I've never heard of Naoyuki Tsuji, but I can say one thing with near certainty: He was high as a kite when he drew this anime. I don't know what his drug of choice might have been, but judging by all the "cloud" imagery and the events of episode 2, I'm guessing it was something you smoke. ANYWAY, 3tsu no Kumo is basically the most bizarre thing I've seen since The Apple Incident (which, by the way, I'd recommend to anyone who likes this kind of surreal, trippy-as-balls animation). The page here says it's 3 episodes at 12 minutes each, but it's actually3 episodes that add up to a TOTAL of 12 minutes.

The story is...uh...bizarre. I don't want to even talk about it, because not only does it make absolutely zero sense anyway, but anything I could really say would spoil the fun of sitting, watching, and saying to yourself, "what the damn hell is going on?" ...I gave it a 2, because even though it was probably ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT to Tsuji when he thought it up, I refuse to believe that anybody else can make any real sense of it.

The art rocks holes. Like, I've never seen anything like it. Every scene is drawn on the same piece of paper with what looks like a charcoal pencil, erasing each previous frame and drawing the next on the same page. The eraser marks leave an obvious and really cool ghost trail thing behind. I really like unique and interesting art in my anime, especially in shorts like this. I give it a 9.

The sound is...odd. Not quite as odd as in The Apple Incident (yeah, making that comparison again), but odd. But then, so is the animation, and so is the whole package, so it works well. And the third episode actually has what I can consider *music*, and it's pretty nice. No real memorable tunes or anything, but it definitely fits the anime. 8 points.

The characters are...clouds, and nameless school students, mostly. Nobody ever talks, there's no development, and none of them have any kind of personality to speak of. 2 points, one for each eye on that freaky cloud from episode 2.

As for my own enjoyment, I was skeptical at first, but things got weird soon enough, and I like weird. I was making the O.o face basically the entire time, starting at about 2:20 when the first giant cloud boner showed up, but it was a good O.o face. 7 for enjoyment.

2 + 9 + 8 + 2 + 7 = 28, 28/5 = 5.6 =~ 6. 6/10 overall. Better than average. I'd recommend checking it out to anyone who appreciates the unique and...weird.