on ... the Galactic Railroad decided to turn its brothers into cats.

In Buta, it doesn’t really serve any purpose. If anything, it cheapened its story because turning the characters into animals distanced me from them enough that I didn’t really care about them. At least, that’s my theory as to why I never got into Buta. It could have just been the story was boring. But I’m rather baffled as to why they decided to go the anthropomorphised animals route anyway, so I’m going to blame it on that.

Verdict: Skip

Yeah, you really can't force a heartwarming story. Could be due to the length. That's why this short movie fails for me, even though it had all the makings for a good story/my favorite tropes:

1. Morally gray, anti-hero only cares about himself until he finds something, cute, plucky kid he begrudgingly protects.

2. A mixture of bumbling and competent villains

3. Ninjas and/or samurai

SN: The fox boys' voices are annoying to me. Too cutesy.

Overall, this is the equivalent of a children's' Saturday morning cartoon. No real character development but cute animation and a seemingly fun story (though I was pretty bored). Again, I think if this had ... a longer format, whether an anime or full-length movie, it would have been more compelling.