Short film have this unique charm

where the story teller have to get creative

with the way the story is presented,

as with the very limited runtime

you have to make every single second count.

And this is especially true for anime short films

where every single frame of animation

is an opportunity to add to your narrative

in some way.

Ahh sh*t. Are we animating?

Because of this I've always been presently surprised

by the amount of short film

that have emotionally impacted me more

with a five to ten minutes runtime

than some entire series could ever achieve at all.

So when I saw Porter Robinson new passion project

a short film slash music video

animated by A1 pictures

with music in collaboration with Madeon

It certainly stood up there

with the small amount of anime short film

that have impacted me.

So before I go any further in this video

I'm just gonna tell you to watch SHELTER

if you haven't already.

It's only six minutes of your life

so just do it.

Oh, oh wait

Oh what?

Do you have something better to do?

Is it that thing?

You know

That "thing"

you always liked to do?

Look,

this is a PG-13 channel

so we don't even need to say the word.

Let's call it

having a Shinji Ikari.

Do you feel like having a Shinji Ikari right now?

Look,

go Shinji Ikari it all out

and then watch the video

and I'll still be here okay?

Alright, are we all Shiji Ikaried out?

Good.

Did you also watched SHELTER?

Great!

Go wipe your tears

*and possibly also your hand*

so we can talk about what a fantastic job

Porter Robinson and his team did

and yes I think it was fantastic

to get that opinion out of the way

for those of you who will think this is overrated

which is only inevitable

when something small like this

gains as much attention as it does.

Now I'm not here to break down

and analyse the entire short frame by frame

as there are plenty of other Youtuber

who can probably do it better than I ever could.

But also because unlike other short like Me! Me! Me!

the story and over all message from SHELTER

is actually pretty simple to understand,

but in case you missed it

SHELTER follows the story of a young girl

who's in some kind of virtual reality

where she seemingly have free reign over this world

via her magical iPad,

or is it a Galaxy Note sev-

Everything seems fine and dandy

I mean if I was a key anime girl

with literally the entire world at my fingertip

I probably spend all day lounging around my bed too.

But everything is turn on its head

when touching a lone swing trigger her PTSD

causing her Vietnam flashback to resurface.

And would you know it,

it turns out Jupiter got pissed at the earth one day

and decided to crash land

but who cares about that.

Look at this cute little girl with her cute little smile.

Yes, to save this cuteness from dying

along with the rest of the world,

her loving father build a spaceship

with this virtual world in it

which he send her off in

unknowingly trigger a reboot for supergirl.

And that's pretty much it!

She's just floating through space

I guess

for how long?

Who knows

possibly forever

*can I*

*can I at least get some Netflix up in here?*

Despite all this

the short even managed to end on a positive message,

showing us that our memories

even our most painful one

can be use as a steping stone

to move forward in the future as a stronger person.

Which is nice you know

it's always good to end on a little positivity

WHEN A LONE GIRL

is drifting through space forever

when her parent and possibly the whole of mankind

is DEAD

Woah.

that uh

that sounded really bleak when you say it out loud.

Hey Hey, but cute anime girl am I right!

It's a very simple concept

that plays on the core theme of fatherly love

and existentialism through the complete isolation

of a 17-year-old girl flying through space,

but that's the beauty of a short like this

it shines from its simplicity

as not a single frame was wasted

in presenting this idea to us

result in a master of visual story telling.

Eventhough the short have a bit of dialogue in it

we certainly don't need it at all

to understand what's going on.

And the simplicity does not detract from the impact of it,

in fact it enhances it.

And it's the simple core message

that really sells it.

So to all these petition calling for a full series

of this to be made

is just...

It would ruin the entire charm of this short,

something like this saids everything it needs to

and doesn't overstay its welcome

and that's what makes it special.

What's great about SHELTER is you can sense

the love and passion that went into crafting it,

extra props for Megumi Kouno

for handling the character design

and entire key animation

because the animation looks absolutely beautiful

throughout.

But most importantly

you can feel Porter Robinson's vision

burning through every frame with this.

This was his passion project

and you can tell his passion resonated perfectly

with the team he was working with.

It's entirely refreshing to see an anime

that contain the love for the entire medium

from an outsider who for all intents and purposes

has nothing to do with anime.

WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!

Wait,

does this even count as an anime?

Wait let's uh,

let's see what reddit have to say about this.

Yes I wanted to touch on a little debate that happened

when the video was first posted on reddit

/r/anime board

where it got remove for not complying

with this specific definition of what anime is.

HEY! What you try to do telling me

Spongebob ain't an anime

next you'll be telling me I can't talk about

Hey Arnold! or Arthur you fucking hack

This video was eventually put back up

but I bring this up not to troll the entire anime board.

Hi /r/anime nice talking to you before this gets remove

But to bury the question of whether of this

and all future project like this

even count as real anime or not,

and the honest to god answer is

who fucking cares.

We live in an age where the anime we grew up on

and are fans of have inspired people,

many people.

Some Japanese,

some Western.

Some grew up to be normal everyday people,

some grew up to have opportunity

in the creative industry.

And some of these people will have the power

to express their love for the medium in their own way.

Which is why I think small project like this

or other collaboration

could become more common in the future,

and as they do

the line between what count as anime and what doesn't

will just get more and more blurred.

As for example, the term Otaku

has blown vastly from its original meaning

especially here in the west.

Industries evolved

and anime is no longer just strictly a Japanese business,

the audience is global

and so are the companies investing in it.

Hell there are even animators who aren't Japanese

working on anime,

so it doesn't matter if it's just anime,

anime collaborated,

anime influence.

This project and others like it embodies

what anime should be about,

just creative people doing creative things

inspired by some works that are familiar

to all of us as anime fans.

Not some forgone debate about where it was made

who worked on it or who it was targeted for.

Porter Robinson has shown us

that its possible to live the weeb dream

that a single individual can commission

an anime studio to make their own anime.

All you really need is fame,

a shit ton of cash,

an international music producer,

backing from some anime studios and companies

and a great vision with a burning passion.

Easy.

Right?

What we see where is someone's love letter to anime

and it doesn't matter where he came from,

he maybe just a dumb weeb

trying to show his love for a medium

but he's OUR dumb weeb

tried to show his love for a medium.

And that's something you could feel

oozing out of every frame of SHELTER

and it's something that resonate with those of us

who have tried to show that same passion

in our own way.

So,

as a fellow anime fan who also love the medium,

I just have to say

great job Porter.

You did us proud.