Clione no Akari

There's quite A NUMBER of shorts for (particularly) this season, and Clione no Akari is one of them.

To starters: Don't go watching this if you don't appreciate just around 10 mins watching a short, only to end up winding about it right at the vert start.

Story:
The story resides towards Minori, the bullied one, for being different towards everybody. In that sense, Kyoko and Takashi took notice and begun looking out for her. At certain moments, the (some) sort of connection towards the Clione bears heartstrings towards both of them, and only realizing that Minori had a limited time to live due to an illness, and ... thus, taking care of her to experience what she could while she's alive.

The story won't win any awards, but it keeps the pace nice and steady throughout the shorts.

Characters:
Generic, and nothing much to say, except that they blend within the storyline quite well (since this is from a novel). VAs aren't bad, but so is the limited production value that gives us cringe-worthy voices.

Art/Animation:
Not a care too, but is solely decent. The art especially is of a jerkish design since it comes from a studio that pronounces their first work (this one), and probably sticks to doing shorts down the road.

Sound:
The OST doesn't help much too. While they are OK in certain spots, don't go expecting a whole lot.

Overall:
Unless you have spare time, then give this a try. I admire the lonesome storytelling of someone who's bullying as a context, but ended up not getting the enjoyment factor.

Initially it was difficult in deciding whether to give Clione no Akari a watch. Upon completion, my general thoughts on the anime was that it was decent and I appreciated the concept of the show and what it tried to accomplish even if in trying to execute that idea, it might have come up a little short.
The story is focused around a bullied girl, Minori and explores the dynamics that come to play between her and other characters within the class, in particular with Takashi and Kyouko. It's one of those stories that can tug at your heartstrings as you witness the happy and sad ... moments that take place in the show. Unfortunately I think the short duration of each episode lessens the impact of some of the emotional scenes.
The art is fine but I think the art style isn't appealing and holds the show back. The characters are okay and they do a good job of carrying the story however none of them really stood out and it was hard to get invested into them.
I didn't get that much enjoyment from Clione no Akari but as I said earlier I appreciated the idea behind the show and that it tried bring a spotlight to the issue of bullying.

Some anime get hyped up hard, so much so that you get tired of hearing about it and seeing ads for them. Others, like this anime here, barely make so much as a blip on the internet. Some anime that get this treatment do wind up being good, and you wonder why they're so underrated. Others don't fare as well, and sometimes they're better off not being that popular. Clione no Akari is one of those titles.

The story's about as cliche as it can get. A poor little sick orphan girl is always bullied by her classmates for...her very existence, apparently. Two of her classmates, ... a girl named Kyoko and a guy named Takashi, want to stand up for her, but are scared of getting bullied themselves. One day, they run into her outside of school, and they finally decide to get to know her better, eventually being friends with her for real. One day, she winds up getting so sick she has to stay in the hospital for two months, not being able to attend school. During that time, Takashi and Kyoko get a strange text from someone, telling them about a summer festival coming up.

Yeah, the story's pretty cliche, and the anime doesn't even try to do anything to make it interesting or intriguing in any way whatsoever. It's been done before a million times, others have done better, others not so much, and Clione no Akari doesn't really make much of an attempt to try anything new with it, other than Minori's interest in sea creatures, namely clione, which barely appear much. The series is very short, only having twelve episodes, all of which are under ten minutes long, so it does have that going for it. The voice acting is relatively good as well, though I admit that at times, Takashi's voice could be kinda grating. The music, while unremarkable, is nice as well, and I did like the ending song.

Unfortunately, those are the only positives for this show that I can think of. The rest of it is, quite frankly, uninteresting and unremarkable. The animation isn't too special, and other times some of the character's faces looked really wonky and messed up, like an eye wasn't aligned properly or someone's limbs looked dislocated in a few scenes. The characters are all plain, bland, and one-dimensional, with very little depth to them. Minori, the sick girl in question, is hit especially hard with this, as she's pretty much a Mary Sue: a pure, sweet, naive, lovely little girl with no faults other than being shy and meek, who's always sick and getting bullied by other kids just because she's the perfect victim. She's portrayed as being a perfect, misunderstood little angel, and that's not good character writing. The rest of the characters fare little better, with only having one personality trait and not much else, completely lacking in substance. I did appreciate that the anime tried to redeem Yukine, one girl with dark pink hair, and make her see the error of her ways. If anything, she's actually the most interesting character in the show. But it's still not much compared to everyone else. The bullies were just as stupid and one-dimensional, hating on Minori for no reason at all, even straight up blaming her for things that it's obvious she'd never do. I've seen better, much more three-dimensional bullies elsewhere. Also, one guy claims Minori is prostituting herself. Seriously?! What in the world gave them that idea?!

I also felt that Takashi and Kyoko's reasons for being friends with Minori came off as extremely shallow and superficial. It was basically, "Oh, she's always getting bullied. We feel bad for her, so let's be friends with her so she'll feel good and so we can make ourselves feel better!" They instantly befriend her just like that. No chemistry, no build-up, no genuinely good intentions, nothing. This is a trope that I see a lot in most anime, characters being instant friends just because they're in the same class or they just happen to make eye contact, etc. I find it really stupid because as someone who's always had trouble making friends all throughout my school years, friendship isn't like that at all. You have to make connections with people, find things you have in common with them, build on them, make the effort to get to know them better, and NOT just hang around them out of pity or to make yourself look good. I always made friends by looking for people who share the same hobbies and interests as me (anime and manga), and if they do share that interest, I try to build on it from there. You don't just randomly decide you're friends with someone just because you're in the same school. That's not how real friendships work! That's my biggest beef with this anime, personally, and the main reason why I dropped this one anime called Wakaba Girl, because it pulled the same stunt, and it was so stupid and poorly executed that it made me want to barf.

Okay, that's enough of that elephant in the room. Furthermore, the anime's ending episodes were pretty poorly written, and the final twist was just mind-boggling if you even try to apply any kind of logic to it. So...yeah, while I do like this anime and did find things to like about it, unfortunately, it's a bland, mediocre, poorly made and written anime that was far too shallow and superficial for its own good. Seriously, I can write a better story than this, with the exact same premise and themes. If you're looking for a good anime, or other piece of media, that handles friendship and bullying better, give this one a miss. It's not worth it.