Genius Party

Genius Party represents 7 short animated films made by various talented anime directors of Japan. Unlike 1 minute long Anikuri, creators had 15-20 minutes this time, to fully express themselves and have an impact on spectators. Each episode is special in their own ways so I'll comment laconic on every of them.

Genius Party – What an amazing way to begin the series! Atsuko Fukushima, also known from makin op/ed of Robot Carnival served her job and made an excellent introduction episode. It's very surreal, full of symbolisms and graphic looks also a lot better than in Robot Carnival.

Shanghai Dragon – Yet again we ... see Shouji Kawamori from the different side. I really love his sense of humour. I enjoyed watching Project Omega in Anikuri and this parody short isn't an exception either. Yea there are lots of mechas, lots of actions but still the main attention is directed to an useless brat which saves the world. Characters really manage to shine in this 20 minutes.

Deathtic 4 – My least favourite part. There's lack of story, depth and characterization. The only thing that makes Deathtic special is 3D graphic. Shinji Kimura was working on it after all. He has done a marvellous job for Steamboy as well, which is the most expensive animated film in Japanese history.

Doorbell – Very unique. First of all I must say that the Director is Yoji Fukuyama , who isn't famous with anime at all. The atmosphere is really intense whole 15 minutes long. The design isn't as strong as the story, though I mostly enjoyed it. Anyway Doorbell is another interesting version of developing Paranoia.

Limit Cycle – Philosophy is always the strongest point of anime, that's why Limit Cycle is one of the best episode. 20 minute of monologue about life, death, religion and etc. But what mostly surprised me was the name of the Director: Hideki Futamura. In most of animes where he took part in, Hideki had a secondary role. So this was his time to shine and he definitely managed to show us his talent.

Happy Machine – Another Surreal addition to Genius Party from Masaaki Yuasa.Yea, he's the one I was looking forward to most and I must admit that Happy Machine didn't disappoint me at all and remains as my favourite short. I also understand that 15-20 minute isn't enough for a build-up + satisfying result + big impact but that's what directors should resolve and Masaaki Yuasa did stand out.

Baby Blue – Baby Blue is another high-school romance with some action elements in it. What also made it outstanding was the characters and sweet soundtrack. In a nutshell Baby Blue is a worthy appendage to Genius Party collection.

So Genius Party is a great chance to get know to some remarkable Directors and their talents. I am sure everyone will find their favourite ones. As for me I think strongest ones were definitely Happy Machine and Limit Cycle. The only thing I was a bit disappointed with was the romance shorts. Anikuri within 1 minute had much more to offer. I mean the episode from Akemi Hayashi (Gainax) exceeded my expectations. Overall the shorts itself are creative, neat and although they do vary somewhat in quality, there is so much to see in such little time that it is more than worth it.

The cell is the smallest unit of life. Its mechanisms are complex, and only after many years of observation and exploration have we begun to understand their functions. Certainly, the examination of multicellular organisms warrants a much more exhausting amount of research. Even more sophisticated is the existence of life so varied and so involved that it involves taxonomical classification schemes and entire bodies of research. Plants have different organs which serve specific purposes, are able to reproduce sexually, and perhaps most interestingly, transform sunlight into energy for life. Animals consume other creatures and have a conscience, exhibiting specific social and survival patterns and are ... able to learn from their experiences and transform their sensory input into wisdom. Humans go as far as to have sentience and grammar. Where does the extent of our ability to understand life lie, and what is the attainable extent of life? These questions may not be answered in our lifetimes, or ever. There may be no answers.

Genius Party is a brilliant anthology of mind-stimulating shorts which attempt to shatter modern animation paradigms. Driving the stories is the idea that the human mind is filled with unknowns, and that our universe is clearly incomprehensible. With such obvious observations, it follows that anime as an art need not have its content presented in a segmented and understandable way, for that would fail to emulate the very world we live in. Rather, life is too complex to be understood, and it is through its confusion and novelty that we must wade in order to find the answers. As human nature would have it, we can find meaning in anything as long as we believe in its significance, although whether or not anything truly has significance may be indiscernible.

Commenting on Genius Party as a whole is difficult. It is, after all, a collection of disparate stories from a diverse cast of directors. They all succeed in providing a snapshot of current anime trends and capabilities, but their goals are as varied as their plots. It is without question that all the shorts have the asset of awesome animation, motivating soundtracks and captivating stories. Even if they fail to resonate with the audience, boredom seems distant due to the sheer novelty and excitement of the works.

Genius Party comes highly recommended not only for the anime enthusiast, but for anyone who has even the slightest interest in cinema and entertainment. The audience is certain to pick favorites among the stories - which stories you find interesting may depend on your life experience and perspective. It may serve as an interesting exercise to contemplate why those stories click with you; you just might learn something about yourself.

Since Genius Party is a compilation anime with no overarching connection, I'll post what I thought about each one in the order of my favorites.

7. Limit Cycle
This one was really bizarre. This is the longest short at about 18 minutes, but struck me as the worst of the whole thing. Basically a man made out of static and moving motifs goes on a very long, fast paced speech about.... literally nothing. Usually if I see someone say something attempted to sound complicated but falls under its own weight I don't believe them, but I see this as one of those cases. The man talks about ... a variety of philosophical, religious, sexual, and biblical topics with absolutely no context, all in one stream. This must have been a nightmare to sub, it was almost a nightmare to watch as well. Maybe the point of this short went completely over my head, I wouldn't put it past me, but if you are expecting any kind of explanation of what is going on or any kind of basic premise on which your interpretation can be based on, you will not find it in this short. If I had to guess optimistically, the point was to be as chaotic and nonsensical as possible, in order to make some sort of "sentence-art" phenomenon to go on. This would work out well with the visuals, which are extremely spectacular, both technically and creatively speaking. A variety of colorful motifs and symbols take up the screen most of the time, and it is cool to see. Not enough to make the short itself fun though, unlike in the Genius Party opening short.

6. Doorbell
This short also struck me as weaker than the rest. The premise revolves around college student looking man, who finds himself unable to walk into places or houses because a specter of himself is already in the house, and no one can see him. This sounds strange on paper, its also strange on screen. Although this short is about 13 minutes, it still felt a bit too long. At least half of the short revolved around the nameless main character walking around town, which isn't exactly a technical marvel or art style or animation I might add. In the end it was rather boring because of this, as well a premise that didn't interest me. The climax obviously carries some deeper meaning, and I won't reveal exactly what it is just in case some are reading the review without seeing it. My interpretation is that the young man is either bipolar, or it has something to do with how people put on different faces and sub-personalities based on their environment. Definitely not strong on that though, as it was an ambiguous climax. I wouldn't watch this one a second time.

5. Shanghai Dragon
The theme of this short is the imagination of children, and the premise is a young chinese boy acquires a futuristic device that allows him to create basically anything using it like chalk, that is he makes a drawing out of something with it on the ground and it comes into reality. Overall I was mixed with this one. Unlike Doorbell or Limit Cycle, I never got bored while watching it, but I wasn't stunned by anything either. The theme of children's imagination conquering the evil robot overlords was cool but, when you think about it, all of these Genius Party shorts already have a theme on imagination to begin with. The visuals definitely had a style to them, but it wasn't a very unique style like the one used in Deathtic 4. The action and chase sequences were both very fun to watch, as well as the finishing scene were the boy powers up into his imaginative toku suit of armor to fight evil. Again, didn't blow me away but its just another addition to the compilation, and is good variety in retrospect. Cool crayon art stuff on some scenes. Salute to Sai and his cuban cigars.

4. Baby Blue
This short is directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, the well known director of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. A high school student asks a girl to skip class with him and go somewhere. The girl agree and they head off, all the while small talking and reminiscing a little bit. It turns out they don't really know where they are going, but eventually decide they want to make a turn for the beach, and off they go. Baby Blue features very hushed voice acting, which gives off a subtle feel compared to the rest of the compilation, and the banter between the two really complimented the atmosphere well. This isn't one of those shorts that tries to hit you over the head with symbolism, its just kind of a simple story that I can't really describe much further without spoiling, but it works well. There were some funny scenes too, most notably the part where they were intercepted by the bike cop. Bike cop had a cool voice too, good audio experience indeed. I liked the ending too. Another good short and a nice quiet anime to compliment with the crazy action of some of the other shorts. Besides that, not much else to say about this one.

3. Genius Party (short)
This is the titular short of the compilation, the first of the pack in order, and also the shortest at around 5 minutes. It is similar to Limit Cycle in where, you really don't know what the hell is going on. That is to say the events that transpire are without any form of context are background information. Big difference though, it isn't 18 minutes long and full of monotonous nonsense. Instead, its an explosive piece of animation, with awesome art style and spectacular choreography to boot. Everything is colorful and complimentary, it is a huge visual and audio presentation and a great way to start off the short. An animation explosion is what it is. It's so short you could watch it on youtube in a few minutes so I won't say whats going on in the short besides theres these really happy rocks and they love to dance. Great anime.

2. Deathtic 4
CGI oh no! The CGI is really cool though because it has something many CGI anime lack, and that is detail to the art. Usually because CGI isn't meant to look like art i.e drawings in the first place, thats for the modern traditionally animated anime. This short features a bunch of zombie dudes trying to send a frog who fell into zombie land through a tornado in the sky or something (Uzu Uzu.) They get embroiled in some shit on the way. Plot is straightforward. Fantastic art though seriously, its like some kind of woodcut style thing. I usually hate CGI but I really loved the style of the background and the art. The style was particularly cool, everything is dead and zombieish, character designs fit the bill and they are all very unique. Props to the zombie police and Posse. This was one of the most entertaining shorts for me, mostly due to the reasons above, I really like when the shorts feature experimental animation or art or cool design, this one has all three. Details on the CGI, its basically like the characters themselves are computer generated, but they have a caricature style that you usually don't see in CGI anime, although you see it in western CGI alot. The backgrounds were mostly drawn in though. Anyways its a short with a simple premise but its unique because of some really funny scenes and cool style. Also all of the characters speak in some kind of bizarre, incomprehensible Scandinavian/Russian which only adds to the out of worldness of the environment.

1. Happy Machine
This was my favorite short in the compilation, and is directed by one of my favorite directors, Yuasa Masaaki who directed Kaiba, Kemonozume, and The Tatami Galaxy. If you had to relate this short to anything complete he has worked on, it would be Kaiba. In a sense, Happy Machine is a visual prototype for the style and the atmosphere featured in full on Kaiba. The visuals and the design of characters, creatures etc. are very unique, in fact they are my favorite of the entire short, even more so than in Deathtic 4. I love how chaotic and enjoyable the director can make a short with such a simple premise that it goes without words, but will go with words for the sake of the review: A baby is taken care of in a bizarre machination of a day care center, only to leave it on a combination of impulse and accident, and ends up venturing out in a world that really doesn't have any laws of physics to speak of. The short is made up of several main scenes, like parts where the baby encounters a flame who burns his crackers, and riding a gigantic horse plant thing. It is not reliant on detail to add to the experience, instead more so on really cool atmosphere, music, and funny scenes. This is a kind of anime that you can just turn your brain off too and go wide with wonder, kind of like the baby. I wonder if this was the intention. Happy Machine has a theme about the cycle of life that only really makes sense at the end of it. It is really entertaining, an animation and style experiment that eventually matured into Kaiba, which was also one of my favorite anime. A great one to watch with friends.

Genius Party [Opening]: groovy music, I like it

Shanghai Dragon : it's cute I guess

Deathtic 4 : you ugly, not much to say

Doorbell: Saramago called, he said he did it better; some interesting ideas by the end though

Limit Cycle: Oh my god, shut up, this was so pedantic and dull. 20mins in length but felt like an hour

... Happy Machine : might feel a bit draught out but Yuasa always manages to compel you to stick around

Baby Blue : Shinkai in shambles. The most "short and sweet" out of all of them. Would love to see another anthology film or OVA by Watanabe.

Genius Party won't speak to the mind of a regular anime fan! Oh no. It will let down a shoujo or josei fan big time, mecha fan also doesn't have a lot, action fan could just leave in the middle! It's mainly a playground for the directors to try their intersting ideas that they always wanted to bring to life. Their shorts are sure unique, but also weird at times! It is a try to be universal, but as I said, weird factor! :)

It doesnt't mean that the shorts suck. But they don't represent anime in general. I watched this movie in a hall in ... Germany, where I was trying to give a glimpse of anime to my boyfriend. Man, was that a bad idea! :D He found it: 'Hmm, interesting. What was that loooong dialog in that part about?! I left listening after 3 minutes...''

All in all, Genius Party is influential. You will think about some of the shorts for a long time probably, because it's art. But the movie is not a great watch in general.

Genius party brings a group of directors, each of which assigned an 5 to 20 minutes episode. The result? 7 unique pieces of anime from across the board. When I think anime, this is the kind of thing I imagine - the huge variety and depth only animation can achieve.

Genius Party. First is a 5 minute ride through the surreal. It is lively and compelling and appears to take you through the unknown in this bizzare world. Fantastic. 8/10

Shanghai Dragon. Second shows that even a simple kid can save the world. It glimpses the somewhat "genius" of children, and their huge imagination which have ... adults have lost with time. Great animation and an interesting action packed storyline. 7/10

Deathtic 4 boosts brilliant 3D animation, but not much else. The storyline and characters all lack depth and perception, though the idea itself of a zombie world is fairly interesting. 6/10

Doorbell at first appears to be boring, but don't be fooled, the conclusion clears up the confusion and leaves you with a strange feeling and a particular concept. The animation personally I didn't like. 6.5/10

Limit Cycle. A monologue that explores the philosophy of life, God, the Man.
The animation compliments the text, a compilation of flashing moving pictures which give an overall feel of thought and dreams. It gives life through an entirely different perspective than daily life and addresses life's questions in what feels like a different dimension. What is God? What is nature? Watch with an open mind and let it take you through thoughts and feelings on a whole different level. Truly a "genius party" in a sense. 8/10

Happy Machine contains the rare quality of surreal reality, similar to that of Kaiba. With quirky animation you are landed with a baby and its adventures through the peculiar world and its dazzling creations. 7.5/10

Baby Blue. Shinichiro Watanabe, who brought us Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo this time strikes with a short glimpse of life. The story catches an evening of love and departure of a young boy. The fantastic animation brings to life this bittersweet conclusion, similar to that of 5cm per Second. 7.5/10

Genius Party is recommended to all anime watchers, just for the celebration of what the vast world of animation can bring us.
[Overall: 7/10]

· 'Genius Party' Atsuko Fukushima:
A kind of metaphor without dialogues about the creators and the public. Good start, very good animation, colorful, original and a good sound accompaniment. 6/10

· 'Shanghai Dragon' Shoji Kawamori:
Fifty years ago some Chinese children discover a strange sword in the schoolyard, one of them picks it up and it lights up. If the thing started well with the first short this second one breaks that feeling. Neither the animation, nor the story or anything have something special, and not only that, it also tells something very typical in the world of manga and anime, and also with that geek tone that ... unfortunately presents so many things in that industry. 2/10

· 'Deathtic 4' Shinji Kimura:
A zombie child has a living frog, zombie police punish anyone who has a living being. One afternoon he meets with some friends to throw the frog to a hurricane that connects the world of the dead with that of the living.
Very funny, has a striking animation and a great atmosphere, with touches of Tim Burton's works, or a series that I loved as a child, 'Courage the Cowardly Dog'. 6/10

· 'Door Chime' Yoji Fukuyama:
A boy sees how a clone of his is ahead of everything he wants to do, so that others do not notice his presence.
Short with classic animation without too much charm and somewhat rigid. The story is fine, but manga like 'Gantz' play it with a lot more depth. 4/10

· 'Limit Cycle' Hideki Futamura:
A series of fascinating images accompanied by a discourse about God, humans and others. The background is too pretentious, it wants to be deep but it is rather senseless, bombastic phrases one after the other that globally mean nothing. Still it is a good experience, especially for its visual section. 6/10

· 'Happy Machine' Masaaki Yuasa:
A child is connected to a machine that makes him dream and live adventures in strange places. Previously I had already seen the feature film 'Mind Game', by this same director. I thought that I would like this short film because of the good impression that that movie gave to me, but it was not at that level, I was left quite cold. 5/10

· 'Baby Blue' Shinichiro Watanabe:
A boy goes with a friend to the beach instead of going to class.
The short with better atmosphere and more suggestive. The bad, that unfortunately and as usually happens in the anime show the world and things from a point of view pretty gullible and ridiculous. If it were not for that, it would have been the best of all. 5/10

Genius Party is a breathtaking little collection of amazing short stories. All of the stories Genius Party, Shanghai Dragon, Deathtic 4, Doorbell, Limit Cycle, Happy Machine, and Baby Blue are creative and encapsulating. I enjoyed six out of seven of the stories, Limit Cycle being the one I least enjoyed. The rest of the stories are truly unique experiences and have a defined artistic direction. Genius Party the first film is mesmerizing, captivating and leaves me with a positive feeling after watching. Genius Party has entertaining imagery with a symbolic story as many of these stories do. The second film Shanghai Dragon is funny, ... adorable, and kinda awesome. The mc is a boy and he is adorable. The mc is surrounded by action and fantasy with really well done cool fight scenes. The third film Deathtic 4 is so creepy and weird, but with so much artistic value. I really love the direction of this story it is so funny and interesting. The characters are so goofy and the art is weirdly amazing. Doorbell is the fourth film and it is so freaky and wholesome. The story gives off a sad vibe and tells an oddly meaningful story. The fifth film is Limit Cycle and to be honest it put me to sleep. The film is droning and overwhelming in its excessive audio. I kind of like that aspect but it does not hold the same uniqueness as the other stories do. The sixth film Happy Machine is the most solid film and it is so humble, sad, meaningful, and enjoyable. I love the main character being a baby going through a psychedelic experience of sorts. This one is full of hallucinogen inducing imagery and cutesy fun; made me go through the emotions watching it. The seventh film is Baby Blue and its sad and romantic. All I can say is melancholic story. Now all of these stories are worth watching and enjoying. They all offer one of a kind experiences and I recommend animation fans to watch these.

I'll keep this simple. I'll give a rating for each short then an overall rating.

1. Genius Party - 8
2. Shanghai Dragon - 9
3. Deathtic 4 - 4
4. Doorbell - 5
5. Limit Cycle - 1
6. Happy Machine - 8
7. Baby Blue - 10

... Simply put, Genius Party had a great start and ending (obviously Baby Blue and Shanghai Dragon being the standouts), but a bad middle (with Limit Cycle being the worst). If you are planning to watch this then please skip Limit Cycle it's awful, I can't stress that enough. Overall this was a good anthology series that I would recommend simply for the experience alone.

Overall Rating - 7

Not known to many anime aficionados mainly because there isn’t an English translation, which can make it harder to know about what they’re going through, both of these pieces come from Studio 4°C, who previously known for works like The Animatrix (“Kid’s Story”), Batman: Gotham Knight (“Have I Got A Story For You”, “Working Through Pain”) Transformers Animated, Thundercats ’11 and another movie that I’m going to review after this one.


This is going to be a break for the norm, since Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond is a collection of short 12 anime films (7 from Genius Party, 5 from GP Beyond) from unknown ... to well-known anime directors; I’m going to break down each and every short one by one.


Let’s start with the shorts of Genius Party:



Genius Party: While this is just the 5-minute opening that has a hand-puppet chicken and smiling rock heads, this is, in fact, a very strange and surreal opening to what is already considered to be fitted under the surreal category in anime and it is very impressive to look and be at awe.




Shanghai Dragon: At first, you wonder why this is about some snot-nosed kid (no, really, he has a very snot-ridden nose and never bothers to wipe it out) discovering this magical crystal that you draw food with and then, ALIEN INVASION!!! GIANT MECHAS!!! TOTAL COMBAT!!! Everything has just thrown into that situation and the results match as a pass (as in succeed). Also, most of the characters have made me change my mind about them in a flash and it was enjoyable and a bit crazy to watch.

Deathic 4: Aside from the impressive 3D animation and to live in the world of zombies (and being one), there isn’t much of a story around there, just crazy and goofy antics, which are okay but it didn’t leave it wanting more. In fact, I’ve gotten bored with that segment.



Doorbell: This is one of those pieces that show an example of paranoia and mind-altering animation where a high school boy is wondering why is there another version of him cycling through his daily life. This one is where I’m very amused by this concept and it’s weird and hard to explain results at the end.



Limit Cycle: As all anime fans should know, philosophy has always been a factor into anime and a 20-minute monologue going through that with the subjects of life, death, and religion and asking and answering any question about that. Once again, anime pieces like this should be watched more than one time to understand the point of the subject in order to expand your mind around the basic ideals of your own self and what is around you. But should it last over 20 minutes, which is half the time of what during the last two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion try to explain? That’s a maybe.



Happy Machine: This is possibility more surreal than its other counterparts of the collection. It follows a baby exploring through some odd stages, befriending a fiery flame (briefly), a caterpillar-like giraffe and a green dog and also experiencing loss whenever something bad happens to them. I would say this is a head-scratcher but that would be redundant considering most of the shorts I covered so far is a head-scratcher.



Baby Blue: Now to the one from Shinichiro Watanabe, the famed director of two of my favorite anime, Cowboy Bebop & Samurai Champloo. This is a high school romance piece about two people who enjoyed their night of love and maturing into adults with a bit of action thrown in, which is very dissonant of the previous Watanabe works and it shows and hopefully it could again with his upcoming series, Sakamichi no Apollon (Kids on the Slope). Overall, this is an unusual turn for him and it was remarkably well-crafted.

I'm writing this review to rate each short film separately since it obviously doesn't make sense to give all of them one shared rating.

These ratings are based on MAL /10 guidelines (1 being "Appalling" 10 being "Masterpiece" etc)

Genius Party - Clearly meant to be an introduction for the longer films in Genius Party, this short of the same name somehow manages to become repetitive in its measly five minutes runtime. There is some pretty good art and animation but overall it never becomes too interesting. It seems like something I won't remember watching in a week. 5/10

Shanghai Dragon - Fun to watch. Great action scenes. ... Touching story. 8/10

Deathtic 4 - I don't know language they are speaking. 5/10

Doorbell - With something like this everything hinges on how the ending of the film presents itself. It presents itself pretty well. 7/10

Limit Cycle - I really don't understand this one at all. Although to be fair I gave up listening to the voice-over about half way through. There are some nice visuals present but I could never hope to decipher what they mean. 4/10

Happy Machine - Like Shanghai Dragon, this short film is great fun to watch all the way through. Unlike Shanghai Dragon, Happy Machine has much less conventional storytelling and there is no dialogue present. It doesn't really need these things to be enjoyable however and the ending is like a cherry on top. 7/10

Baby Blue - A fantastic roller coaster of a story that manages to stay believable and immersive throughout in spite of the ridiculous events that take place. In the 14 minutes this piece encompasses it managed to make me feel a more varied range of emotions than most full length anime series. 9/10

Right off the bat, let me say this isn’t for your popcorn-munching, "just here for a good time" crowd. This collection of seven short films from a slew of Japanese animation heavyweights takes creativity and sprints right off the deep end, diving into everything from existential crises to pure, unfiltered chaos. Each segment has a unique visual style and narrative flavor, which can be disorienting, sure, but that’s part of the charm. Think of it as a surreal rollercoaster, where each twist and turn delivers something unexpected, and you’re not even sure if you’re gonna be upside down or flying off the tracks.

The first ... piece, Genius Party, is a burst of surrealist energy, and it sets the tone by slapping you across the face with its “what the hell is happening” vibe. It’s followed by Shanghai Dragon, a heartwarming, sci-fi adventure that sneaks up on you with charm. By the time you hit Happy Machine, you’re in full existential free-fall, watching a trippy journey about a kid in a post-apocalyptic nursery, and let me tell you, it’s just as weird as it sounds.

Not every short is a hit, though. Some are so abstract they feel like a test of patience rather than an experience, and it can be tough to keep up with whatever warped message is being sent. But when it works, it works. The animation quality is top-tier across the board, with each director pouring their heart, mind, and possibly a little bit of their soul onto the screen.

In short, Genius Party is a mixed bag of brilliance and bewilderment. It’s an artsy mind trip that hits more often than it misses, earning it a solid recommendation for pushing boundaries, sparking imagination, and making you question what the hell you just watched—in the most satisfying way possible.

If I could sum this collection up in three words its "not for me"

I detest art and metaphor. Just come out and say what you mean, the only people who need to hide behind fancy words are those who have nothing to truly say.

Most of the shorts fall under "please interpret me" art. Even my favourite the one called "Happy Machine" feels like just an overlong metaphor for birth, life and death.

Two of the three I liked, Happy Machine and Deathic4 really suffer from it but come out ahead because they feel like someone was actually trying to tell a story with Deathic4 ... and Happy Machine was at least cute looking.

My favourite Baby Blue has an actual plot. It's about a boy and a girl cutting class and going on an adventure, mostly just for the heck of it but there are some deeper themes that are very heartfelt and actually work because BB allowed itself to have some characters and a plot! Who knew that BASIC STORY STRUCTURE IS A GOOD THING!!!!
But the ending was absolutely ruined by being played at like, three frames and with a nasty grain effect over the whole thing that really undercut any of the emotion it was building to.

But the rest are crap.
There is one where green eyed John Travolta rambles nonsensically for like thirty minutes straight and that was the absolute nadir of quality.
All the shorts have a weird problem with CGI. Its always done at a lower frame rate and multiple shorts re-use the same CGI car models as Initial D.

I dont know, maybe if you really like art house stuff you'll be able to put up with it.