Having just seen Bobby's In Deep for the first time, and having read the reviews that have been posted for the film to date, I feel compelled to post a review of my own in praise of the film for several strong positive qualities which others seem to have missed. To my understanding, Bobby's In Deep is a 45 minute short film from 1985 adapting a 1980 novel by the same name. The main character Bobby (real name Akihiko Nomura) is a 17/18 year old motorcycle enthusiast who has toured around Japan taking photos and submitting them to amateur motorcycle magazines. The movie opens with Bobbyreceiving a fan letter from a girl who has seen some of his photos and has been moved by the power of the imagery. The girl's voice narrates the letter, and Bobby narrates his reply as he sends her his answer back to her, setting up a romantic back and forth exchange of love letters which plays out as events in Bobby's young life start to rapidly unfold, starting with his decision to drop out of high school two weeks before summer vacation. The school notifies his parents of his absence, he has a confrontation with his father, and he winds up thrown out of the house to fend for himself and live with the consequences of his decision with nothing but his motorcycle and the clothes on his back.

I feel compelled to note that there isn't any indication in the movie that Bobby is a juvenile delinquent. He doesn't hang out with a bad crowd, or do drugs, or even talk back to his parents when they yell at him. He just seems to be a free spirit that doesn't value the kind of lifestyle that higher education and the traditional Japanese value system have to offer him, so he accepts his parents' disapproval and goes out into the world to find his own path to adulthood.

Bobby's In Deep has a rather thin story for an anime film. It is barely 45 minutes in length, after all. To deal with this, the film dispenses with the backstory and focuses on present events. We don't know how Bobby picked up the Western nickname, where he got the motorcycle, why he's such a bad student, or his other potential aspects as a character. What we do know is that it is the early 1980's, the peak of Japan's post-war miracle economy, and Bobby is a very nontraditional young person traveling the country on his motorcycle, coming of age, and maybe even falling in love in the unique environment of that time and place, and everything the movie does with that in 45 minutes is rather impressive.

What Bobby's In Deep lacks in story, it more than makes up for in creative direction and visuals. The film is no Angel's Egg (released the same year, interestingly) but deserves some recognition as experimental filmmaking for its skillful inclusion of still photography, brush-like watercolors, and imaginatively rendered representation of light and shadow into every exquisitely hand-drawn frame of the animation. It is a brief experience, but remarkable if you are looking for it.

In 1985 Bobby's In Deep may have been an unexceptional short film with some shiny animation, meant to promote a book and the careers of some aspiring J-drama personalities. Thirty years later, it is a time capsule of 1985 Japan with the power to transport you back and give you an idea what it felt like to be young, rebellious and in love in the sunset years of Showa era Japan, even if you are too young to have ever experienced anything of the kind yourself. For devoted Japanophiles it is a real gem. If you let the film's unique perspective slip by you, worrying too much about why Bobby's grades are poor, then you have really missed out on something special.