Pale Cocoon

Pale Cocoon tells the story of a post-apocalyptic Earth as observed by two humans, a man and a woman. They are involved in the extraction and cleaning of digital archives left by humans many years before. They include all types of media, pictures of Earth, newspaper clippings, video... the works. They are to a certain extent futuristic archaeologists. The story follows them as they hope to unravel Earth's history. Although short, as one off OVA, it doesn't feel like it is short. If that makes any sense. The plot is nicely developed and reaches an interesting conclusion.

The animation and direction for Pale Cocoon is ... absolutely amazing. I found myself getting lost in the amazing visuals and rewinding to where I was previously. It is meld between 3-D backdrops and traditional 2-D characters. This was pulled off spectacularly and as I said before, looks "absolutely amazing". The "camera" is used in a very realistic manner and often pulls back to give a sense of grand scale and is some of the best cinematography I have seen in an anime.

The musical score is phenomenal. With piano piece accompanied with a limited orchestra, the music does an outstanding job of accurately conveying the mood. The insert song is fantastic and played at exactly the right time. Overall it is some of the best music I have heard in a short anime.

The characters, who I don't think we ever learn the names of (I have a poor memory for names), are nicely fleshed out over this short story. The male lead is voiced very well and is very believable. He is very serious about his job and is eager to learn the truth about Earth. The female lead is always a little side-tracked and is beginning to lose interest in the project. She is very interested in a particular, for lack of a better word, shaft. This stairwell has a special place for her...

Overall I really enjoyed Pale Cocoon, and although it was short at just over twenty-two minutes it didn't feel like anything was left out. It comes to a very satisfying conclusion and is a must watch for any anime fan.

[This review contains a few minor spoilers]

The OVA has a fairly straightforward message: that Earth and its beauty is irreplaceable, even by the most advanced of technologies. In the dark, gray world the characters live in, the only faint resemblance to earth among all the steel is a color -- green. The characters keep going down the levels of their own world to live closer to a fake green - the "ocean" -, yet all they ever do is lose themselves even more amid all the machinery. In the end, when one of the characters finally gets to see something natural he realizes just how ... little he knows about what the world used to be. His very own definition of natural is changed, the last word of the OVA echoing that thought.

Theme-wise it is an interesting OVA, but a good theme alone does not make a great anime. Taking care of our planet and home being irreplaceable are things that have been talked about for decades and using a grim tone to approach the subject seems self-contradictory. Instead of celebrating the life of the celestial body we inhabit, the OVA decides to persist on the idea of human stupidity and irresponsibility. It paints humans as undeserving of the perfect Earth, turning the relationship between them and the environment something almost divine-like in its depiction. The case can be also made that showing human failure and sorrow makes the point more memorable, so how much someone likes or dislikes the OVAs take on the issue it presents will be up to personal preference.

All that being said, whether I agree or not with what the anime presented does not make the way it presented it any less good. Pale Cocoon is very dull and claustrophobic, but that was its purpose all along. The animation does a good job of creating those feelings when the music does just as good of a job undermining the entire work. On the flip side, the same thing which makes it good also makes it bad when we are presented with CG that often times feels to be in all the wrong places (for example, when the screen pans over CG wires laid over a CG desk). Yet, once again, despite the shortcomings of the animation, the music is the only truly awful aspect of it, with a song towards the end of Pale Cocoon serving as the lowest point of a mediocre score that makes itself far too noticeable.

Pale Cocoon is a good watch for the people who don't mind meaning over enjoyment, but unfortunately I'm not one of those people. Although it does feel like almost everything in it serves a purpose, it is one of the least enjoyable things I've watched in a long time, and therefore not worthy of a rewatch, regardless of how well it may explore a theme or how many hidden meanings it may have.

Yawn. Total waste of time.

The visuals are pretty, with smooth and life-like animation as well as pleasing character designs. It also showcases some cool-looking futuristic archival technology. However, while better than average, the visuals are not groundbreaking -- easily surpassed by 5cm Per Second and its ilk. They are also repetitive.

Plot is thin, derivative and not particularly well presented. The characters are unengaging and underdeveloped. Dialogue and soundtrack are forgettable. Moreover, the pacing is self-indulgently, navel-gazingly slow, making this piece boring despite its short duration.