Ranked #1981

Jumping

There's a reason humans have invented planes, gliders, hot air balloons and helicopters: we want to fly. While the character from the anime Jumping doesn't exactly fly, he does something we all wish we could do: soar through the air with just a little push from our feet.

Jumping is an anime short that's all about point-of-view and the lives of dozens of people all over the world. It's pretty simple. A boy walks down his street and decides to jump while he walks. He jumps a little, continues, jumps higher, continues; soon he is able to jump over cars and fences and trees. He jumps so high that he's taken out of the suburbs and into the city. And from the city, he jumps all over Earth. He jumps so high and so far that he's even taken to a place that is not even of this physical world. This experimental film is not the most complex. It does show us that while in our part of the world, we could be lounging in our apartment getting a tan or arguing with a police officer about a ticket, but in another part of the world, there's war, someone is being killed, or the whales are just migrating.

The art is very clean and pencilled. There's little detail except for minor sketching and the colours are dull. It's an interesting style that reminds me of American cartoons or illustrations from the 1970s or so. The anime is mostly an experiment in the first person perspective. It really is interesting, and the art direction is quite unusual, especially considering the decade it was made.

Jumping does not utilise a score or background music, but sound effects. There's a little noise from the little boy, the quiet thud of his landings, chirping birds, splashing water, honking car horns, bombs exploding--that sort of thing. The one prominent sound used throughout the anime is the whistling of the wind and air being cut through by the boy's jumping. It creates a peaceful moment that breaks from the noise on the ground below.

There's not much to say about characters in this anime. The boy serves only as a plot device, jumping from place to place. It is his perspective that we seen anything from. There are people who he sees and who react to his presence, though mostly with inquisitive looks or screaming. He does go on an adventure of a lifetime, and he is rather nonchalant about what he sees, never interacting with anything, merely observing what he does see.

Jumping is a pretty good anime short. It isn't too long, so it doesn't get dull. And the wider leaps that the boy takes allows the viewer to see more places and different things. Think of this anime as an exercise with a jet-powered pogo stick. Recommended if you like different uses of POV and experimental anime. read more