A short experimental anime about a woman desperately in love. Made by Yoji Kuri, a well-known Japanese indie animator.
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Many people who go to watch this experimental film are probably expecting an anime. However... This is not an anime... It's a work of abstract art and is in of itself something that you can not get if you don't study art or do not have an avant-garde artistic sense. If you don't understand either of them, don't rate it. It's like trying to get a pop lover to rate the works of Stockhausen. They are two completely different things. ------------ Story: 8 It's obvious that this is very well crafted. People confuse abstract with complicated ideas, but this is a very straight forward portrayal of loveand the development of that emotion over time. The fact that someone can grasp that idea or even convey it without dialogue(plus this being 1962) is quite a big feat. Still... no emotional attachment so you can't really call it a good story. Art: 5 Judging it by today's art or story telling standard is illogical since this work does not go by any conventional standards. However, there really isn't anything special that I can see in the art. Characters are probably representational of something as is set design, but it's too distant too interpret for me. It gets a 5 since I know it exists, but Kuri failed to make it apparent to anyone but himself. Sound: 8 The sound is the most fascinating part(and it was not done by Yoko Onno, but instead the experimental composer Toru Takemitsu). To explain what's so fascinating about the sound track is to explain experimental music altogether(look up musique concrete). More understandable is the reverb and other effects added to the word Ai. This is very much a representation of the situation that the two "characters" are in and in effect tells the viewer the story and the characters emotions. Enjoyment: 7 This is most subjective, but if you have a minimal interest in avant-garde art a 7 is about right. Hardcore fans will go on to give everything a 10 and most others probably a 1 or a 2.
Just really, really creepy. If having your mind crawled on by spiders is what you're into, go for it. But with terrible art, terrible voice acting, two plain and stereotypical characters, and a terrible story (was there even a story?), the four-minute-long anime (can it be called an anime?) was almost unwatchable. I counted the seconds. The best part about this anime? It was only four minutes long. Seriously, I hated it.
I'm an art student and as you know, 'art' definition can change in years. Okay, I agree on this isn't a masterpiece but please bear in mind that It was made in 1963. "Ai" is an experimental Japanese animation, a short story about love. Today we watch it and say "Typical story, basic drawing, zero quality" but those days art technology didn't have that many opportunities and story concept not even close to today's percept. So maybe this was a very original story. (And heroine is the very first yandere ever :P) In addition to all these, I liked "Ai". It's trippy and psychedelic in away, It was an interesting experience to watch it.
Story: I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a fan of narratives that are negative. By that, I mean stories where the hero loses in the end and the whole them is essentially, "Life sucks because X." Ai doesn't say something exactly quite like that, but it is a bastardized perspective on love. Perhaps I'm looking 'too deep' into this work but when you realize that Yoko Ono also contributed to this work, you haveta sit back sarcastically and go, "Oh man now we're getting to intense levels of intellect left untapped in the human mind for years!" Goodness, I didn't even hate this workand more or less found it to be just another work to add to my Completed list but in retrospect, there's just so much to dislike about it. I mean, alright, I'm not gonna go nuts with details but the premise is a woman chasing after a man with a net and then treating him like a dog. Not so much bothered by it when its from Kuri Yoji but knowing that Yoko Ono was a part of it immediately makes me think, "There's something wrong here." And while you might say to me, "Paraturtle, she only did the Music, that's it!" I'd respond that there's no way she solely did just the music when 2 people are working on 1 work. There's no doubt she contributed to it. But also, it's just annoying to see such a bad view on Love because obviously it's not love. I mean, maybe it isn't obvious? Or, perhaps the original intention is to show what love isn't? Even so, does that discussion even need to be had? And, if so, is there not a better way to express such concepts? Absolutely, considering this short is neither entertaining nor is it comedic. But also, maybe I just seriously dislike Yoko Ono and see her as nothing more than a hack. Art: Art looks fine and some of the perspective shots look neato. Sound: I don't like Yoko Ono and hearing people say Ai over and over is annoying. Character: No character, really. Not one that matters, at least. Enjoyment: Boring but at least I added to my Completed list. ((If you liked this review, feel free to check out my others! I review most manga and anime I finish!))
Rate 3 Japanese raw but it was just one word repeated over and over. Story Could have used a better introduction. Seemed to have just right to the story. Story was a bit confusing. If it was about love why the running away and the leash? Conclusion was nice but could have been better. Art Worked well with plot. Characters poorly drawn. At least there was some color and the characters weren't morphed. Sound An okay hearing test (joke). You got your high and low pitches or voices. Which not only were uncalled for but did not match the art. Why did it just have to be one word? Animations weregood. Overall: nothing gained. Audio annoying. Art meh. Story lame. If you like art pieces check this. If not don't bother.
It's really interesting going through the "avant garde" section of an anime website. There was a lot of very obscure stuff I hadn't heard of, but there are diamonds in the rough like Studio 4c shorts, a few animation compilations, Atsushi Wada, Koji Yamamura, Keita Kurosaka... surprisingly even Takashi Ito, whom I never thought of as animation--his stuff is live action with a bit of stop motion and time lapses (but this is not the puppet or claymation type of stop motion; rather it's used for experimental effect). There are always the debates about what constitutes anime, with the assumption that something like Kuri's workisn't anime because of a lack of commercial viability or the industry norms we expect from "anime," but this is just the general word for animation from a Japanese perspective, though we tend to only call it anime when we're talking about commercial Japanese animation from a western perspective. There is also always the expected commentary of "get a brain moranz" if you want to understand the genius message behind this esoteric eclectic surreal omfg god tier work of art from the great auteur. Yeah... I mean, it's not especially complex. It just doesn't hold your hand with a precise script. There is room for interpretation. It's about love, and it seems to be largely one-sided, and Kuri's portrayal of the emotion is cynical, to say the least. The male spends most of his time running, while the female pursues. She does various things to keep him anchored to her, such as chaining him like a dog, but to no avail. She even eats him and poops him out... XD It's filled with visual metaphors like that. Hahahah... anyway, it's not completely one-sided. He seems to lead her on at times (like the barrel part). To be entirely honest, it always bugged me that the female was so much bigger than the male. Made me think that was the little boy's mom running after him and just wishing he would love her, but he doesn't want her cooties. She does knock him over the head like a caveman, takes him home to rape him in bed, then has him strut his stuff around town on a dog leash, though, so... I hope that's not what Kuri was going for. :) Average MAL user: "Sounds pretty hot. Is the manga version available?" The art is really crude looking and sooooo very flat, other than some not too subtle perspective here and there--some segments look like a beginning class in perspective. In terms of the visual department... there are much better artistic animations out there from the 60s or before, whether it be Alexeieff/Parker, Disney, Starewicz, Jan Lenica, hell even the Osamu Tezuka shorts from Kuri's own country around the same time... but I suppose most of those were utilizing bigger teams, and it seems Kuri was on his lonesome. Probably the best aspect is the eerie atmosphere created by the barren landscapes, reductionism of the soundtrack that's composed of whispers, moans, repetition of the word "Ai" (love), dissonant sounds and drones, etc. Yoko Ono is the composer (she's better than The Beatles, btw, change my mind :). Elsewhere, I've seen it mentioned that Toru Takemitsu was actually the composer. I really have no clue. That made me think maybe Ono was just the female voice, but that was apparently Kyoko Kishida (Woman in the Dunes). Eh, I've enjoyed plenty of avant-garde and experimental films and animation in my time, and I do think Ai has some intriguing qualities, but it's ugly as sin, and it's permeated with the vibe of "It's good art if we portray humanity in a negative manner, alienate the audience, and have the characters perform random acts without any real explanation, so the observer can interpret what's going on, right?" Better luck next time. I'll stick with Yuri Norstein or Jan Svankmajer or Jacques Drouin or something like that. :\ Also, tbh, Kuri is better when his vision is turned more towards surrealism. This short is a bit more straightforward than some of his others.
I didn't really get it, but I liked the artwork, is 4 minutes long, and you can watch it in Youtube. This crearly isn't an 'anime', it's just an animated short film, there isn't much to say, if you want to watch a short film, you can watch this, maybe you like it, maybe you don't, but it's just 4 minutes long, I didn't undestand the story, maybe I will watch again if I want to show it to someone that I think may like it. Sound 9/10: They just say "ai", but in differents tones, I really liked that, I think that is what I likedthe most about this short. Art 8/10: I like it the art, seems original and simple.
