Sekai ga Horobiru Mae ni Kimi ni Aitai

I, me, my, you
In all seriousness I absolutely fell in love with this short master piece. In general most short stories fall into one of 2 categories: either they fail to captivate the audience in any meaningful way or Absolutely do captivate the audience and end abruptly or without completing the story leaving a burning desire for it to be longer. Rarely if ever is a ONA, OVA, or Independent Short Animation as emotionally captivating yet succinct as "#I want to see you before the world is destroyed" AKA "World, Before you end"(the bad translation that somehow stuck despite the official website and google translate ... never giving me anything close to that.)

In short its a Independent Short Animation that was funded almost solely by the writers of the SF light novel under the same name, Mizuki Ria and Pierre Ito! The later of which is the director, a voice actor, and a animator on the project. You will not find animation in the same class as AA or AAA studios because Studio Kingyoiro is not at that level yet. However you will find a great story and on of my favorite Theme Songs of all time ever. I love this project and I hope you give it a chance!

Its hard to write a synopsis without giving away to much but I still think the one given on MAL and most streaming sites does not do it justice but the one on the official website says way to much. This might not be much better but this is mine:

In a Japan that's been Terrorized by Mtn Fuji's Violent outburst and subsequently covered by her ashy tears our protagonist Rui is among the first generation to attend school almost entirely online from home. Although some of the adults think it's easier like this Rui is burning up with teenage angst and the desire for human interaction beyond those of his parents and his online classes. Rui's met his only crush only ever online. Our heroine Michiru is a mysterious high school girl who has seemingly accepted her fate without action. Residing in Shizuoka, she will be caught in the next forecasted eruption. Although Rui has never seen her face he knows he has to at least meet her. Is Rui really the one that will be the one doing the saving or is Michiru's fate sealed in this timeline?

PS
Of course I still wanted it to be longer but I am ok knowing it most likely will never be unless someone translates the light novel for me. its on amazon as follows:
"#I want to see you before the world is destroyed" SF light novel by Mizuki Ria and Pierre Ito

Brief overview:

Story: 6/10. Multiple parallel worlds setting. Plot was a little confusing at times.
Art: 6/10. Indie.
Sound: 6/10. Mic noise present for certain characters and basic sound design.
Character: 5/10. Cast has different personalities, but little development.
Enjoyment: 5/10. Felt a little rushed.
Overall: 5/10. A little too short for what it's trying to be.

More in-depth overview:
...
Story: 6/10. This is one of those space-time romance dramas that had a lot of potential. The story takes place during an apocalyptic future in Japan. Everyone is forced to quarantine to survive and a boy and a girl start talking online in hopes of having any kind of human contact. Without going into too much detail about the story, there are multiple parallel worlds that can somehow be crossed into. The method of doing so was skimmed over and felt like it existed just to push the plot forward. In some cases, the story was moving too quickly. Some events would have been better in a slower setting where characters can steadily interact with each other and grow, but there's only so much 30 minutes can provide. This project would have benefited greatly from an extended runtime as the story seemed rushed at points. The conclusion is also one of those abstract open-ended “choose it yourself” kind of situations, which I didn’t find too odd and actually felt like it belonged. However, despite having such a distinct setting, a lot of its potential went untapped. This is a unique original story that had a lot going for it, but the limited runtime cut down on that potential.

Art: 6/10. I came across "Sekai ga Horobiru Mae ni Kimi ni Aitai" purely by chance. The cover visual caught my eye and I decided to give it a watch. Right away, I noticed that the style was very distinct. It almost has this indie feel to it. There's sparse information regarding the staff that worked on this, so chances are that this was made by a small studio. Personally, I think the crude style worked in their favor. With all of the generic styles I've seen, this was actually refreshing. It's by no means eye candy and it definitely caught me off guard at first, but I wouldn't mind seeing this style again.

Sound: 6/10. The sound design was passable. Ambience is basically non-existent, which makes for a much more somber and detached atmosphere, but also makes mic noise more apparent. When sounds were used, it was as if they were pulled from a royalty-free sound library. As for the VA’s, they were pretty decent. Comparing their performance to other VA’s and considering the scarce information regarding them, I assume they’re just trying to get into the business. You can tell that the main VA’s are trying to put personality into the characters they’re voicing and it shows. Each character in the main cast has a unique air to them and you can piece together what kind of person they are despite some lines not hitting the mark. Sound design alone, this section would be a 5/10, but the VA’s bring it to a 6/10.

Character: 5/10. As I said in the previous section, the main character’s have their own personalities. And while it isn’t necessary, there isn’t much character growth throughout the film. Although, to be fair, 30 minutes isn’t enough time to have any meaningful growth. However, it’s important for characters to make the most out of that limited runtime. Unfortunately, "Sekai ga Horobiru Mae ni Kimi ni Aitai" falls a little flat in this area. Some character details that were revealed didn’t feel natural and felt as though it happened just to push the plot along. This also applies to some character interactions and decisions as well. Despite my 5/10 rating, I actually feel that the characters were pretty solid (even more so than characters in some 12 episode anime…) The primary reason for my low rating here is the fact that in the 30 minutes that I was watching, I wasn’t invested in the characters. Rather than the characters writing the story and paving the way, it was as if the story was writing the characters just so the plot could unfold.

Enjoyment: 5/10. At this point it feels like a cop-out, but the 30 minute runtime didn’t allow the events that unfolded to sink in and help me empathize with the characters. The organization was a little confusing at times and I only started to understand it once I finished the whole thing. I liked the concept of multiple parallel worlds, but the means of jumping to different worlds left me perplexed. I sat there thinking about why or how the method would work. Watching to the end didn’t answer those questions. Maybe these kinds of developments are to your liking, but for me, it was a little off. As for the ending, I’m not used to them being open-ended, so I found it a little entertaining. Everything else, though, was pretty basic. There wasn’t much bad, but there wasn’t a lot that was notable.

Overall: 5/10. In the end, it primarily comes down to runtime. 30 minutes isn’t a bad runtime for standalone one-shots in general, but for a story like this, 30 minutes just isn’t enough. Either cut down the amount of characters or have the runtime increased for better world and story building. Unfortunately, "Sekai ga Horobiru Mae ni Kimi ni Aitai" bit off more than it could chew with what it was trying to accomplish in half an hour. Yet, despite this, I consider "Sekai ga Horobiru Mae ni Kimi ni Aitai" to be a relatively successful story. I didn’t find myself waiting for it to end, but rather, I wanted more. If it had more runtime, even by just another half hour, that would allow for a much more natural and well paced story. Some unexplained character details could be explored and the existence of multiple parallel worlds could be introduced more naturally. There wouldn’t be the need of rushing through certain events just to get them out of the way either. This would help me grow attached to the characters and get me to actually care about the choices they make. But, that isn’t the case. The experience I got out of this was a 5/10. The story and art were unique, but that’s about it. For what it’s worth, this is a good story and I truly hope a reboot with adequate runtime will be made sometime in the future.

I don't even know what I watched, it really seemed like a good relatable show towards isolationism that is compounded by natural disasters and a sense of depression. Then it went into a whole runaway thing then came back to reality.

I get what the studio was going for, but it really needed 30 more minutes of setup and development to show characters and why I should care about them. I couldn't care enough about the characters to really be hooked into the story, and it really just felt weird and bland, and is probably something that an AI really could've done a better job to ... manufacture a story.

This is not including the art-style, It feels very poorly made, with characters made by a 12 year old trying to make manga. but landscapes that look really well made and rooms are detailed.

Its not unwatchable, but is really unremarkable, and I wouldn't watch it.