Audience reviews
5 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Gsarthotegga
A decent experimental short. There's no dialogue or discernible story. Just a girl with what appears to be a mask shuffling through a small little abode, reading books, dreaming, hallucinating, and being visited by strange figures. Visually, it's compelling enough and consists of various animation techniques and 3D modeling—on the audio side, there's effective sound design and piano music.
I suppose there's some specific concept or themes explored, though to really grasp what is being said—if anything—one will have to pay attention to visual cues. With the dreamlike lapses into temporal, strange worlds, it is reminiscent of Alice and Wonderland or some other fairytale.
The element of books and the exploration of space reminds me a bit of Jorge Luis Borges weird short fiction with endles…
Read at the sourceRancidLemons
Good, evocative experimental anime are by no means rare. But rarely do I personally find myself relating to a rapid succession of abstract vignettes in such an intimate manner.
In Kikumana there is no story to speak of. It is after all just a 6 minute short animation in which Yasuhiro Yoshiura attempts to provoke an emotional reaction from the audience through audiovisual means alone. To this regard, I think he succeeds. The animation follows a young, faceless girl studying in a room and is shot in a staticky black and white filter reminiscent of old film while a constant ticking clock can be heard in the background. As time goes on, our protagonist grows increasingly tired and begins experiencing surreal hallucinations which persist even as she attempts to take a break. These visions are…
Read at the sourceSidewinder51
Rate 3/4
no vocals/art piece
Story
No clear path to follow. The patch jumped in and out. Since the path was not clear neither could the message be. It could be a say on imprisonment or amnesiac but i thought it was a take on development. Development the stage where we grow in our mind and on whom we are. Books are engraved as fountains of knowledge. So, it is a no wonder we turn to them in times of troubles. Alas, in terms of defining our individual paths the books can't help. For books are general. With such a wide spread of knowledge it is hard to wrap things in a nice small box for everyone has different taste. Which means i can't say you are going to become a lawyer who enjoys a sand-which heavy with mayo for you might dislike mayo. But, they can be guidelines but tons of tons have to…
Read at the sourcekaonasi_mV
Only six minutes. What is possible to tell during this time? For example, about infinity and depth of human knowledge, about a tide of life, about the Universe which is hidden in a book, about riddles of the past and movement in the future, about development and stagnation, fading and the birth, about loneliness among books and the real depression. What is it? Fantastic fairy tale? Madness, incarnate fear, a hallucination, surrealism, a sketch on writing-book fields, history about terrible loneliness of the child in the illusive world of adults? Or is it simply black-and-white melancholy of self-knowledge?
In Kikumana everything is based on associations and mood: everyone understands how he or she wants. And we never can not understand a true plan of the author. This movie opened slightl…
Read at the sourceNiverse
If you're into cold, lonely and especially strange atmospheres in your movies, this might be the thing for you.
Story: 5/10
I gave it a middle score because frankly, there isn't much of a story, it's telling you something, but it's so open to interpretation that it feels wrong to rate it too high or too low because I wouldn't know what to use as a standard.
Through the film you'll be traveling through the main characters instable mind and go through a bunch of strange scenes. If you're into abstract storytelling and such things left open for interpretation, you'll most likely enjoy this.
Art: 7/10
The animation does seems a bit wonky, for lack of better words, though it really works, that odd animation, along with the fact that the whole film is in black and white, creates a really c…
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