シェルター

SHELTER

Sci-Fi

MUSIC

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
1
RELEASE
October 18, 2016
LENGTH
6 min

DESCRIPTION

Rin, a 17-year-old girl, lives inside a futuristic simulator in infinite, beautiful loneliness. Each day, she awakens in virtual reality to create a world for herself.

(Source: Official Site)

CAST

Rin
Sachika Misawa
Shigeru

EPISODES

Dubbed

| | |

REVIEWS

mochiko
92/100
A simple yet touching narrative, gorgeous stylized visuals, and a beautiful electronic song to guide you through it all
A simple yet touching narrative, gorgeous stylized visuals with interesting designs and ideas, and a beautiful weeb-friendly electronic song to guide you through it all.

NOTE - This review will be basically spoiler filled. I’ll still be vague about the details but you may as well just watch it before reading. It’s like 6 minutes long. It’s worth your time.

The story is simple - it’s about a single character, Rin, her environment, and her memories. And the implications of her future and the shape it will take.
It’s told with grace and simplicity by slowly peeling away the layers and revealing bits of information to the audience, all of which build into something profound and heart tugging. This is done largely with visuals - the only dialogue being the introduction of Rin’s present psychological condition and ‘location’ even and then at the end when she resolves the conflicts she introduced in the beginning, by reconciling with her past, present, and future. Taking on a new and better mindset. That’s the story. There’s some ‘lore’ that fills out the space between and it gives weight to Rin’s conflict and situation, strengthening the empathetic bond between her and the audience. Even had the music not been a part of it, it still would have made me cry. Those suffering from mental illness may find it especially impactful - they may find it allegorically relevant to themselves, which, as a work of art, is everything it could ever hope to be for someone.

Tonally (and this is crafted through the visuals, the writing, and the sound design/editing) it’s largely warm and hopeful, but as it progresses and reveals more it shows the darkness that Rin lives with. The audience follows right along side her as she remembers it and eventually confronts it. The sound design and editing in particular add so much to portraying the tone and narrative. Two points in particular, the ending and the beginning, when the music is introduced and stopped. It begins in silence, followed by a melancholic monologue by Rin. She exhales. Her eyes are low. She’s been ‘here’ in this place physically but also mentally for a painfully long time. Another moment of silence and stillness on the screen. And then the first note of the music breaks it, bringing hope and light to the audience as the visuals bring hope and light to Rin - she begins creating, dreaming, exploring. And then the ending, when the music stops and Rin’s real physical body is revealed for the first time - we see her hunched over with mechanical wires and mechanisms protruding all along her back. She seems lifeless. We then zoom out to see the small, lonely spacecraft she resides in, drifting completely alone through space. We hear what sounds like a faint breeze or a distant fading echo. Everything on the screen and in our ears is dark and hopeless, and then everything becomes black and silent, and we hear one last thing - “Arigato”. Rin expressing gratitude.

The saddest thing we learn about Rin is that she’s lived her entire adolescence in her mind. Her father placed her in the ship and the computerized reality when she was a child. And she only realizes this when she stumbles upon those memories by accident. But the story concludes with a hopeful open end - the possibility that her craft is directed to some specific location - that her father didn’t just send her to escape the destruction of her own world but to find oasis in a new one.

Visually Shelter is outstanding. It’s A1 Pictures at their best - crafting a unique and memorable style, giving lots of motion and life to the characters and the world, putting lots of thought into framing and editing. Rin’s character designs both in the present and as a child are adorable. The nature of the story means there are a lot of abstract sequences and locations that are all fascinating and eye catching. The colors themselves are mesmerizing.

Now, the actual song ‘Shelter’ composed by Porter Robinson and Madeon which plays for the majority of the anime. It fits with the visuals and the story, whether you enjoy it or not. It’s certainly well crafted, with a tremendous amount of polish for every note and sound. And it plays such a pivotal role in the artwork as a whole that were it not fitting for the animation and story, then the video wouldn’t have been as successful as it was.

If you don’t know anything about the making of this anime or how it came to be, I recommend watching Crunchyroll’s behind the scenes video of it on youtube. It’s pretty fascinating. It’s one of the very few times that someone from the West has been involved with the writing and production of an anime. Just so everyone is clear, Porter Robinson wrote the script himself and seems to have played a prominent role in the production. Which is just insane.

Shelter is a simple, small anime, with a bold and powerful voice. The hardest part of this review was trying not to just gush over how much I love this anime. It means so much to me. It was one of the first anime that I ever saw. It helped me reconcile with my own mental health troubles. It was pivotal in sparking my interest in anime and my reconnection with my younger self. And it’s just beautiful.
Continue on AniList
kathelynn
90/100
An irony of "I am not alone" only to realize there's so much more to this weighted meaningful echo.
Update: Note that my perception in what's considered "the best" is still widening as I watch more anime, but this one shows how impactful it is despite the simplicity, and I present it to you in a form of a long review.

I never had to make a review before.

For those who never watched, it's definitely worth 6 minutes of your time, and probably more. Please watch the video first and then read this review from my perspective, as I hope it's also worth a few minutes of reading.

For me though, it simply works. It's sad...brilliantly and simply.

Presented with a beautiful girl named Rin and the music video's one-word title "Shelter" to represent what it has in store, a downward slope to realization and sadness. Her beautiful blatant lie of "I am not alone" weights it; an irony that we eventually learn isn't, her Meaningful Echo that represent her life as she goes on a virtual world that she eventually learned to master on her own.

But not everything is a sad ending. We see her waking up every day to explore the reality she makes, her creativeness is inspired by nothing but reminiscing memories.

Subtleties such as being barefooted almost entirely, her bedroom filled with her past presents, her fascination with the drawing tablet of her father, her child-like behavior despite almost reaching the adult stage, her eagerness of waiting for a message in those 2,539 days. Her looks made of her ideal self than the teenager version of her Adorably Precocious self.

Her character shaped by her relationship with her father. Her missing mother declared to have passed away before she could make a lively appearance. How their actions make who they are and how important they are to each other. Rin's parents' decision for her to be happy, may seem ironic but conveyed through as You Are Not Alone.

Their attention to detail is worthy of the name "music video" where the music is an accompaniment instead of being the main piece, the animation itself is beautiful and well-executed. Both seem to try and achieve different things until they collide in the end to piece each other.

It doesn't end here. The implication of this anime showcases the people that create experiences, a meaningful message that artists explore their creativity filled with determination. The wanting to share the same thrilling experience with their fellow viewers and fans, a luxury that Rin would be happy to have.

"What will become of me from now on"

To go back with that meaningful echo of living alone, to only imagine how sad she lives her life as the intention of this music video where you can shape her story. It's part of letting you explore the emotions of the story you've created along the journey after being inspired by such. The freedom of having our own experiences.

Unfortunately, how creative you can get doesn't represent the music video, it isn't just as unique. It may not be extraordinary, but it still does what it wants to do very well. And just as much to talk about how simple it is, to the point that it's show and tell except for the freeze-frame message that was eventually sent to Rin in Japanese (which fans have translated).

Eventually, we are reminded that a message can be shared without such cliches and long dialogues of indicating that Stuff Happens. To make a lengthy one cour at such a budget is a huge sacrifice by reducing the quality of such a masterpiece. The amount of thought here is commendable. Porter Robinson & Madeon & A-1 Pictures has made such an incredible job and I can't wait to see more anime-related works from them.
Continue on AniList
Satan66
100/100
Shelter, a really sad music video with an epic song
This review contains massive spoilers! Go watch the music video first if you don't want to read spoilers! Only takes about 6 min! Reading further is your own fault now because I told you this.

At first I thought, that "Shelter" is actually an anime and the music video is just the beginning. I was wrong. The short music video is everything we see from Rins life. That is why I won't use my original structure to talk about it.

The music video "Shelter" is about a girl named Rin who is send into the space because the earth got destroyed. In her little space she can create an own world with virtual reality. As her body travels through the universe, she cannot leave the virtual reality world.

In the first few minutes of the video, you can see how Rin left earth for many years without any message from the outside world. As the story persues, you can see, that her life is really lonely. The only activity she can do, is to draw on her pad to create a new landscape.

But one day, when she woke up and want to draw something on her pad again, a landscape was drawn on its own:

Rin now watches her story as a child as a third person. She remembers the day on earth with her dad and actually start to realize, that the world she is in, is not the real one. In the end, Rin says, that she is thankful of the memories she got with her dad because that makes her stronger. We can see, while she say those words, the real body of Rin which is connected with very many pipes.

While the story of Rin is told, the song only makes this story even more sad. The beats also suits the animation very well, that is why I really like the both animation and song suited together. It creates a really sad feeling and loneliness.

If I were to say, if I want to die with the earth or being send into the lonely universe, I would have chosen the first option. Just imagining the loneliness in the universe makes me sad. That's why I really feel with Rin in the music video. Eventhough, it still leaves me a question. As she said "Thank you" in the end, her eyes are closed and a tear runs out of her closed eye. This somehow reminded me of the fact, that many anime do it when a character dies. Did Rin actually die in the end of the music video? Nevertheless, I really like the music video and actually watched it three times. Sometimes I also hear the soundtrack just because it is really good.

So, all in all I give this music video a 10/10. It has a really good structure and you get the feeling which the producer want us to feel. Furthermore, they created a song which can be heared in our daily life. The story based on Rin could really hard been transfered into an anime, which is why I think, they got a really good solution for it.
Continue on AniList