Pupa (Movie)

The event that anyone will lay eyes on this review of mine seems highly unlikely. This IS my first time writing a review here, on MAL; so it will most likely lack in many departments. Still, I shall try my best to express my thoughts on Pupa (2019).

To begin, this is a very short anime of only 3 minutes; therefore watching it is far from tasking. Additionally, it is a very silent anime, with no human voices in it. There are, however, other noises that almost resemble a good ASMR. I happen to like this a lot, as it's a nice little change from ... what we usually watch of animes.

The artstyle is quite pretty. The lines and coloring techniques are made to look like traditional art, which I find beautiful. Though this isn't my first time witnessing this artstyle in anime, I still quite enjoy it. It's refreshing and has a nice charm of its own.

As for the plot, it's understandable and expected that there wouldn't be a detailed, intricate one squeezed into just 180 seconds. Despite which, it had a beautiful concept. It did an admirable job at portraying mental health struggles. The feeling of being incredibly overwhelmed, drained, and exhausted. In the few minutes it had to do so, this anime managed to show a fair number of the symptoms mental health issues often entail.

My favorite part of the anime was, in fact, the ending. I won't be going into detail on why that is -to avoid spoiling anything for anyone-. However, I can safely say that I absolutely adored the symbolism in it. As an artist myself, I sincerely appreciate symbolism, especially when it's this well-done. I also like that it wasn't made too complicated and difficult to interpret, but was simple and easy to understand. This is the main reason for me giving it a high rating.

Overall, the anime was a calming and sweet experience. Although the topic that was pictured in it is one of hardship and suffering, it was portrayed in hopeful light and was pleasant to watch.

My overall rating is truly 9/10. Only because it lacked in few details did I not give it a 10/10. This is understandable though since it was only 3 minutes long. It's simply the reason why I gave it a 9/10 instead.

I like the style and music, and the concept is one I resonate with strongly. I feel the need to rate this a 4.5, but in lieu of partials for our rating system, I'm rating it a 5. Why? Because it's not that it's bad... it's just painfully... plain.

It's a simple, safe representation of taking the first steps to overcoming depression. I respect it, and I wish good things to the student who made this film. At the same time, I'm not really sure if I'd recomend this. It's short, so if you want to watch a slightly feel good story about overcoming depressing, I'd ... day there's better ones but that this is alright.

I find myself not wanting to be too hard on student films. This is well made, and there's nothing particularly bad about it, and, while I won't say there's nothing good about it, the work is flatly average and a cliched depiction of sadness, grief, licking your wounds a bit, and then moving on to confront a new day—maybe renewed, maybe not. We don't really get a sense for what the character feels or thinks other than the raw emotions presented through the animation in this ultra-short 3-min student film without any dialogue.

Like, it's not fan servicey when you see her heinie or her ... body undulating in the nude. THIS IS ART! It's visual storytelling that uses simple and easily relatable symbols. Just reading the title Pupa, tells you about ALL you need to know to understand this short. And, no, this is not the trashy and fetishy brother-sister guro thing. This is a SOPHISTICATED Tokyo University of the Arts production.

Wow, I feel enriched already. Art, culture, wow. She's a modern lady, so her apartment is a wreck, and she eats ramen bricks all day and collects plastic water bottles. We get just fine hand-drawn teary-eyed fuzziness whisking us away into decent, creatively arranged transitions in the more classical animation sense (sometimes...), instead of just film editing 101 or uncreative TV stuff. She mills about, watches TV, cries intensely in quick cuts, holds her face in agony... *Insert random cluttered interior B-roll*. Fast cuts, a butterfly, sudden piano, and sad violin to show she is such a pretty little flower, etc.

Frankly, I feel like this was autobiographical, and the female character is an insert for the author. She spent all that time animating, accumulating trash, and then by the end, she's like, "Man, that was agony. I didn't have any idea what to do, so I just depicted how hard it was for me to figure out what to animate, and by creating, I'm like, renewing myself, like a flower, you know?" Then she dumps out all the trash that accumulated during her time animating, and that's the final shot in the animation too. Pretty deep stuff.