Mahou no Chocolate

Mahou no Chocolate is a simple 8 minute short film about a girl who wants to give her Valentine's Day chocolates to a boy she likes. That is it. With a bland premise like that, how could this film possibly be worth watching when there are hundreds of deeper and more experimental short films out there? Well, let's find out.

As someone who grew up in the '00s, I spent a lot of my youth watching Flash animations on Newgrounds and YouTube. The thing that always drew me to these animations was the sense of passion and personality. Mahou no Chocolate is precisely that - a ... showcase of talent that shines through with some neat visual directing and lots of heart.

The visuals may seem primitive by today's standards. However, what you have to keep in mind is that this was all essentially a one-man project, lead by Naoya Ishikawa. The animation on display here is excellent and there are lots of interesting transitions and nice shot composition. It won't necessarily be anything you haven't already seen before if you're familiar with the medium, however, for the scope of this project; it's all very impressive. But we haven't gotten to the best part yet...

Watching Mahou no Chocolate makes me feel like a kid again. Alone in my room on a snowy day, watching Newgrounds without a care in the world. It fully engulfed me in a warm feeling of nostalgia and pure bliss during its short 8 minute run time. And while anime is a wide medium filled with incredible art pieces to open your eyes and mind, sometimes I want to watch something a bit... simpler. Something that can act more like a time capsule and take me back to a certain time period. Sometimes when I grow older and more cynical towards the world; I need something like Mahou no Chocolate to get me through a hard week. Thank you Mr. Ishikawa for making this.

In short: If you were someone who grew up on the internet in the '00s and want something that'll give you a spark of childlike wonder and joy, I would highly recommend this film to you.

Thanks for watching my movie. Please rate 5 stars.

Well... mixed feelings on this one… I mean, I was expecting, considering it’s already just one episode, that it would be a bit longer than 8 minutes.

Mahou No Chocolate, or Magic Chocolate, is the typical story of a girl, crushing on a guy, who wants to ask him out. She’s given this chocolate believed to be magical and will allow her, upon giving it to him on Valentine’s Day, to win his heart. It’s plot was shallow and lacked greatly in any depth whatsoever, as did the transparent characters (there were few): Mami, the protagonist; Koko, Mami’s best friend; and Ishida, Mami’s desired ... love interest. And I suppose you can include Mami’s parents in the mix, or the loving fangirls of Ishida that you see for about 20 seconds as they eagerly shove their Valentine’s chocolate on him.

If you’re wondering why I gave the animation a higher score than it appears to deserve, it’s because the animation, though at first glance it would seem terrible, is actually done solely by Anime Studio Pro (this anime was produced by an independent anime studio, Ishikawa Pro). Obviously it would be much more difficult to animate on that compared to something used by nondependent animation companies. However, no matter the animation tools, it does not make up for the lack of good character and story. It’s just the characters are so typical and unoriginal. I feel more could have been put into it.

If you’re looking for something light and easy to watch, or if you’re simply bored, than go ahead and watch it, it’s not very long anyway. If you’re in the mood for something deep or high quality, though, this would not exactly be the right choice to make.

Story: It's typical girl have a crush for a boy, who is famous in his school. On Sunday is Valentine's Day and Mami-chan want to give some chocolate to Ishida-senpai. But does she have enough courage to do that? It's pretty clished, but also really cute.

Art: It seemed like someone have just draw something using paint. So it's not really good, but it's in someway really cute and fits to story.

Sound: Character have good voice's. It fits fine by the characters and heard fine to me. There wasn't any background music, but it sounded good even without it.

Character: When this special takes time only nine ... minutes, watcher didn't get a good touch for characters. Mami-chan is cute and shy, Ishida famous and Koko-chan is a good friend. But they were also really cute and that's why I gave five points.

Enjoyment: Even if the storyline is pretty normal, I liked it. Story was so cute and characters too so it was really enjoyable to watch this.