I love short films
Short film have this unique charm
where the story teller have to get creative
with the way the story is presented,
as with the very limited runtime
you have to make every single second count.
And this is especially true for anime short films
where every single frame of animation
is an opportunity to add to your narrative
in some way.
Ahh sh*t. Are we animating?
Because of this I've always been presently surprised
by the amount of short film
that have emotionally impacted me more
with a five to ten minutes runtime
than some entire series could ever achieve at all.
So when I saw Porter Robinson new passion project
a short film slash music video
animated by A1 pictures
with music in collaboration with Madeon
It certainly stood up there
with the small amount of anime short film
that have impacted me.
So before I go any further in this video
I'm just gonna tell you to watch SHELTER
if you haven't already.
It's only six minutes of your life
so just do it.
Oh, oh wait
Oh what?
Do you have something better to do?
Is it that thing?
You know
That "thing"
you always liked to do?
Look,
this is a PG-13 channel
so we don't even need to say the word.
Let's call it
having a Shinji Ikari.
Do you feel like having a Shinji Ikari right now?
Look,
go Shinji Ikari it all out
and then watch the video
and I'll still be here okay?
Alright, are we all Shiji Ikaried out?
Good.
Did you also watched SHELTER?
Great!
Go wipe your tears
*and possibly also your hand*
so we can talk about what a fantastic job
Porter Robinson and his team did
and yes I think it was fantastic
to get that opinion out of the way
for those of you who will think this is overrated
which is only inevitable
when something small like this
gains as much attention as it does.
Now I'm not here to break down
and analyse the entire short frame by frame
as there are plenty of other Youtuber
who can probably do it better than I ever could.
But also because unlike other short like Me! Me! Me!
the story and over all message from SHELTER
is actually pretty simple to understand,
but in case you missed it
SHELTER follows the story of a young girl
who's in some kind of virtual reality
where she seemingly have free reign over this world
via her magical iPad,
or is it a Galaxy Note sev-
Everything seems fine and dandy
I mean if I was a key anime girl
with literally the entire world at my fingertip
I probably spend all day lounging around my bed too.
But everything is turn on its head
when touching a lone swing trigger her PTSD
causing her Vietnam flashback to resurface.
And would you know it,
it turns out Jupiter got pissed at the earth one day
and decided to crash land
but who cares about that.
Look at this cute little girl with her cute little smile.
Yes, to save this cuteness from dying
along with the rest of the world,
her loving father build a spaceship
with this virtual world in it
which he send her off in
unknowingly trigger a reboot for supergirl.
And that's pretty much it!
She's just floating through space
I guess
for how long?
Who knows
possibly forever
*can I*
*can I at least get some Netflix up in here?*
Despite all this
the short even managed to end on a positive message,
showing us that our memories
even our most painful one
can be use as a steping stone
to move forward in the future as a stronger person.
Which is nice you know
it's always good to end on a little positivity
WHEN A LONE GIRL
is drifting through space forever
when her parent and possibly the whole of mankind
is DEAD
Woah.
that uh
that sounded really bleak when you say it out loud.
Hey Hey, but cute anime girl am I right!
It's a very simple concept
that plays on the core theme of fatherly love
and existentialism through the complete isolation
of a 17-year-old girl flying through space,
but that's the beauty of a short like this
it shines from its simplicity
as not a single frame was wasted
in presenting this idea to us
result in a master of visual story telling.
Eventhough the short have a bit of dialogue in it
we certainly don't need it at all
to understand what's going on.
And the simplicity does not detract from the impact of it,
in fact it enhances it.
And it's the simple core message
that really sells it.
So to all these petition calling for a full series
of this to be made
is just...
It would ruin the entire charm of this short,
something like this saids everything it needs to
and doesn't overstay its welcome
and that's what makes it special.
What's great about SHELTER is you can sense
the love and passion that went into crafting it,
extra props for Megumi Kouno
for handling the character design
and entire key animation
because the animation looks absolutely beautiful
throughout.
But most importantly
you can feel Porter Robinson's vision
burning through every frame with this.
This was his passion project
and you can tell his passion resonated perfectly
with the team he was working with.
It's entirely refreshing to see an anime
that contain the love for the entire medium
from an outsider who for all intents and purposes
has nothing to do with anime.
WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!
Wait,
does this even count as an anime?
Wait let's uh,
let's see what reddit have to say about this.
Yes I wanted to touch on a little debate that happened
when the video was first posted on reddit
/r/anime board
where it got remove for not complying
with this specific definition of what anime is.
HEY! What you try to do telling me
Spongebob ain't an anime
next you'll be telling me I can't talk about
Hey Arnold! or Arthur you fucking hack
This video was eventually put back up
but I bring this up not to troll the entire anime board.
Hi /r/anime nice talking to you before this gets remove
But to bury the question of whether of this
and all future project like this
even count as real anime or not,
and the honest to god answer is
who fucking cares.
We live in an age where the anime we grew up on
and are fans of have inspired people,
many people.
Some Japanese,
some Western.
Some grew up to be normal everyday people,
some grew up to have opportunity
in the creative industry.
And some of these people will have the power
to express their love for the medium in their own way.
Which is why I think small project like this
or other collaboration
could become more common in the future,
and as they do
the line between what count as anime and what doesn't
will just get more and more blurred.
As for example, the term Otaku
has blown vastly from its original meaning
especially here in the west.
Industries evolved
and anime is no longer just strictly a Japanese business,
the audience is global
and so are the companies investing in it.
Hell there are even animators who aren't Japanese
working on anime,
so it doesn't matter if it's just anime,
anime collaborated,
anime influence.
This project and others like it embodies
what anime should be about,
just creative people doing creative things
inspired by some works that are familiar
to all of us as anime fans.
Not some forgone debate about where it was made
who worked on it or who it was targeted for.
Porter Robinson has shown us
that its possible to live the weeb dream
that a single individual can commission
an anime studio to make their own anime.
All you really need is fame,
a shit ton of cash,
an international music producer,
backing from some anime studios and companies
and a great vision with a burning passion.
Easy.
Right?
What we see where is someone's love letter to anime
and it doesn't matter where he came from,
he maybe just a dumb weeb
trying to show his love for a medium
but he's OUR dumb weeb
tried to show his love for a medium.
And that's something you could feel
oozing out of every frame of SHELTER
and it's something that resonate with those of us
who have tried to show that same passion
in our own way.
So,
as a fellow anime fan who also love the medium,
I just have to say
great job Porter.
You did us proud.