On the technical side of it, kinda mediocre. The setting detail and character designs were well done although were completely forgettable, which is a shame. They had a magical forest, full of spirits and wonder and so on, but did little with the setting outside of the final scene. If I'm being entirely honest, the music kinda bugged me, feeling almost out of place at times, and in general not very pleasant.
Without exaggerating, it bored the hell out of me, and while I'm certainly not the kind of person who needs an anime to be fast paced or action packed to enjoy it, nothing kept me interested. The premise, while certainly not bad, really wasn't anything new or exciting: small child meets spirit's in a magical wood, forms relationships with said spirits, and continues on from there. But it didn't do much with it, the fantasy itself was for the most part uninspired and felt almost unimportant. Although to be fair, it is trying to be a character drama first and foremost.
The character and romance aspect of it however, which made up most of the anime mind you, was fairly lackluster. It clearly tried to get me emotionally invested in these people although again, they had very little to do and had next to no interesting dialogue. Without spoiling it, when the ending finally came along and it was trying to get me to tear up, I could only respond with an, "Ok then. That happened."
Other short movies such as 5 cm Per Second at least had something to say about love and relationships, but this anime left me with nothing.
I could nitpick minor scenes here and there, claiming that this moment seemed a little contrived and such, but I wont.
Hotaubi no Mori e in summary, was competently crafted but completely forgettable.
