Review of Cencoroll

Cencoroll is the kind of anime that if you make up an explanation, try to fit and label in a certain genre or relate to any other anime, your whole experience will be distorted. Keep in mind that it is a short movie (30 min) based on a one shot manga. It’s not supposed to have a development on every area. Story. In the movie’s universe there are these giant white “monsters” that are not even named. None of the W’s questions needed for an explanation or even just a theory are answered (who, why and how). Both for the people who apparently can control thesekinds of monster or the monsters themselves.
Regardless, it was a very good adaptation, focusing not on how’s, but on the actual main happening: the match between the boys. The proposal still runs completely from the normal stories we’re used to seeing on movies and manages to give us a creative new world in only half an hour.

Art. Remembering that it was made on 2009, both art and story were ahead of its time. If i hadn’t seen the dates i wouldn’t recognize this drawing style as of something from 10 years ago. Characters and background were nicely done, but what caught my attention specially was the colour pallet. Matching perfectly with the animation and the theme, the grey and white gave a minimalist and delicate complementary tone to it.

Sounds. The sound, or - the lack of it, was what amazed me the most during the action scenes. There was no need for an intense or dramatic melody, the background sounds were enough. I can go even further and say that if there were actual themes, this anime would not have came out with the vibe that it did.
On this area we can notice sparks of minimalism as we did on the art, which just serve to add to each other and create a calming feeling to it, contrasting with the story.

Characters. Besides Cenco, there were only three characters on the main screen. As a short movie, there was clearly no room for deep developments and bounding between any of them. No background to the relationships with the “monsters” and the W’s again. But at the same time the author did a very good job presenting them, showing only the basics and not leading the audience to crave more information. Since the beginning the proposal was shown clear, the objective isn’t to satiate our questions.
The only problem i had on this area was the lack of emotion with the main character. He seemed off, always at ease and calm no matter what was happening.

Overall it was a very enjoyable experience, specially due to the unusual story and great artwork