Next A-Class

Mercedes-Benz is started to making anime hahahah..
Hmm driving through the city in Mercedes-Benz Car that's all for the story.
Companies started using anime for selling cars Yeah!!!

Car model (Mercedes-Benz A-Class).

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.