Best Short Anime: (tie) Encouragement of Climb, Miss Monochrome
Runners-up: Aiura, Turning Girls
There was quite a bit of competition in this category, which is not too surprising as the number of short-form anime we’ve been getting has increased over the past couple years. Despite the limited time available in which to tell a story, the best of the lot are becoming more than just a short set up to a quick comedic punchline, even if that remains the basic formula for this genre of anime. We have come a long way, however, from the days of just throwing a cute cat on screen and watching it do something silly (and I liked Poyopoyo, by the way).
For two of our staff members, the clear favorite was Encouragement of Climb, the cute tale of a bunch of school girls who want to climb a mountain, literally. For Kory Cerjak it was “perhaps the greatest short I’ve seen ever, and it’s getting a second season. It never overstayed its welcome. In fact, it wasn’t around long enough at 12, three minute episodes.” Chris Beveridge noted that it was the best short “without a doubt. Sweet, beautifully animated and definitely a very fun story to it.” A second season will be forthcoming in the future.
Not too far behind was the recently completed Miss Monochrome, the amusing tale of an android who wants to become an idol singer. Based firmly on the appeal of well known Japanese voice actress Yui Horie, the show surpassed its seemingly limited premise by giving us a tale of swindled money, murderous aliens and the longings of an auto-tuned android who wants to be like her own personal idol, the famous idol singer Kikuko, who may be more than she seems as well. As Brian Threlkeld noted in his pitch for the show “I love the short-form and I think this simply used the format the best of these shows this year. It had everything a show needs, but it still felt like a “short” show, with the gags and all.” I, too, thought it was the top short of the year, especially as it managed to make very clever use of the limited time frame of each episode while at the same time managing to give us hints of a larger story.
