spoilers ahead!!

Initially, I put this anime on my list without any thoughts. The poster looked pretty, so I just placed it on my planned list and left my brain to wonder how long it's going to marinate there. Different from my expectations, it didn't stay there for too long. After a month or two, I caught myself watching it. With my busy schedule lately, I looked for a short series, preferably movie and saw this movie up on my list. I decided to give it a go. The beautiful poster played a big part of intriguing it, and I started off hoping the anime is as pretty as the poster is.

The story starts off with the meeting of three high school students; Aoi, Ryou and Tomoya. The three have never met each other, united by the internet and a single common purpose, which is to find the Summer Ghost. And so, the three started their journey to an abandoned plane runway. It wasn't necessarily hard for them to be able to meet the Summer Ghost. They must light up fireworks, and waited around for the ghost to appear, in which she did gladly. They began asking questions to the Summer Ghost about death and ghosts. It was all going fairly normal, but something nagged my conciousness just a little. How is it so easy for them to just summon a ghost? It was later answered that only people who are near with the realm of the dead.

The three protagonists are close with death in different ways. Both Aoi and Tomoya and emotionally "dead" with Aoi's depression that stemmed from bullying and Tomoya lacking interest or purpose in life, meanwhile Ryou is physically close to death with his terminal illness.

From there on then, the movie uncovers each and every one of their motives of visiting the Summer Ghost, how they process life and death and the true secret the said Summer Ghost. Aoi tries to find her voice, to stand up for herself. Tomoya tries find a purpose in life. Ryou tries to live his life before death claims his soul. Everyone is trying to live their life to the fullest, despite how miserable it is, how long it may take them before their life is doomed. Truthfully, the plot centers around Tomoya and the Summer Ghost a lot, since it seems that he is the one who seemed to be touched the most by the presence of the Summer Ghost, going as far as helping to look for her body almost, if not, everyday.

One thing that I've noticed is the general color palette. In most of the scenes, or the highlighted and important scenes tend to have a monotonous color palette, mainly white or pale colors. All of the character's skin are depicted as pasty white, whether if they are a living being or not. Something about it just makes sense considering the movie's topic and how death is very well acquainted with the main characters. How they all look dead with pasty white skin.

It is a very touching movie, though it lacks in plot development, which is understandable since it's a short movie with the duration of roughly 45 minutes. The animation is a little rough and bricky but it adds to the charm and is a unique touch, aside from that, the bricky animation is covered by the beautiful lighting and coloring that really sets you in the mood. Even if you don't like the plot, you gotta admit the coloring and lighting is amazing. Really recommend this if you're looking for some feels and heartfelt things.