Taifuu no Noruda

An animated short with sleek animation is nothing new when considering Studio Colorido. But the problem here is that Typhoon Noruda plot was not made to be developed in only twenty and something minutes. It's like you took any of director Mamoru Hosoda films and compressed it to one quarter of its original runtime. The initial ruse between the two boys is never really explored beyond its immediate consequences, even if it hints deeper personal reasons, the sobrenatural threat is never explained beyond the "your world is in danger" to have any impact or sense of urgency, and the characters don't have enough time to broke out from the spectrum of anime cliches. If I said that Azuma is the sad boy with long, brown hair, Saijo is the angry boy with short, dark hair, and Noruda the mysterious "out-of-this-world" girl, I have given you all their characterization in this film. Not that this short is bad. Its animation is good and some of its shots are pretty noteworthy. But it falls short of any bigger impact it seemingly wanted to have. Neither a typhoon or a wind, this short is simply a brief breeze, that will pass thought you without lefting any lasting impression. So, why Sentai Films decided to release it in Blu-ray and even give it its own dub, its beyond me. Funnily enough, when production of Typhoon Noruda was first revealed, it was originally announced as a feature-length film. To fill in time when shown in Japanese theaters, Typhoon Noruda was presented as a double feature together with other short of the studio, "Hinata no Aoshigure". Incredibly, said short-film manages to better developed its unpretentious story and have more exuberant animation in its few 17 minutes, than Typhoon Noruda.