SHELTER why it’s such a great short anime

Last Updated on April 2, 2021

First of all, hello everyone I am here again and I want to share with you a really nice anime I bumped into on my computer after what seemed like ages since I downloaded and finally watched right now. And the name of this awesome anime is Shelter, it’s by Porter Robinson whose an electronic musician and co-produced by Madeon. Made in 2016, but still really good.

Shelter

• Studios: A-1 Pictures
• Episodes: 1
• Aired: October 18, 2016

Plot Summary

Day 2539: Rin wakes up alone again with blurred memories and still no contact from any other human. She’s not bored, however, because in her arms lies a tablet capable of creating any world her heart desires. Day after day, Rin crafts a wonderful reality—one utopia at a time—to shelter her from loneliness, hoping to one day reveal the truth behind her very existence.

The shelter is a 6-minute short anime story that brings tears to anyone who has watched it. With a plot looking at loneliness, sacrifice and hope. It’s an anime that asks a lot of questions but one in particular when it came out;

 “WHAT IS CONSIDERED ANIME” 

Even though it was rendered by Japanese animation studio A – 1 Pictures, who have produced hit anime like Sword Art Online and Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic had Art Director Yusuke Takeda, who has worked on two Sword Art Online movies, Ghost in the Shell movies and three Berserk movies. Shelter also had Megumi Kouno, an animator for [email protected] and freelancer with A – 1 Pictures, directing character design and Storyboard Animation, and Director Toshifumi Akai who had worked as the Chief Animation Director on Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic. Also, A – 1 Pictures is a subsidiary of Aniplex and was debuted in Shibuya, Tokyo.

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Even so, anime forms /r/ anime and some other people still didn’t think it to be anime. /r/ anime moderators removed the thread even though it was upvoted to the top at a rate of 98%. What /r/ anime consider as ‘Anime’, “an animated series, produced and aired in Japan, intended for a Japanese audience.”I felt Shelter meet all these requirements and if it wasn’t for fans like us who like many others that year, sent messages after message forcing their hands to reinstate the post. Some angry fans leaked the name of the moderator who deleted the post. Threats were sent to mods, calculating that safety was more important than principles reinstated the post, still maintain that Shelter with its international branding doesn’t fit in the anime genre and that it belongs elsewhere.

What did I think?

Let’s look at some of the things that make Shelter awesome, the video looks great. It was well drawn and well animated and is eye-catching with colourful visuals and impressive imaginative landscape and the music in the background goes perfectly with the anime. But some may say Shelter is trying to be something more, saying it’s just Porter’s music meshed with beautifully animated sequence and it exemplifies everything wrong with storytelling taking a short cut in story development, just giving us a cute character, throwing her into a position of bittersweet melancholy and using that to manipulate our basest emotions.

I personally do feel it would have been good if they explored the story more, they only go out of their way to show us for a split second the main character’s letter from her father, making you spend time and read it on a second watch. It had fascinating visuals, the undertones of a post-apocalyptic world, the loneliness of being potentially the last human in the universe, but didn’t explore that more only showing us the loneliness lost in the profundity of memory.

But all this could be said to be a new style of short storytelling giving us just the bits and making us imagine our own ideas to fill in the gaps. And wish they told us more about her father too, Instead of feeling like a trailer for something bigger to come. It’s only 6 minutes but if they were to ever make a real movie adaptation or series of this animation, I would definitely watch it in a heartbeat.

What did I learn?

Shelter’s message was very impactful, it shows us the unconditional parental love and that our past, no matter how painful, gives us the strength to keep moving forward. Shelter is short but hits deep, showing why Anime is a great medium for making visions and imaginations come to life.

Would I watch more?

All in all, it was simple but powerful, making me remember why I love anime. It gives us an experience that is a unique and fantastic one that would be hard to find anywhere. It would be good to have more productions and collaboration like this, colourful and fluid animation, the music worked well and the cuts were really well done. So Yes if there is ever more I would watch.

So with that, I am done! What do you think? Have you seen Shelter? What are your feelings about it? Drop a comment below and let us know what you think!

Till next time… Have a music-filled week!