Rain Town (2011 Video) User Reviews

Very melancholic, relatively sweet

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 15 April 2019]

"Rain Town" is a Japanese animated short film from 2011, so this one will soon have its 10th anniversary. it is perhaps the most known of not too few short film efforts by writer and director Hiroyasu Ishida. Not too long ago he released his first full feature film, but now lets take a look at this one here. There is a brief written introduction in Japanese that is not essential and you can watch the film as well without having subtitles for these few words. It is the story of a little girl in a yellow jacked meeting a robot in a town soaked with rain. And on some occasions, you see how beautiful this city actually is/would be when the sun shines down on it. But rain is the dominating status here needs to be noted and this turns it into a pretty melancholic, almost depressing film. The soundtrack is also painfully good despite how simple it is. The whole film deserves this description. It is a relative simply story, but the right approach to animation (and music) gets a lot of heart in and makes it an interesting watch. I would not say it was great or really memorable or on a level where I would want to check out Ishida's other works immediately, but overall it is good enough for a positive recommendation in my opinion. The moment we see the robot wave his hand to the girl was pretty emotional and I am writing this as somebody who was certainly bigger on the girl in here than on the robot, so it says quite something. It is a film easy to appreciate, probably not the kind of animated movie really young audiences will appreciate, but on the contrary one that can be seen also by people from really every age up to the 90s. Early on it reminded me a bit of another Japanese water-filled film, namely the Oscar-winning "La maison en petits cubes". Admittedly, that one is definitely superior to Rain Town. No denying. But Rain Town is also good enough for a thumbs-up. See it, even if I must say had it gone one for a little bit longer, it could have dragged a bit.

Sad but Poignant

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 20 March 2019]

A little girl is sent off from her house in a place where it never stops raining. She makes her way through a great distance, helped by a skinny, minimalist robot. His friendship is undenied. At some point, he/she/it becomes part of her growing process. Apparently this is the way it is in this strange place. Melancholy music and a simple story.

A nice atmospheric anime short.

[Rectangular_businessman · 8/10 · 25 May 2024]

"In this town, since who knows when, rain has never stopped. Residents moved out to suburbs and high ground around. People's memories are now deeply submerged. But into this forgotten rainy town sometimes, someone wanders..."

Even when the plot here might be a little bit too basic to the point of being almost non-existent, the beautiful atmosphere of nostalgic melancholy which permeates this animation from beginning to end it's more than enough to make it a totally worth-watching experience.

The open conclusion leaves room for a possible continuation, and it certainly would be very nice to see more of this bittersweet tale and its characters. I would also like to see more stories about the people and robots from this setting.

I hope one day Hiroyasu Ishida revisits Rain Town...

A memory within other memories as dreaming in dream

[ideayes · 5/10 · 31 August 2018]

Ingeniously plotted and rhetorically devised, Rain Town is a memory within other memories as dreaming in dream that sets off time-memory theme by embellishing the vast expansion of misty rain with some bright sunlight, lemon yellow and wine red.