Ryo

Sigh,

Ryo was one of the four films of Anime Mirai 2013 (Young Animator Training Project), a project funded by the Japanese government's Agency of Cultural Affairs in order to support training animators.
I stumbled upon a lot of sci-fi shorts following the same program, but this is a first for me, feudal Japan was always a great plot setting for me, I just love the mythologies and even the core culture itself, but with this short, I got more than I bargained for...

- Story(7/10):
The story follows a young samurai boy who goes through a very warm yet unfamiliar experience after he loses his parent due to ... war that was caused by the shakey relationship between Japan and England, the event all happened during feudal Japan, somewhere briefly the modern way of life has begun to expand throughout the world.
You really get to see the emotional state of the children who have no choice about their future but to become a literal killing machine, our Protagonist, who is named Ryo by this guy he idols, gets to experience the kind of life that his master and father figure provides him with until of course, yet another time, a tragedy brings his newly formed family to the bedrocks.

- Art (7.5/10):
I'm fond of this gloomy-like atmosphere of a tone, its environment tends to lack bright colorizations, but that really helps the morality of the story get some reveal, so no wonder, the characters' anatomies are pretty realistic for such a stereotypical feudal Japan-centered show, it already reminds me of a great deal of other similar shows.

- Sound (8/10);
The ambient soundtrack really does shine on this one, I can't help but feel the characters when I hear those gentle yet cruel symphonies patting my ears, and the ending song is no different, I might as well download that work of art and have a listen to it daily, without shifting our focus to the voice acting, that aspect is really well done too, no overkill of any sorts, and of course, no complaints from me as well.

- Character (7/10):
The sole problem for me was that most of the characters looked very similar to one another, I had a hard time distinguishing them apart, which really left me pausing the movie every now and then, which is, in fact, annoying and very distracting from the flow of the story, which is fast-paced.
For such a short animation, there was a great noticeable character development, the shy and silent boy you get to start the movie with is no longer the same by the end, one other cool thing is the unique character treats, remember how I nagged about how similar the main cast is? well, it was life-saving having to tell them apart by seeing how they act and speak.

- Enjoyment (8/10):
I'm a sucker for a good historical show, was it historically accurate or not, the opportunity to compare the current presentation with that of the past is just a lot of thoughts and wonders, and I'm all for that.
I completely liked the flow of the story, it made me really wanna invest more time into a more episodic adaptation of this source material.

- Overall (7.5/10):
I am most definitely not going to bring this one movie on my daily anime discussion, but if I had to pick a fast, easy-to-follow feudal Japan show, this one would probably slip unconsciously from my mouth, It's still a decent show, very short, no emphasis or anything, but if you had some spare time for another refreshing story, here's one for you.

Being a single episode anime obviously has its limits, and this anime was no exception to the rule. However, when compared the the other three anime in Anime Mirai 2013, I definitely feel that this one fell short.

My biggest problem with this anime stemmed from the story itself. Personally, I felt it was very disjointed. Although I get that there was a large time skip in between scenes, it just seemed too abrupt and not as connected as it should. Another problem I had with the story is that I just didn't comprehend it as well as I think I should have. This probably ... stems from the fact that I know nothing about Japanese history, however, I believe this should have been put in mind when this anime was being created. There are many non-Japanese viewers, and I could barely follow the storyline.

The characters were something else. There wasn't much characterization, and Ryo's character felt a bit flat to me. By the end of it, I felt short changed.

Art and Sound were alright. This whole anime wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything special. It was simply mediocre.

To really enjoy this short anime (only 25 minutes) one must have a good knowledge of Japanese history, more specifically of the Bakumatsu era (1860s), otherwise it's a complete mess.

The story spans between 1863 and 1868, something we know because the first and last scene are the same and there's an indication that the story begins five years prior, but if not for that the story could all as well happen in the span of a few months or weeks because the characters don't show any visible differences (i.e. hair growing, different clothes). There's also no real explanation of what's going on, you're supposed to ... already know who Ryouma Sakamoto was, what he did and the whole historical background for the story to make any sense, there's no outside narration and the dialogues give only a few hints that are hard (if not impossible) to put together with no prior knowledge.

Characterwise it doesn't get much better, Ryo does have some growth in that he goes from being shy to become more outgoing as he stays with Ryouma but even that is poorly handeled, I guess it's a way to show some time has passed but it still does come a little out of the blue. The other characters are almost all really existing people so they have to be there but otherwise they're as hollow as they can be, with (again) no proper explanation behind their actions.

The animation is without doubt the best thing this short has to offer, the action scenes are fluid and easy to follow, while the character design isn't anything remarkable and the background characters tend to look very similar; the background music too isn't anything special, while the ending sung by Hitomi (the one that made all the songs in Code Geass) is nice but doesn't fit much with the tone of the story.

In short, had this story been developed in a full 12/13 episode series it could have been a good addition to the many anime that feature the Bakumatsu era, since (to my knowledge) most focus on the Shinsengumi or only use the historical period as a background and as such it would have been a good chance to see the other side of the story, but by trying to cram too many things in such a short time it actually backfires and leaves the watcher with more questions than answers, one above all: how does the clash between Ryo and Hijikata go? Little spoiler: Hijikata dies in 1869.