Aug 23, 2014
This short, created in 1998 by Koji Morimoto has a lot of spirit put into it. However, I feel it also comes up short in many ways, and probably ends up being the director's weakest work. Let me explain why.
First, the story is nonsensical. Things happen for seemingly no reason and nothing is motivated by anything. There really isn't much of a tale to be told here at all. Things just happen, nothing has any real meaning to it at all, and then things just kind of end. I will say that for as much of a lack of story there is, things are presented
...
very well.
Now, onto the audiovisual side of things, I actually really enjoyed this aspect of it. Considering this was animated in 1998, the CG looks remarkably good, and it looks like there's also a bunch of hand-painted backgrounds included here as well. The whole production is really ambitious, and while the visuals don't completely hold up today, they are still passable, and end up being really interesting when put in the context of being as old as they are.
The sound design is pretty well done, with appropriate music throughout and good sound effects and voice acting. The voice actors did a good job of portraying their characters, for sure.
Of course, the characters, while they have interesting visual designs, don't really have enough time to get fully fleshed out in the short, 3-minute runtime. The "mamapapa" robot is a weird, crazy, hyper-reactive machine... and it's one real trait is simply yelling and going crazy. The kid is your typical rebellious brat character, but his motivations also aren't made clear, and he ends up just feeling kind of empty. The characters aren't necessarily bad; they made a good first impression on me. I just feel like if a bit more time was spent on developing their personalities, I might like them more. Alas, this short is only 3 minutes, so that kind of thing is basically not possible.
Overall, I enjoyed this short, somewhat. It was weird, confusing and just kind of ended without telling much of a story. However, the directing was very nicely done, it has a nice audio mix, which sets the tone very well... and the art, while not incredible, was still interesting enough to propel it forward. This short is definitely all style and no substance, but it's a pretty interesting style, and what it provides was interesting enough for the 3 minute runtime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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