Zoo: Hidamari no Shi

Once upon a time, on a warm and sunny day, a young lady opened her eyes for the first time. Born not of flesh, but of circuits and steel, she was a robot, created in a lab to serve a lonely man who was living in solitude out on a desolate cliffside field. Her duties included making his coffee, doing his laundry, and tending his garden, which had recently been beset by a hungry little rabbit. After a month of this, it began to dawn on the robot girl that there was a purpose to her daily routine beyond mere servitude.He was teaching her to appreciate life, to live in harmony with nature, and to understand the tragedy of death... And most devastatingly of all, that his own demise would soon come to pass. With only a week left to carry out his final wish, burying him so that his body can return to the earth that he loves so much, will she finally be able to peace together the truth behind her birth? You probably haven’t heard of Hidamari no Uta/Hidamari no Shi, otherwise known as Song of the Place Where the Sun Shines, and that’s not just me being a hipster. The background behind this short film is fairly unique, and it’s also the reason why the entry for this title is locked on Anilist(and now deleted, so yay, MAL gets exclusive dibs on this one). It doesn’t technically qualify as anime by this site’s standards, even though it’s a piece of animation that was produced and released in Japan. To be fair, Hidamari wasn’t released the same way most anime are released... It was released as part of an anthology film, and it was the only segment on that film that was animated. The film was called Zoo, and it was a collection of works inspired by the writings of acclaimed Japanese Horror author Otsuichi. Zoo is basically to Otsuichi what the Creepshow films were to Stephen King. I personally saw this film at least a decade ago, when the DVD was available for cheap from Rightstuf, and while my memories of the film are vague, Hidamari was one of the two shorts that stuck with me, and for good reason. First off, this is a very visually striking film. I’m not sure what to call this aesthetic... 3D sounds inaccurate, because that’s something you’d need special glasses for, and CG also sounds dishonest, because pretty much all anime is made via computers these days. Hell, you know what I mean without getting all semantic on me, right? I’m going to call it 3D, with that understanding between us. 3D anime is rare even these days, and Hidamari was produced in 2005 for a 2007 release. It’s fair to say that the best looking 3D anime I’ve ever seen also came out in this time frame, but Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children will always be the exception that proves the rule. Movies that are just extended video game cutscenes aside, even today, 3D animation in Japan is extremely hit or miss. It’s at its best when it’s animating non-human characters, so that it’s able to lean into the uncanny valley and actually take advantage of it, which is why Land of the Lustrous works so much better than Knights of Sidonia or the newer installments of Berserk. Hidamari also takes advantage of this, and the result is animation that looks... Good. Not amazing, not breathtaking, but good. That might not sound like praise, but for an indie project in 2007 that didn’t have a Square Enix sized budget to throw around, 3D animation that doesn’t look terrible is still hitting above par. The animation does its job perfectly fine, it never feels janky or creepy, and it also helps that they used what appears to be a water-color palette to soften the edges. It’s a nicer looking project than it has any right to be, but I guess I'd expect nothing less from Toei. As for the other reasons why this short stuck with me for so long... It’s kind of hard talking about the story and writing, because it’s a thirteen minute anime that actually manages to have some massive spoilers in it, so you’re going to have to excuse me talking in broad strokes about what it was specifically that struck a chord with me. As soon as the short opens, you’re immediately presented with a scenario that invites you to ask dozens of questions, but it never asks any of them for you, or even suggests which ones are the most important. Right out the gate, there are endless little theories you can cook up about what’s actually going on, and the narrative is very careful to only feed you bits and pieces of the true answers as it leads up to the devastating third act. You’re given several clues that seem to point in one obvious direction, only for their true meaning to slap you upside the head on a second watch. If you’re like me, and you’re a huge fan of Key the Metal Idol, you may believe right from the start that the girl isn’t really a robot, and she’s just delusional. I’m not saying whether or not that’s true. In the past, I’ve praised certain anime titles that I’ve reviewed for being about certain topics, and while I generally stand by most of my previous reviews, being about something doesn’t necessarily make an anime good. When I watched the infamously boring Glasslip last year, I was able to pick up on layers of depth and meaning in the story... There’s a reason that story is told the way it is, it has something to say, and it says it exceptionally well, but that still doesn’t change the fact that it’s fucking boring. So, when I say that Hidamari is about life and death, I want you to know that that alone is not an endorsement. There are millions of ways to explore that concept... Some of them are good, some of them are bad, some of them are stupid, some of them are profound, etc. What matters is whether or not the concept is explored in an interesting and thought provoking way, and in my opinion, Hidamari does exactly that. Out of all the different perspectives that you can explore the basic yet somehow still ambitious topic of existence itself from, I have to admit, the perspective of a robot who was created to serve and ultimately bury a dying human is definitely an intriguing one. We don’t spend a ton of time with our nameless protagonist, but we do experience life and death right alongside her as we observe the month and change that she’s able to spend with her creator, and it’s explored in some genuinely touching and unexpected ways that, again, I’m sad to say, I’m not able to specifically discuss due to spoilers. Personally, I think it would have been better if it had been extended to a full half hour, so most of the robot’s development wouldn’t have been relegated to a montage, but it’s not a bad montage or anything. It’s just the one glaring flaw in what was, otherwise, a tightly written story that will probably stick around in your mind long after you’ve finished it. Hidamari no Shi has only ever been made available stateside through the original Zoo DVD release, which is long out of print, and is not pretty expensive on Ebay. The short on its own can be viewed for free on Youtube, even if the video quality isn’t all that great. Hidamari no Shi may not shock you... It may not tug at your heart strings and make you cry... As powerful as its twists may be, they may not hit you like a sucker punch to the gut, and I doubt I can really present it to you as a tear jerker. What I can promise is that even after every question has been answered, even after it’s played its last card, this is a short film that will make you think. Even if you never felt a deep connection to the characters, you will remember their plight. While the story is mostly unique and original, outside of being an adaptation, it takes elements from stories like Frankenstein and Alice in Wonderland to help make its point, and the end result is richer for it. If it were made ten years later, it wouldn’t have felt out of place in the Netflix series Love, Death, and Robots. I’d highly recommend checking this short film out, and I’d especially love to hear what other people were able to take away from it. I give Hidamari no Shi an 8/10.