Man, Studio Colorido's been on a roll lately, what with all the good stuff they've been churning out in recent years. They mainly do a lot of key and in-between animation for other shows made by other studios, and a lot of their own output consists of shorts or web series. They have started transitioning to making movies, with their first being Penguin Highway, which I haven't seen. I mainly know them for the Pokemon Twilight Wings and PokeToon web series, both of which are absolutely amazing, with one of their PokeToons, Yume no Tsubomi being my absolute favorite Pokemon anime of all time. I did see their second movie, A Whisker Away, and I thought it was kinda meh. Thankfully, their newest film, Drifting Home, which just dropped on Netflix, fares a lot better in both its concept and execution, and is just a really nice, delightful kids movie.

Kosuke and Natsume have been best friends since early childhood, and they often spent a lot of their time at Kosuke's grandfather Yasuji's apartment. Unfortunately, Kosuke and Natsume got into a fight at one point, and Yasuji dies shortly afterward, leaving their relationship strained as a result. The apartment complex they spent so much time in is now abandoned and due to be demolished soon. One day, Kosuke and Natsume, along with four other kids, find themselves in the abandoned apartment complex...and wind up getting magically transported to what appears to be the middle of the ocean, completely blocked off from civilization. Things get even stranger when they come across another kid, Noppo, whom nobody but Natsume recognizes. With no sign of civilization in sight, the kids have to band together to survive, dealing with all manner of dangers like food shortages and the already dilapidated apartment complex gradually crumbling around them.

So yeah, as it turns out, Drifting Home is a survival anime, and a damn effective one, surprisingly enough. Having just come off playing Digimon Survive, which tackles very similar themes, Drifting Home is basically a kids version of that, but much lighter in tone and without an actual antagonist, though that doesn't make the movie any less engaging and heartbreaking when it needs to be. Drifting Home's biggest strength is how much it commits to its themes of survival without skimping on details or trying to make things more convenient for itself. For one, when characters get injured, they stay injured, and their wounds stick around for the entirety of the movie. The characters' clothes get torn and don't get magically fixed like some other shows tend to do. Drifting Home takes absolutely nothing for granted, showing the characters actively trying to find ways to survive, like finding food or boiling rainwater to make it drinkable, things that most anime only tend to show one or two scenes of. Because of the main characters being a bunch of children, there's even more danger to it because their actions could easily either save them or get them killed. One scene later in the movie shows Natsume trying to save a girl from falling to her death, but her method of saving her, while preventing her from drowning, winds up giving her a serious head injury that could either have killed her or made her sustain serious brain damage, even though realistically, Natsume literally had no other options. Hard decisions are made, and the movie is fantastic at really giving everything a real sense of palpable tension and serious stakes.

The same amount of detail is in the animation as well: One thing I noticed in a lot of Colorido's portfolio is that their animation is heavy on fluid, dynamic movement. The characters move realistically and very few corners are cut in comparison to your average anime. The colors are vivid and bright when needed, the setting is down to earth yet surprisingly full of life considering the characters spent all their time in one location, and said location actually looks like a decaying, aging building, with cracks and dirt on every surface, with weeds growing in places they shouldn't. The character designs also toe the line between being cartoony and realistic, similar to a lot of the older Digimon anime. I don't have as much to say on the soundtrack, but it does its job nicely, and the few songs it has are okay too.

Even the characters and their development is surprisingly down-to-earth in spite of the slightly fantastical situation they find themselves in. Now, keep in mind, the characters are all elementary-aged children, and depending on your tolerance for certain archetypes, you're guaranteed to find one of two of them annoying. Reina especially is designed to get on your nerves. But the movie does well in developing them over the course of its run time, and they all manage to find ways to make the best of their situation. Plus, the movie is careful to remind us that these are just children, not super OP isekai protags who get everything handed to them on a silver platter. They're not always going to make the best decisions, and they're all engagingly flawed but still relatable. That being said, I really didn't like Reina's constant complaining and blaming Natsume for everything, even though the only reason Reina is in this situation with them is that she herself willingly went to the abandoned apartment just so she could she could have an excuse to hang out with Kosuke. Really, Reina, you only have yourself to blame for this. Plus, I wish the movie had bothered to mention Juri's name earlier in the movie, not wait until an hour into its run.

Of course, Reina's whininess isn't the only problem the movie has. It's biggest issue is that it's very...blunt in its themes and messages. It makes absolutely no secret of the fact that it's a story about grief, letting go, and moving on, and often times its visual imagery and symbolism have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face. Granted, this is a little understandable since Drifting Home is obviously aimed at a younger audience, but it could have benefited from trusting its audience a bit more. The lack of subtlety also results in the movie dragging a bit near the end, when it starts getting bogged down by its desire to explain its own subtext. That being said, I can forgive this because the movie still manages to be a pretty engaging and thrilling survival movie without trying to be the epic of the year. Drifting Home knows what it is, commits to its ideas, and doesn't give a damn about putting its characters in legitimate peril. I can definitely see certain overzealous parents freaking the hell out about the situations the characters in this movie find themselves in. Others might claim the movie is bogged down by emo melodrama, though I've seen other stuff that's way worse about this (coughcough_VampireInTheGarden_coughcough).

But yeah, I honestly really liked Drifting Home, and I really recommend you watch it if you're looking for a survival movie that doesn't feel sensationalized or like it's only caring more about special effects. Also, I really hope Studio Colorido gets to do more things, like more movies or even TV series. Considering their repertoire so far, I can't wait to see what else they come up with in the future.