Porter Robinson & Madeon - Shelter

2020-12-12 18:18  shelter       [permalink]

→  Anime & Manga — What does (present) Rin mouth when she sees her father and her past self at the shrine?

Sad, no answer there. (Yet?) If you haven't seen what it is, go have a look first. It's only 6 minutes. Or read about it here or here. (I also feel a little sad I've only now learned about this. But it's all part of me getting to know anime much more since the pandemic, but that's another story altogether. I may post something about that sometime later.)

It really feels like there's no way that's all. You feel like you've seen a preview, a small taste of the big thing and you really want to see more, but there isn't. It takes some searching around to find that out, but apparently there really isn't. (Yet?)

So I watch and re-watch. Closely. Then wait a few days and watch again, hoping to pick up a few more things. It's really that good. I get that. A lot of attention to detail went into it.

But you do get questions about things. What does she utter when her dad and younger self leave the shrine? (4'15") You can guess, and artistically speaking, you can't be wrong. She's reaffirming memories that were lost before, after all.

What isn't clear to me and I find very intriguing, is the section right after she takes a bath (3'05"). Even when the camera changes (3'06") there's already all of devestation outside. She ventures out (3'12") in what looks to me like funeral attire. Is she mourning the loss of her home world? What's with the square lights, most white with a few red? Great shot with her resting in the tree! (3'17") Did she model this broken world for herself? Is she having a hard time after getting memories back since touching the swing (2'24")? I'm guessing it's by her design because it's only after that she unlocks the digital design of her old home village. (3'24")

Except the visit to the shrine and other flashbacks were before that. But she's not figured in light there, so it may be proper mental images. If her brain-interface would pick up on those to manifest them in her 'living realm', it would be a story-element of its own, and would lessen the strength of the revelation at the end. So I guess there's a lot more to touch upon there, and it really feels like there's much more to the story, but it's not supposed to be a full length series. So it's better to not want it to be.

But there's so much more anime to discover! And this is a great love-letter to anime in general. With the little anime I've discovered so far — really need to do a write-up about that! — I can suggest you watch Kanata No Astra if you like the 'astray in space' thing...

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