The thing that I like in the drama genre (well, it was stated that this movie is in the drama genre) is how it will always seemingly attempt to become meaningful to its audience, and the way by which it achieves its meaning can to some extent be separated from the actual overarching story. Both superficially and essentially, what makes a piece of artistic medium meaningful is the general story or message it tries to convey. Most likely, when the story fails, the entire medium becomes trivialized and nonsensical and the viewer has to resort to plot devices, which are often cliched, in order to grasp some meaning into the story. Primarily, the plot devices that the drama genre utilizes are to me, far more effective in creating meaning than most other genre. Things in drama like cheap feels, even when the main story does not make sense, often tells the viewer that there's something more to the story, and basing from the viewer's perceptions and experiences, symbolism and embodiment of human realities are re-imagined by the viewer himself, even if such things were not even intended by the medium to begin with. This is probably because strong emotions like sadness are the ones associated with those symbolisms. Other genre, like comedy and action, when they become trivialized, and excluding the incorporation of drama in the stories they progress to, are vulnerable to being boring and insignificant. Taifuu no Noruda was cliched with this respect, but nevertheless highlighted this feature of drama rather satisfactorily to me, despite a very poorly presented main story.
So taking the main story into consideration, it could be said that almost everything did not make sense. The pretty obvious explanation was that there was very limited room for story development. But even with that, I feel that some short animated films have done a lot better in terms of building its story, the key is to select obscurities to apply which although will make the story incomplete, will create that eerie atmosphere where the story challenges the viewer to make the interpretations of the events himself, thus still making sense in his perspective. With Taifuu no Noruda however, I think the reason for failing to make sense is that the main story is sci-fi-ish, and sci-fi stories definitely beg for a whole lot of explanation. In fact, the story wasn't only incomplete, it was almost contradictory-kind-of-confusing way. Like Noruda said that she was sent to this world to rebuild it. Yeah, I get it that main questions come to mind of the viewer like, "Who sent you?" "If you're not human, what are you?" "Why did you end up in that school if you are supposed to rebuild the world?" More importantly however, it was kinda confusing whether or not the rebuilding-the-world thing is a good thing, and it felt like she was trying to stop it and even looked happy in the end after the catastrophe (?) was prevented, and she seemed reluctant in doing it. Things like this, I felt, needed to be addressed by the movie to define the stance it takes as it goes along with the story. In terms of the conflict of the two friends however, I felt that it was justified how the actual reason of Azuma leaving the baseball team causing them to have a fight, and only hinted with their conversation later in the story saying something about running away from Saijou. It was a perfect example of obscurity that while seemingly makes the story incomplete, actually adds up to the realism of the story. Furthermore, in my opinion the two major conflicts actually weren't that unrelated at all, in fact it is adequately connected in a prospective manner, like how the conflicts eventually affected each other's crucial details, although I woud personally prefer a retrospective connection of the two.
As what I have pointed earlier however, the drama genre has the ability to convey messages exclusive of the main storyline that still enables the viewer to grasp meaning into the entire medium. As far as my interpretation goes, it seemed to me that Noruda wasn't trying to stop the rebuilding of the world. It was her responsibility, and a big one at that, but she seemed very reluctant at it. As what she stated, she was going to be reborn. She even warned Azuma to stay away from her and leave the place. At that, it could probably mean that rebuilding the world means destroying it and all of its iinhabitants. They were all going to be sacrificed for the "greater good". It was also explicitly stated that she was being controlled by a particular necklace she's wearing. I think that those details create very significant symbolism about creating decisions, like sometimes decision-making isn't for your own anymore, and you have to consider everyone at stake, even if it means taking something to your own disadvantage. And she bravely took that decision by being ready to face her fate anytime. Relating it to the conflict of the two friends, I felt that Azuma was conveyed with the exact opposite of Noruda, like he's always taking things on his own, being selfish when he wanted to leave the school grounds with the incoming typhoon approaching. This is potentially related to the very first conflict which actually really bothered me as it dictated the entirety of events into motion: Why did Azuma want to leave the baseball team? Then he met Noruda, learned her fate, attempted to stop it, and realized that there are things that matter to him (like Saijou his best friend) and he wanted to protect them, probably inspired by Noruda's conviction and bravery. Despite the great sacrifice Noruda had to make, still they ended up stopping the storm, and in the process, stopped the opportunity of having the world reborn, and Noruda in the end was seen smiling. What did it tell the viewer? Probably it means that the world isn't so bad at all, and Noruda from the very start realized it (maybe she was previously an inhabitant of Earth?) or that the way to restore the world is not to start from scratch but rather to continue the good and cease doing evil. Whatever that is, it seemed to me that the ending was satisfying and very symbolic although probably these interpretations weren't really intended by Taifuu no Noruda from the very start.
Once again, I am really frustrated with Taifuu no Noruda. It could've been good, too bad it didn't. Still oddly satisfying to me though.
