Garasu no hana to kowasu sekai

Garakowa -Restore the World- is a 60-minute long animated film directed by Masashi Ishihama and produced by A-1 Pictures. Frankly, what made me watch this film was its relatively short length, so I'll describe its positive and negative aspects.

Positive: (+) The art and animation I guess this is the section most of the budget went to. The backgrounds of this anime were simply gorgeous. The colors and details were amazing. The animation was also smooth and high quality. I didn't especially like the character designs, mostly because I dislike anime with little girls, but objectively speaking, there was nothing wrong with that either.

(+) The soundtrack The soundtrack of this anime was comprised mostly of piano pieces, which fit well in most of the scenes. Overall, I liked the soundtrack a lot.

(+) The concept Despite the flawed execution, the concept of this anime was pretty good. The events happen in a virtual world, where the main characters, who are anti-virus programs, delete corrupt files. Basically, imagine if the agents in Matrix were cute magical girls. I have to admit, the idea wasn't bad at all, but it could have been better, for reasons which I am gonna explain below.

Negative: (-) Everything else Apart from the great art and soundtrack, as well as the concept, the movie fails at pretty much every other department. Despite its short 1-hour length, this movie feels like 2 hours due to the slow pacing and constant information dumping. The characters speak endlessly about the details of their world, but without a proper explanation, everything feels like pseudo- scientific mumbo jumbo. The characters remain mostly under-developed, so you don't really care what happens to them. The action scenes were short, and despite the brilliant animation, you don't really know what's happening, apart from the obvious ugly virus monster vs cute anti- virus girl.

Overall, despite the attempt of doing something unique, this movie ends up being pretty much forgettable and with nothing much to offer apart from the good visuals.

Garakowa will catch you within the first five minutes of the movie with its visuals, introductory mini-story (which sets the stage for the rest of the anime), and characters. The background animation is striking and the initial premise strong enough to make the viewer believe the potential of both story and art.

Unfortunately while the visuals continue the story becomes a senseless collage of ill-fitting puzzles pieces. The basis of the story is told from the initial introduction: two anti-virus programs in a virtual world come upon a third, unknown program with no memory nor knowledge of purpose. Unfortunately that's pretty much how the story continues, for even as the plot line (?) unfolds and the dramatic reveal is accomplished... the viewer is still left wondering what actually happened.

That was my initial take. Wondering if I'd missed something I perused the major anime sites in search of some insight into the plot line. The reviews reveal most viewers are as stumped as I am about the supposed storyline and outcome. As one reviewer stated, "I spent 60 minutes watching it and the next 30 minutes wondering what just happened." That pretty much sums up the entire video. Visually it's acceptable. The music was simple but enjoyable. The costuming was gratuitously slightly risqué (which in my opinion actually detracted from the vid). But the destructive factor was a story that went nowhere, was disjointed, made no point, and left the viewer with that "Buckaroo Banzai" moment in which we realize the writer and director either ran out of ideas... or are the only two people on the planet who actually know what the plot was about and dismally failed to transfer that information to their audience.

I give it 5 stars for mediocrity, a mixture of better-than-average graphics and failure to meet expectations. In my opinion it would have made a better 10-minute short.