Anime: Pale Cocoon

*Pale Cocoon* is the work of a single person, **Yoshiura Yasuhiro**; in just 22 minutes this short anime surprises for its graphical beauty, the intelligent story and the way it's told. A real jewel comparable to *Hoshi no Koe*.

*Pale Cocoon* is a sci-fi short tale about a colony of humans buried deep underground, the people unable to go back to the surface because it's extremely polluted.

Animation
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Fully 3D except for the characters, the animation creates a beautiful frame within which the story unfolds. The dark atmosphere of a decaying artificial structure is expressed in every single shot thanks to the choice of colors: the pale light of the monitors reflected weakly by opaque metal surfaces and a mildly unpleasant yellowish light pervading the whole environment contrast against a few touches of lively colors added to the scene by photographs of a world long gone.

Sound
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Except for a good piano piece and a certain song that is important for the plot, there isn't much worth noting. The few tracks are suited to the atmosphere and a few moments of silence in the right places have an even stronger effect. The one song there is has a huge importance in this anime and is, unsurprisingly, central to the soundtrack as well. It's just your average J-pop piece -- hardly worth listening to -- but such a song was needed because of its connection to the story; a classic music piece or a heavy metal song couldn't take its place. You'll understand if you watch this anime.

Story
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Ladies and gentlemen, here's some genuine, honest to God science fiction. This isn't a billion dollars movie straight from Hollywood with tons of special effects where the most intelligent thing they say is "Launch the protonic missiles!". This is authentic sci-fi, the one Ray Bradbury and Asimov are famous for.

I'm sorry I can't say much about *Pale Cocoon*'s' story, it's so short any hint would be a spoiler.

I can say that it keeps the spectator in a continuous state of mind that goes from confusion to uncertainty. The director keeps screwing with the chronological order of some events but leaves the order of all the others untouched. By the end of the anime, everything snaps back in its proper place and one has to mentally bow to the ability of Yoshiura-san -- I hope that's the surname, I can't really tell :) -- because putting all the pieces back together takes no effort at all. It just happens.

The setting is a futuristic labyrinth of pipes, metal, monitors, light signals, stairs, lifts; in this almost completely abandoned labyrinth a few people move about with a dwindling sense of purpose. Their job is to find and restore documents like photos and movies.

People who like the short stories by Bradbury and similar artists should really give this anime a go.

Characters
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A length of 22 minutes means no character development at all. There's an attempt to do some of that, but it's only an inkling. There wasn't time for it and, honestly, it's all right.

Personal judgement
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Even though it's short, *Pale Cocoon* grew on me even as I was watching it. I love it.

Overall
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This one is a must watch.

Despite the fact that there are already 4 reviews for this anime, i just want to contribute to it.i dont write reviews,but this one is an exception.

Animation 10:
The animation litrely feels alive.the way teh characters and the environment are drawn will but you directly into the story.Rika is one of the best anime girls along with Hitomi from NHK.

Sound 10:
The sound is really awesome.sensational and touching.at the beginning there is this great yet short theme of something holy.during the anime,great soundtracks are played and at the end this magnificant song is played.considering the shortness of this OVA,great ST,i only wish there is more.

Story 10:
the anime really puts things in its right place.humans stupidity finally brought everything to its knees,poor communication with others,and this weird desperation.then a HUGE surprise right at the end of the OVA.

Character 9:
great characters.Rika was perfect,although id like to see more from ura.

Value 10:
this work is a masterpiece, challenege me and watch it then come and say i overrated it.Nothing like ive seen before.

Enjoyment 9:
im writing this after watching it today for the 5th time.the only bad thing yet good is its shortness.bad because i want more.good because its easy to rewatch.

finally, watch this,and rate it 10,or come to me and tell me you didnt like it so i can shoot you with no regret

This was a nice little surprise I found and I don't regret the time I spent on it, quite the opposite. The story itself is grounded somewhere in a distant future where Earth supposedly has been devastated through apolyptic events although pollution is hinted along the way as one of the reasons why Earth is no longer inhabited by humans. It revolves around the main character Ura, an employee whithin the Bureau of Record Excavation, whose work is to restore and analyze records by humans located in the Archives Facility. The story begins when he is sent a file that requires heavy restoration and how the world slowly changes as the file becomes more and more restored.

Ura is the typical silent male protagonist, looking for truth. He is not satisfied by not knowing how the past looked like, in fact, he so strongly desires anything he finds out through the file restoration to be true he is willing to give up everything just to confirm it. Ura has a less positive colleague with whom he communicates with through an electronical communication book and the colleague asks Ura at the end: "what if nothing is true?". There is also a female counterpart in form of Riko that opposite of Ura wants to forget everything if it was ever possible. The guilt carried on from the past is too much for her to bear and she rather lives in a sort of ignorant bliss, and is musing whether she should quit the Bureau of Record Excavation for good.

The first thing that strikes me even with the opening scenes is how well animated it is. Top notch for its time and it can still match today's animation (in writing moment the early year of 2008). There is maybe a bit more to be wanted from the character design that I feel ends up a bit like Texhnolyze: realistic but still fails to be interesting enough. I also lacked a bit of light and facial expressions for the female singer Yoko but it might have been supposed to be that way since she was after all, displayed on a very old record which has undergone heavy restoration. Something which also in my eyes sometimes maybe looked a bit stupid were the scenes when we only saw the lower part of Ura's head, mainly chin and the lips. For some reason the way his lips were designed and the way he kept his mouth open annoyed me quite some, but other than that, I have no more complaints. The backgrounds are beautiful and the CGI is genuinly used and I really loved how they figured out the UI for the computers. Just awesome.

There is very little sound to be found all together more than typical background noise, but I think, the lack of sound builds up such a great climax and it really shows the despair of the people. Instead of having music manipulating us on how we should feel like in certain scenes and moments, we can only rely on facial expressions, dialogue/monologue and what is actually going on. Simply, maybe less distraction. It allows the viewer to focus on what is truly happening in a free way that is very uncommon and I have to say, the idea is unique and works well.

However, short as this little piece may be, it left me wanting for so much more when it was completed. In fact, I was sitting with my mouth open in shock when it ended. I kept thinking, "it couldn't just end there! There must be more to it!". In fact, there wasn't, for good and bad. What truly makes me question the creators of this OVA is why they didn't extend the storyline a bit more more, flesh it out. It wouldn't have hurt as the essence would still be there. For the length it has, it is truly perfect in every single of way except the little critique I have for the character design, but aside that, none.

In any case, I strongly recommend this one to anyone, truly. Not only is it short for those with little patience of so called "thinking"-anime, if you ever caught up a little bit of the story going on you will understand how deep this anime is and how much it manages to convey through the little running time it actually has and for that, I have to say it is amazing.

If anything, this OVA is definitely recommended for lovers of Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze and Haibane Renmei. I could maybe add more to that list but nevertheless, instead of continuing reading this, go and get it right now!

Mankind have forgotten everything about the past. Ura, the story's main character, is digging up archives of the past as a job, in order to learn about the humans of old time.

The first thing you'll be thinking of when watching this OVA, is the fantastic animation. A real lot of work has been put into the visual design, and it pays off, making this short film an unique experience straight from start.

Most of the audio is just ambient noise, nothing special at all, but towards the end there's this beautiful song filled with subliminal messages, which observant viewers may get a lot of satisfaction from.

The characters don't have much time to show off much of their background in the twenty minutes this movie rolls, so you don't get to feel that you know them. It chould've been better, but the creators did an averagely good job on the character design, which is not at all bad, just not good either.

Pale Cocoon is overall an okay science fiction story with awesome animation, that will keep you more than interested the twenty minutes it lasts, and it just might provide you something more on a second thought.

It's nice seeing how people are thinking about this. Now, of course some will put this off as some 22 minute waste of time, but I digress. This is an OAV that makes you think. It sets up plenty of confusion about the setting and the time, and then pulls it around at the end, leaving you with a nice tangy feeling inside your head; as if you somewhat understood it, but somewhat didn't. That's why this show gets an A+ in replayability. You can watch it over and over again and still get something new from it. You can make PDF files of finer plot points and yet there will always be more points to discuss. The characters were developed just right for a 22 minute show, only revealing to the viewers the most basic tenets of each and every one of them. It was as if the characters were just players in a grander stage, the stage of human mistakes. All in all, there was a nice tinge of environmentalism, a sprinkle of drama, and a whole lot of future technology gimmick. Along with the overabundance of religious imagery, and the sleek CGs, I would rate this pretty high in my book. If you don't like watching good anime, don't watch this.

This show starts off feeling a bit gloomy. In the not so near future it seems mankind have ruined the earth and are now living in an "artificial environment". It seems that all mankind's history has been forgotten. Ura who is a young man working at some "history/archive recovering department" comes across a strange video ;) .

Anyways i cant say much more or i will ruin the experience for everyone else. This single episode anime is rendered in CG. the animation is crisp and gorgeous although the colortones are a bit gloomy to fit with the atmosphere of the story. The music score isnt much to talk about. its mostly ambient music that you wont notice although the "strange video"'s music is quite enjoyable.

The story builds up quite nicely over the 20 minutes till it reaches a climax at the end. As this thing is just one episode long there wasnt that much room for character development. the story revolves mainly around aru who in contrary to other people is a dreamy character searching for some hope in teh archives. The other character in this two man story is Riko. She's a sweet girl who seems to have given up hope.

Anyways all i have to say that most likely this review will NOT convey the actual "feel" of this anime and i recommend that you watch it instead. Trust me you cant go wrong with this one