‘Pale Cocoon’ is a poignant account of a distant future when the beautiful earth inhabited by the living has been ruined due to the stupidity of the mankind itself, leading the planet to be barren and uninhabitable, and humans to migrate to a supposedly ‘artificial colony’. The blue sky, the vast tracts of greenery and the flora are nothing more than bitter memories of homeland. On the colony, there is the Excavation Department whose sole purpose of existence is to retrieve digitally recorded information of the planet. Ura, a young man, is a member of the Department who is quite enthused to restore the lost data. On the contrary, Riko is a young woman who has lost all her hopes and doesn’t show much enthusiasm in the restoration as she is driven by the feeling that reminiscing about something that has been lost and possibly won’t come back will only be a reminder of the stupidity of humans and bring forth sorrow.
This OVA had a profound effect on me and it is certainly going to stay in the back of my mind for a long time. It is brilliantly presented without it resorting to too much complexity as most of the works with the sci-fic tag tend to be. It is indeed remarkable how it has accomplished to be this impressive in its short duration of 23 minutes. Everything is incredible in my opinion, be it the plot, the art or the soundtracks. Yoshiura Yasuhiro, the writer and the director, has done a brilliant job with both the scripting and the direction. He doesn’t bluntly give away details of what’s going on to the viewers; rather he expects the viewers to understand themselves through the actions of the characters and the surroundings. Viewers in the beginning are made to have a vague idea of something and as everything gradually unfolds, they are made to realize that they were wrong in the first place and it’s actually some other way round. If you have watched the OVA, you probably know what I mean.
I’d like to conclude this review by saying that ‘Pale Cocoon’ is something that you should definitely watch if you haven’t yet. Some of you may have difficulty understanding what is going on in the beginning but don’t let that be a reason for you to turn it down. It gets better after some time. It stirs bitter sweet feelings in you and makes you nostalgic. It comes forth as yet another reminder of destruction and misery awaiting the mankind. I was trying to be critical and rate it 9 but I just couldn’t bring myself to do that. So, a perfect 10/10 score for this beautiful piece of work.
