bâan: The Boundary of Adulthood

The harsh truth: Bâan isn't very good. It's fine. And that's okay.

This comes in two parts.

The first part is Bâan as an anime. And as said, it's not fantastic. I get glimpses of the vision that was intended here. In effect, this is an isekai where two people live different lives: one in a fantasy landscape, and one in a modern world. They're each trying to find "their place." As the creator himself said, Bâan means "home." Thus, the two primary protagonists are both finding their version of home.

The film is definitely very inspired. I'm detecting a lot of Matoko Shinkai in its DNA. It wants these big images, these grand vistas, and these stunning shots. It also wants to evoke a lot of wholesomeness and emotion. A lot of the scenes are not trying to be anyhting special - it's more about showing growth, learning, and emotional reaction to those experiences. There's a lot of things that happen in a short runtime. But we get this full arc, mostly focusing on the female protagonist, where she tries to find home, perhaps gets a bit disillusioned, and then eventually finds a realization of the place she needs to be. I'd be lying if the emphasis on food, similar to directors like Shinkai and Miyazaki, didn't get me a little choked up at the end. But on the face of it, this is a very direct, functional story about finding oneself in a complicated world.

Now the problems. It's easy to say Bâan struggles with its runtime, and that's very understandable. It's a short indie production, but it's REALLY short, barely clocking in at around 15 minutes. It's really hard to tell a cohesive, big, emotionally deep fantasy story in that runtime. This is like watching a full film in fast-forward; blink and you'll miss a detail. However lovingly that detail was crafted, it's only on screen for a second, and you can only take that one second to appreciate it.

However, the runtime is not the issue. Because there are plenty of anime that are fantastic with an even shorter runtime. You can tell a great story with any length of time. The key is knowing HOW to tell that story in that runtime, and Bâan does not know how to tell its story quickly. It wants to have all the dense worldbuilding, these deep character moments, emotional reflection, thoughtful scenes, laid back scenes, wholesomeness. And it just doesn't have the time. So it feels like a lot of the scene is wasted. It's like the reader's digest of the actual story, and you're barely getting the snippets as a viewer. If the script was tightened, if details were cut, and if worldbuilding was sacrificed, this could have been better. the nuts and bolts could have been tightened, because there is a good story somewhere in here. We just saw a small portion of what was on offer. It's like someone trying to rush a five-course meal. We didn't need a feast; just give us one good plate, and we would have been happy. Instead, we got a sloppy feast.

I think the real pity therein is that Bâan could have been good. It had potential. It just wasn't there, delivered by a desperation to tell a bigger story than it could. It's sad when that happens, but it happens, even in some of the best case scenarios.

That's part one: an anime that had lots of dreams that it couldn't live up to.

Then there is part 2. Because the reality is, this is an indie animation, built from the ground up on an original concept, basically funded off of hopes and dreams. This was someone's attempt to make something. And that is so commendable. As a creator myself, I see so much heart in this story, so many untold stories as well, so much left to say and do. But eventually, you have to publish. No matter how beautiful your little creation is, if it doesn't exist, and people like me can't rip it to shreds for all its faults, then it just doesn't exist. The limitations of the product came to be, and we got what we got. But it was bold to try this hard, and it is commendable to try. Few try, even fewer have the resources to bring something of this quality to realization. And we can bicker on the actual quality, but again... this exists. How many other indie creators are making anime short films? Not many, I can tell you that.

If you like indie projects, this deserves a lot of praise. It's not good, but it's not bad either; there's a lot of soul, and there are lots of people who could learn from this. It's awesome that exists, even with its faults. It's just a pity we couldn't see more of the true intentions that no doubt exist just beyond the boundary of what was shown.