Anime: Ame to Shoujo to Watashi no Tegami: Short Short Story

Cute. Interesting.

I personally liked this one. It has nothing but the simple emotions, a bit of uniqueness, and a twist at the end that is somewhat a truth to life. However, all good things can have their wounds; even if it was an amateur developer, it can suffer.

Also, being that this is a rather short, easy-watch kind of anime, I'll keep this review significantly short to avoid rambling.

A letter.

Katari (forgive me if I'm wrong, it just happens to be that I only recognized this at the end in the credits) wants to give a letter to a guy in her class. Although she's not sure of the results...

Yea, that's all to it, folks. Six minutes of purely a girl's thoughts on a letter prepared for some guy in her classroom. It stays poetic and cheerful, and even imitates some of the "slice of life" emotions one could find in Someday's Dreamers - I personally just love how it follows up to it's "chuckle-inducing" conclusion.

The good stuff? This short story actually demonstrates all the necessity for a colorful plot: a problem, a touch of humor, and an ironic sort of conclusion.

The bad stuff? Being that the animation is awkward and very amateur, the plugged in MIDI-synth music doesn't add a drop of elegance to it, so to speak. Still, I recognize the efforts, and I should say that the very first song has its bit of prettiness.

Recommendation? Anyone who likes short stories! Heh. Honestly, I couldn't point this out to anyone who couldn't handle an amateur animation, nor to anyone who hates synthesizer BG music. However, this anime's fragility and familiar approach to romance makes up for its weaknesses, so I could point it out to more people than the average otaku.

Just love it because it's anime, ne? ;-)

Ame to Shoujo to Watashi no Tegami (wow what a mouthful) is enjoyable and has a good deal of merit if you take it as what it is, short amateur anime. It's hard for me to assign fair ratings, simply because it's impossible to compare something like this to a longer, intensely-developed story, but I'll do my best to evaluate it in the context of the form it's in.

Technically, Ame to Shoujo to Watashi no Tegami was nice in some regards, and extremely disappointing in others. I liked the art and backgrounds a lot, both in style and execution. Everything has a sort of warm but eccentric feel, reminding me a bit of Haibane Renmei in some way, although baerabas' characterization of it as Myst-like is also appropriate. The bad part, on the other hand, is the whole motion side of the animation, which just comes across as clumsy and awkward. The CG on the drawbridge and the cells with the girl walking down the street stand out in my mind as particularly unnatural. The animation near the end gets better -- although still possessing a real awkwardness, it feels appropriate at least.

For something this short, the development was rather nice. Sweet story, timely...I did predict some things before they happened, but there were also some twists to keep it interesting. I feel like it managed to be bittersweet and hopeful, while not turning sappy. Just honest. Still, I find myself comparing this with the other anime of similar length I'm familiar with, Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko (She and Her Cat, for the Japanese-ignorant), which in my mind does a much better job painting out a brief slice of life in a moving, poetic, and personal way, without any real drama. At least Ame to Shoujo to Watashi no Tegami has better color though, eh?

Despite it being unexceptional in many ways, Ame to Shoujo to Watashi no Tegami left me with a feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment. With something this short, there's really no excuse not to watch it and see what you think. It deserves a good deal of credit just for effort, and I'm sure I'll keep it around, watch it again now and then, and pass it on to friends.

Hmm, how to rate an amateur anime? Difficult job. Let's start with the animation.

Although I am very unfamiliar with the different CG techniques themselves and how time-consuming they can be, I am unimpressed by this short animation. The character design of the little doll girl (who is 3693 years old according to the web site, believe it or not) really seemed to be a spin-off of some Final Fantasy 7 dude, while the other characters were pretty much static and color-dull compared to the world they live in. However, I recognize the amateur effort behind all this, so I put 6, because the quality of the animation itself doesn't make this necessarily a bad episode and should not make you walk away from watching this.

The music though, is on the verge of doing that. Without trying to be mean, it sounds like a bad third-rate copy of some random mid file. I have again no idea if the author composed this, but I am thinking that it is just so easy to find classical music that has absolutely no copyright, in either wav or mid format, that I would consider redoing the soundtrack of this video, hence the 5.

The story itself is quite simple, and one would think going in one direction from the synopsis, but the author actually explores two avenues, the love letter and the girl's dream of becoming a novelist. While being quite cute, poetic and all, it somewhat fails in what it delivers, making the link between the two 'plots' too frail and unrelated. The rain-sadness cliche is also too simple and easy a metaphor in such a short time. Plus, adding the random FF dude distracts us from the real purpose of this animation, which was supposedly making us explore the feelings of the main character through her first love letter. Hm.

The originality of this short story is in the world in which it is built, which reminded me of some fantastic Myst-like universe. It's worth a watch (even two) if only for this aspect. I thus put its value at 7, for the effort, and encouragement. I would never be able to create from scratch a whole story, animation, soundtrack, and put it on the web just like this.