HANOKA

Let's cut straight to the chase. Hanoka isn't "good" per se, I don't want to blow your ear off talking about how Hanoka is some misunderstood masterpiece or whatever because it really isn't, it looks very clunky, moves very clunky and shoots way higher than something with its budget and duration could ever hope to achieve. What I will, however, talk about is how good it is that Hanoka even exist

As of writing this review this anime has a 30% score on Anilist, both other reviews give it pretty bad scores overall and the general feeling towards Hanoka seems to be "that one time they tried to make an anime in flash and it looked like ass". This is understandable if you look at Hanoka in a vacuum/apply the same standards to it that you'd do the newest season of whatever sakugaslop is currently popular. To which I must ask: Is it actually right to judge Hanoka like this?

Making something is hard, making something people like it's actually easy because mfs be watching Kamen Rider Ryuki but I digress. Making something with any merit or vision in a titan of an industry like anime is "easy" if you don't mind bankrupting your studio, penny pinching, and/or alienating 99% of the audience. Hanoka is the latter 2, it's very clear this is a side-side-project or a weird experiment. It was made by people that wanted to tell a story but barely had the time or resources to but fuck if they tried, it's not "wasted potential" as much as its "this is probably even more potential than they could squeeze out of what they had"

Nowadays people have a ton of tools to tell their own stories. That hack Makoto Shinkai started off with an indie film made by one guy (him) and a dream; AsH puts his heart and soul into his Yuri mecha short films every few years, information and technology travels at a MUCH faster rate today than it did back then. Which makes it even more admirable that some guys grabbed Macromedia Flash and just tried. That's what I love about Hanoka, that they tried

It's very different being backed up by a large studio and a million dollars and not doing enough than it is having none of that and just doing the best you can. In the former you're a bum for having the opportunity most artists can only DREAM of and wasting it on making Shuumatsu Train. In the latter you will probably make something "suboptimal" that is 90% rough edges but yknow what you made something in a world where most people make nothing and nobody can take that from you, whatever indie film you made probably has a million times more artistic value than 90% of the things that exist

And that last line is why I find it hard to dislike or critique anything about Hanoka. Its flaws are too obvious to point out, it feels almost counterproductive scolding it for being paced like a fever dream or having weird animation at times because I'm sure that if you told that to any of the people that worked on it they would just answer "yeah". Hanoka exists, through miracles and compromises it exists, it's terrible score is understandable but it is not fair or deserved in ANY capacity. You're free to dislike Hanoka, of course, but its reputation being "that one flash anime that sucks" instead of what it should be (Something sort of inspiring, like if a few guys were able to make this 20 years ago what's stopping ME from just making my own stuff?) feels just plain wrong