Next A-Class

In the not so distant future, to cope with the traffic jams and verticalization due to the increased population, the city of Tokyo was reconstructed under the theme of city sharing in which people share the urbane space by transforming the roads and city structure by time of the day. A woman named Nico is walking in the city. She is having her long-awaited day off; however, she does not know what to do and who to hang out with. She hopes an exciting thing suddenly happens.

Then, a truck passes right before her eyes. The loud music and flashy decoration of the vehicle reminds Nico the car it that everyone's talking about on the internet. As soon as Nico sees it, she runs after it, then runs into Gatsu and Makito. Nico gets in their latest A-Class and they chase after the truck driving through the city that is changing its form rapidly.

(Source: AniDB)

Kai, Kuniko Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Ganaha, Koku Main

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Kasuya, Makito Main

Suzumura, Kenichi Japanese

Old Man Supporting

Kishino, Yukimasa Japanese

Nishikubo, Mizuho Director

Itou, Satoshi Director, Planning

Mima, Masafumi Sound Director

Kawai, Kenji Music

Reviews

May 2, 2019

-Elina-

Recommended

The Chase is on! With the New A Class Mercedes
The Mercedes-AMG A 35 4MATIC hunchback is getting a advertisement thru japan animation with a amazing storyline ever heard of the urban legend? THE RAMEN NOODLES vans! Filled with delicious ramen and a very improved engine inside

The story itself is pretty straight forward it will make you laugh especially if you love cars just like me
The Animation surprise me with the amazing concept of the future city with great detail and the chase action of the cars the characters are well made

This anime is recommended for car enthusiast and its amazing that it was made ... by Mercedes themselves

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Aug 20, 2017

Sidewinder51

Mixed Feelings

Rate a 5
English Subtitled

Story
A bit confusing. At first glance there is a mention of an event that took form. Whether it was true or not is debatable. Then shortly after a chase for a legend begins. The problem was that slight mention in the beginning was not relevant at all to the story. Since the beginning event was so brief the viewers are forced to rewind and play back to see if that was the subject from earlier. While that is good way to cause revisits in views in truth it is aggravating plot wise. Plot, is suppose to lead to a gradual lead in ... to prevent confusion.

As for the ending another random toss-up is thrown at the viewer. You get so fixated on what it is going on to suddenly back pedal to another?

Art
Did a fine job of covering the visuals. However, the transition from the female main character's starting location to leading location was a rather big leap. Yes, i know when it comes to walking or running or whatever you are bound to regain the same body posture you had earlier. So, in theory keeping the posture and changing the background is a nice time/cost efficient shortcut. I agree and disagree. I disagree for it can and did throw confusion to was a scene missed? What was with the sudden change? Were the powers used? Was it a dream? Too many question asked at that moment when a few more slides could have been added to prevent it.

You might think why care over one moment in a show? good question. If something is wrong with a bill like an unexplained charge wouldn't you like to know why before paying for it?

Characters
As if the cover shot doesn't make it clear this was strictly business made. You have your financier and you have your product. Sure you get to advertise or demonstrate the features provided but it comes at a cost. Without much plot this is not much different than a commercial. And i think i speak for all commercials are annoying.

Overall: A clever marketing tool but lacked in plot.

P.s.
I don't think they really cared about the detail that was applied as long as the car looked nice. Some examples...

1. why start off with an improper 'bang'?
2. Nice zoom in on the yellow shirt. It bares a strong similarity to something that is forbidden depending where you are. Is that the secret to their 'success' in some manner? It certainly would explain the lack of follow through.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 20, 2020

mistersunday

Not Recommended

Well... if the story would've had a little bit more direction Mercedes could've made Next A-Class look less like a capitalist marketing scheme.

Overall, I thought that Next A-Class had good animation and decent sound combined with a promising set up. Having the entire short take place during a high-speed car chase was fun and it had potential to present a cool yet interesting story. I wasn't expecting a transcendent message or anything, but even with 6 minutes there could've been some kind of takeaway... instead Mercedes just shows us a futuristic car that doesn't even exist (at least not with those specs). It was clear ... that the story was built around the promotion of the company rather than trying to weave the promotion of the company into an already compelling short story. Ultimately, this short video fails to transmit any kind of message or narrative beyond a simple car chase, which is still underwhelming even within the parameters of its 6-minute time frame.

I just think that there are so many successful animated shorts (eg: Paulette's Chair, Tsumiki no Ie) that are able to convey powerful messages or recreate idyllic moments. Due to this, Next A-Class falls kind of flat in comparison. It gave us a cool car chase at least so I guess it has that going for it.

Story: 3
Again, it's a car chase with no real narrative. I try not to judge shorts too harshly when it comes to this category because I attempt to take the time frame into account, but even with 6 minutes the story could've had more direction. It would've been nice if some of the 'folklore' surrounding the Noddle cart was focused on to create higher stakes for the car chase. Anything to make the story feel somewhat captivating.

Art: 8
The animation was definitely good, everything was animately quite well for the most part. There were some exciting scenes in there.

Sound: 7
I really liked the sound! I thought the soundtrack was good and matched the atmosphere of the car chase appropriately. I thought there were times when the sound effects were slightly too cacophonous and I couldn't really make out what was going on but I guess that's expected for a high-speed car chase.

Character: 4
The character designs were decent and they definitely had distinct 'personalities'; however that's about it. They could've dropped more clues about the characters in the dialogue or animation. Successful shorts can present (seemingly) fleshed out characters in a short time frame. Next A-Class missed the mark with that too but at least each character had individuality.

Enjoyment: 4
I can't say I didn't have a bit of fun while watching the car chase, but when the short ended I didn't feel like there was much meaning to what I just watched. It was more like Mercedes just tried to subliminally ingrain their logo in my head lol.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Animes sponsored by car companies

by IdeDial

7 Entries · 4 Restacks

Poll: NEXT A-Class Episode 1 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 18, 2012

46 replies

by ArchNoir »» May 2, 6:30 AM