Iblard Jikan

Background: 10/10
The artistry is amazing. The movie is directed by Naohisa Inoue who did the "Whisper of the Heart" backgrounds on the fantasy scenes (which has a similar feel). His paintings commonly take place in the land of Iblard (hence the name). Since he uses his actual paintings the backgrounds look great. An additional bit of info, it looks like his technique is similar to Sachiko's in "From Up On Poppy Hill" http://www.iblard.com/english/draw.html

Animation 2/10
To give the paintings life water effects are added over and other little things, the problem is everything sticks out like a sore thumb. Also they make all the paintings move to ... make it seem like you are actually in the world, but it ends up extremely clunky and flat. The animation is so distracting that I spent more time looking up the paintings than actually watching the movie.

Story -/--
There is no story so nothing to judge.

Character -/--
There are no characters so nothing to judge.

Iblard Jikan (Iblard Time in English), is an interesting experience. The best way to describe Iblard Jikan is that it's like looking through a window into another world, and getting a brief glimpse of the potential beauty that the world your looking at offers.

There isn't much to talk about in Iblard Jikan, as there is no real plot or characters to speak of, and there isn't really a need for one. The entire short exists just to show a slice of the world it created. What few characters we see are brief cameos by characters from other Ghibli projects that are added into the paintings, ... as a way of showing that the world you are watching is alive and there are stories going on even if you don't know any of the details.

The OVA was released as part of the Ghibli ga Ippai Collection and was directed by Naohisa Inoue. This short takes place in the fantasy world of Iblard, originally depicted in paintings by Inoue, which were inspired by the fantasy sequences of Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart. Studio Ghibli produced this short by digitally animating portions of the paintings and integrating original elements into the scenery.

There are a total of eight separate segments, each featuring a different painting or landscape, accompanied by an instrumental musical piece, making it feel like it's a journey all around the world that it's showing to you. The OVA has an original soundtrack composed by Kiyonori Matsuo, all of which match the laid back tone of the artwork. The result is a wonderfully relaxing experience to sit through.

Iblard Jikan is the type of media that is hard to give a score to, since it relies only on what the viewer is thinking or feeling. It would be easy to throw around works like "delightful" and "thought provoking", but this experience can't really be summed up by a simple review like this one. And the whole thing is one of those 'love it or hate it' experiences.

It's also hard to recommend to everyone since it's a 30 minute art piece that's simply meant to relax the watcher and bring them into the brief glimpses of the world it presents, but I'm sure the audience that it was intended for would get exactly what they're looking for out of it, as it makes for something nice to put on when you want to just unwind, fall asleep, simply something to have in the background.

The art style is visually nice, from what i hear Ghibili are the go to for film art and even though this is old the detail in the back ground is really amazing. However the animation is a little underwhelming from what i'm used to.

However i'm no art critque so my appreciation is not that developed yet.

The story was simple enough to follow along but not that intersting, the hardest thing about getting into this is that there are no spoken lines. It's not a silent film because of the music that accompanies it but the music seemed to almost be the same melody ... for 30 minutes, no grandiose type scores like in thumbelina which makes it lacking as this is the only sound you hear for thirty minutes. Overall it was intersting but not my particular tastes. I give it a six as it's not something i personally would rewatch.

Iblard Time is a collection of paintings set to calming music. I do not like the style of music used, but I like the paintings a lot. The paintings were slightly animated as to tell a story about how the world at that location works. The colours are vibrant and the environments are fascinating to look at. There is a lot of detail in each painting, which is why there are about 5 or 6 to look at over the course of this short movie. This is a good movie to watch for people that appreciate art. You may not enjoy it because there is ... no overall story and no events that happen.
I enjoyed watching Iblard Time because I like good art, but it is difficult to recommend because it is nothing but art.