Anime: End of the World

End of the World is a short story about Yuko, who befriends Kazumi at a rock concert, and then runs off to some other dimension to save Earth from some aliens controlling our reality.

Episode 2 in the Grasshoppa Punch series, this short video yet demonstrates how strange animation can get. Still not quite the traditional Japanese anime style, the characters seem poorly animated when contrasted to the computer-animated background, but the direction is simply awesome. There are quite a few interesting zoom-ins and outs, and 'camera moves' that computer effects serve very well in this context. Like Dan Petory's Blues though, this won't be to everyone's taste for sure, but it's already a step closer to being more "steady" than chaotic in its own style.

Again, not much of a soundtrack in this short animation, and the rock song is far from being representative of what good Japanese rock music is. I guess it's a question of taste, but I feel this song could have been replaced by any other song and it would change nothing to the value of this anime, and it doesn't add anything to it either, story-wise or context-wise.

The story though, is what makes up the originality of this animation. It starts off slowly at the rock concert, where the two main characters seem totally stupid and drugged. When they get to Kazumi's appartment, the alternate reality kicks in and you get thrown to this alien dimension where strange SM aliens seem to control Earth, and a bloody fight follows. You never really get a satisfying explanation as to these aliens' origins, but I found it refreshing and original to have such a strange development.

The characters though suffer from a lack of consistency and background. Since we don't really understand their origins (we barely learn in the beginning some stuff about Yuko's past), it's hard to understand their motives, even though you can make it up from very few clues given throughout.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching this short animation, but seriously doubt it can reach a wide audience, like most of Grasshoppa!'s products. If you are thirsty for originality and non-mainstream, then this is totally for you.