Well, for this particular film, Ishida and Arai decided to flip their roles of Director and Animator. Arai had been an animator for the late Studio Ghibli, now being quite involved with Studio Colorido, he makes his directorial debut with Taifuu no Noruda. The film takes place on a certain isolated island, at a certain middle school, and on the eve of the culture festival. A boy quits baseball after playing his whole life and has a fight with his best friend. Then, they suddenly meet a mysterious, red-eyed girl named Noruda, and a huge typhoon hits the middle school.
This is the longest film they have made running 27 mins. It leaves something to be desired for it's typical approach to narrative rather than relying on subtext through their superb visuals. Not to say the animation isn't good, in fact it's really good, but I feel like they are conforming to more recent character designs instead of the their previous works' style that is reminiscent to the more unique Ghibli characters. It's sort of a mash of the two.
The only aspect that's underwhelming is the approach to its story. As typical of most Narrative focused short films, there is just too much of an idea squeezed into an insufficient amount of time, in both production and in the film itself. The story is too complex, forcing characters to develop prematurely and leaving lots of aspects unresolved. The voice acting also could have used a little more work, the characters didn't feel like they had any emotion, farther detaching the viewer from the story.
As I mentioned, it was very well animated and an interesting idea even though events are rather cliche. Has potential to be a decent series if fleshed out properly. Still quite enjoyable. 6/10 (Note that I rate Short Films on a bit of a curve different to that of a series or full length feature film) I'll still be following and supporting Studio Colorido. I think I'll end up ordering the BD if available. And I hope to see a full length feature film or maybe an original single cour series in the future. And when they do, I hope Ishida retakes his rein as director and Arai returns to the drawing board.
