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"What happened." ~ Me at the end this short film.

I walked into this with high hopes and with the first act of the movie shaping up to be something amazing that soared even higher. Once the final arc of the short film kicked in I was speechless. I literally had no words to describe what was occurring on my screen. Well let me save this for the "enjoyment" section.

IT'S SHOWTIME

[PART 1: STORY]
We, the viewers, follow Hinata, I think, as he tries to confess his love to his crush, Shigure. It's simple but it works. I kind of was confused why the movie was switching ... from a grounded style to a metaphorical style like it was something to be proud of. I think it removes the realism the first half of the short film tries to portray. The ending is such a missed opportunity that if given this project I would have done things different from the half way point onwards. If you found this emotionally impacting I am happy that you did, but I for one could not find it this way.

SIDE NOTE: The very end makes it seem like their encounter was sort in his head which would make the second half lose all of its problems, but sadly they never directly tell the viewer if this is true or not. If I am wrong about this then this short film would easily be a solid 7 or an 8.

[PART 2: ART & ANIMATION]
This is easily the strongest part about the whole experience. Unlike the story that is being told the animation and the music stay consistently good for the most part. This short has a Ghibli/Disney feel, just like what most of what Studio Colorido has done in the past. The art and animation are extremely fluid and expressive for the duration of the film. You could say that it was as fluid as riding a canoe down the Colorado River and when you were riding this canoe a tree branch known as the plot knocks you off making you drown. Sure the water known as the presentation was a joy to the eye, but the story it was telling was no where near the quality of the water. One thing of note is that the CG Train didn't look bad and I must thank the people at ColorDorito for a pretty train instead of a poop one you would usually get in modern day animation.

[PART 3: CHARACTERS]
We have a main male character who is very easy to relate with and get behind. We have his crush, Shigure, whose past is shrouded in mystery. This movie is short and skims over their relationship because of the duration of the experience. I guess they were good for what we got.

I shall end this by saying that this was easily one of the biggest disappointments I've had the displeasure of viewing in a long while. The movie may look good but the story was so detached from any reality that I thought the main character was going to told to pick a pill at the end of the movie. The one I would have picked was to change the ending of this movie. I detest this for squandering its potential and making it something worthy of my hatred after such a strong start. I wouldn't give this movie a recommendation unless you wanted to watch a spectacle in which I could point you to other movies and series that do this much better. For other things to watch besides this that are of the same vain, 5 Centimeters per Second; a love story that acts more closely to the first half of this than the second half, and The Wind Rises, a Ghibli film in which it kind of feels parts of this were cut and pasted from this movie because of how breathtaking some of the shots are.

TL;DR A wasted idea with good production to back it up. Pass and go watch something better.

I will start of by stating that I thought this was very different and better than what I expecting this to be. While I do have experience with the director's other works, this has a level of charm I feel to be absent in most of the other stuff directed by this man.

STORY
This is a modern take on Shel Silverstein's classic, The Giving Tree. The director takes the base of the story and takes a different approach than the original, but maintaining the charm that brought us all to love the original tale. Instead of a tree we have a chair that can move on ... its own. The story is very Disney-esque and I love the nostalgia it gives.

ART
Easily the strongest aspect of this three minute short besides the piano piece that play throughout the whole short. It gives off a very Disney look and is visually striking.

SOUND
Dope piano and strings. I felt the Disney so much. I don't see the Ghibli at all.

ENJOYMENT
The only parts I wasn't enjoying was the stupid noitaminA intro and the fact that it ended so soon. I loved how magical and nostalgic everything felt.

Unlike most of the other things I have reviewed for this site I had a genuinely good time with this three minute short and I would recommend this to anyone. To end with, I would recommend Walt Disney's Fantasia since it has the same exact style of storytelling and Rain Town as it is directed by the same man.

If you are a self respecting human being, don't watch this. This is more of a incomprehensible mess than pretty much anything I can remember in recent memory. They reuse many clips used in the show and the the stuff that isn't reused does not correlate with the story the presented in the show at all. Maybe this is the story from the manga but it is directly tied with the show so I am judging it as such. If you want my thoughts on the whole series I have written my thoughts on that so you can do check that out. Now, I will ... briefly say what I think about each area you usually find in a review.

STORY
Makes no sense with the one presented in the show. This would have been a great way to start off the show but then Shigatsu would have had to actually have had a budget since it relied heavily on reused flashback scenes.

ART
As stated they reuse more footage than even the show does and its truly disgusting to see how lazy A-1 was being with this OVA. The OP does look much better than it originally did and so does the ending song but I think they were cleaned up for the Blurays. The newly animated scenes mostly looked really cheap and the one or two that didn't probably were reused from the show that I didn't pick up.

Sound
Nothing new here. Same old show. They did remix one track from the OST. There was one scene of note that had an insert song blaring over an important scene with Aiza eavesdropping on Kousei practicing his piano. That scene was extremely frustrating as we wouldn't have even known that Kousei was playing if it was told to the audience.

Enjoyment
It was like getting stabbed with a rusty knife.

Overall
This could have been an interesting episode or arc in the show if it was handled in the show but it wasn't. I think that if they were more accurate to how the show presented his past, the OVA would have been much easier to watch. I would have actually been more interested to see his past in a much more grimdark manner. One thing I forgot to mention is how happy the OVA is.

Tl;Dr Shigatsu shot itself in the foot. A bad show now with a worse backstory.

Thank you, A-1 Pictures.

Hello, Visk here and today I will be clearing up this misconception about how this masterpiece has been misrepresented in the other reviews here.

I love Baoh. I truly do. The world seems to also. I've been told that this OVA was the basis for how alchemy worked in the critically acclaimed series FMA. I've also been told that it was also the inspiration for the T800 Robot in Terminator. In many ways this OVA is superior to the aforementioned titles but due to its short run time and lack of exposure critics nitpick just because they are worried someone else will see through their clever ... ruse that I've seen through. I will now tell you the truth the others are to scared to tell you. Sure it is flawed but this is a real gem compared to the shit that comes out every season nowadays.

(Note: The same Mango Farmer that made Jojo wrote the source material for this.)

[PART 1: THE STORY]
There was once a parasite, no not the maxim one, and this said parasite was named Baoh. The parasite infects our main character's love interest. Said love interest gains the ability to become blue and that entitles gaining the ability to be baller like a Smurf or the "I'm Blue" guys. The evil people are jealous of his baller status and loli girlfriend so they set out to kill him. That is what you get at the start of this riveting story. I personally think this one of the most engaging and relatable stories I've ever had the pleasure of viewing. There is literally no way this could have gone in any other way than sheer perfection. I was told by a friend that the production of this show was done in a five year long orgy that only ended because the decade was about to end.

[PART 2: THE ART & ANIMATION]
For something that came out in 1989 it looks brilliant but the problem comes in when all your amazing characters are dwarfed by Col. Dordo. There just was not enough screen time for this glorious hunk of man and machine. Stan Lee also agrees with as Cyborg is pretty much a wannabe of the power that Dordo holds. Marvel makes Cyborg's enemies laughably weak compared to man that Dordo faces. He takes on the last Indian on Earth while Cyborg fights some skinny bitch boys who die in one hit. To our knowledge Baoh is invincible. Now, you are wondering why I rated it so high but the reason for that is that Dordo made it worth the money and the fights were as smooth as Bruce Willis's bald head. With that out of the way I will now continue onto the next segment.

[PART 3: CHARACTERS]
This show suffers from the fact that Dordo wasn't the main character. The world spoke and now we know that the only true flaw this show has is that there isn't more Dordo. It is a paradox because of the fact that Dordo exists the characters are instantly a 10/10 but the fact that he isn't the main character warrants this section a 0/10; so to be fair to the show I will give the characters a 2/10. Better luck next time Pierrot.

I will end this with an overwhelming recommendation that you should watch it and then tell 5 friends to watch and repeat and repeat and repeat etc. This saved anime way before your French Killers and your Attacking Titans ever tried to. You will not regret giving this 46 minute masterpiece a shot. The end has to be one of the most memorable I have seen in any piece of media.

Visk here and I'm signing out.
I hope you enjoy the show.