Pale Cocoon Review - 69/100
Pale Cocoon: a twenty-minute long OVA, famous for its graphics. The setting is the year 2218, and it’s another one of those post-apocalyptical stories. The earth has been destroyed somehow, and people have been forced to move underground, and gradually forgot the past of a blue and green earth. Now, finally after an unknown amount of years, images and records from the past have been dug up and recovered, and our main character has been fascinated by them.
The graphics are indeed the reason why you should watch this, as they, combined with the storytelling manage to create a subtle atmosphere. It’s just unfortunate that this OVA could have achieved this even better if it extended its length to thirty minutes, because right now, it just forgets to flesh out its characters and setting well enough. We only see a tiny bit of the characters, but we never know how they spend their lives outside of their jobs. One particular character only appears through a voice, and we never see anything about him, despite the fact that he appears relatively often. We also never know what caused humanity to go underground in the first place, and why the surface became so uninhabitable.
Because of this, the climax unfortunately was ruined. The writers tried to be mysterious and pretentious, but because of that and the lack of development on both story and characters, the climax is just way too confusing and contradicting. I had no idea what went on, and that wasn’t a good sign.
The backgrounds may be beautifully rendered, but in the end, Pale Cocoon turned out to be lacking, even for an artistic anime. If you’re looking for something artistic, you could give it a try, but there are quite a few similar and better movies and OVAs out there. For example, even Kai Doh Maru, who also had a really confusing plot turned out more worthwhile than this one, simply because it did spend enough time fleshing out its characters. Wonderful Days also turned into a better watch, and its graphics were rendered even better; despite its storyline was mundane, at least it was coherent.
