蛍火の杜へ

HOTARUBI NO MORI E

MOVIE

MOVIE
Dubbed
SOURCE
MANGA
RELEASE
September 17, 2011
LENGTH
45 min

DESCRIPTION

The story of Hotarubi no Mori e centers around Hotaru, a little girl who gets lost in an enchanted forest where apparitions reside. A young boy, Gin, appears before Hotaru, but she cannot touch him for fear of making him disappear.

CAST

Gin
Kouki Uchiyama
Hotaru Takegawa
Ayane Sakura
Ryouta
Hayato Taya
Haha
Izumi Sawada
Sofu
Shinpachi Tsuji

RELATED TO HOTARUBI NO MORI E

MANGA DramaHotarubi no Mori e

REVIEWS

Remiak
100/100
Bittersweet romance and drama resulting in what is one of the best (short) works of the genre.

I will start by saying that this is a work by Yuki Midorikawa, and its story happens in the same universe as Natsume Yuujinchou so is very similar in many aspects but the story itself is (as far as i know) unrelated in any significant way.

This is a very short movie, but even then it manages to keep a calm, soothing pace and an ever-present bittersweetness that will be very familiar and appreciated by fans of Natsume Yuujinchou. This anime focuses on its 2 main characters, Takegawa Hotaru and Gin, and the relation that develops between them over the spawn of a decade.

Their friendship begins when Hotaru, as a child, walks into the forest near her grandfather's house, gets lost and start crying in despair; Gin, despite being a Youkai is unable to ignore her tears and guides her safely out of the forest. From then on, Hotaru would visit the forest every summer and spend her vacations exploring and playing with her friend Gin. There is a catch though, if Gin is ever touched by a human being, he will disappear.

The whole movie is bathed in summer ambiance and colors. The sound Cicadas, a soft breeze caressing the leaves on the treetops and softly making a wind chime sing. The sound of water slowly flowing down a stream accompanied by the sing of birds and other creatures of the forest. The bright sunbeams that manage to filter through the foliage casting small spotlights within the shadow of the countless trees. The forest, painted in green and brown, the sky in blue and occasional white, and the sunsets bathing it all in tunes of red, orange and violet.

The background art is very detailed and atmospheric, often concentrating on very ancient looking edifications and statues of religious nature (Shinto most likely) but also taking special attention to nature like a thick forest area, grass leaves, lily pads or a flowerbed. The animation itself, however, sometimes has a hard time keeping up with a regular TV series (yes, referencing Natsume Yuujinchou again since it's easy to compare the two). You would expect higher quality animation for a movie but that is not the case here, corners were cut in some places and that is fine and all, but its sometimes unfortunately obvious where.

The music is mostly composed of piano arrangements accompanied by violin and an instrument i can't really identify, but that is also very present in the music of Natsume Yuujinchou and helps set in the soothing atmosphere. The music itself is so very well mixed in with the visuals and in such good synchrony with the tune of the scenes that despite being a fundamental part of the feelings conveyed in the scenes themselves you barely notice it's there, unless you are purposely paying attention for it.

The character design is undoubtedly the work of Midorikawa, there is no particularly extraordinary people, even the protagonists aren't particularly beautiful, they just look normal and could be even be called realistic just for that but there are plenty of very interesting and different looking youkai, many have androphomorphical shapes with animal features mostly wearing yukatas or kimonos and masks with interesting motives on them, others are animals and others have abstract shapes.
_"Can i eat her?" _
It's quite impressive how much impact the story of this anime manages in such a short time, its not really how hard it hits you but how deep and for how long, it makes you feel involved with the characters to the point you wish and hope they could find a way to solve their problems but you know (and you know that they know) that such thing is not possible. And in comes the bittersweetness Midorikawa is so famous for, but this time delving into romance and drama resulting in what is, in my opinion, one of the best (short) works in the genre that will take you 46 minutes to watch and days to digest and think about.

Continue on AniList
LunaLatte
90/100
Perfect for anyone who wants a sad, cute, and short anime :)
I've seen a lot of people saying that this movie wasn't that good but personally I liked it a lot! First of all I was a huge fan of the simple animation. Like usually I hate animes that have a minimalist kinda animation vibe to them but in this anime I really liked it. It was breathtaking in my opinion. And the music, so good. Like top tier so good lmao. I really enjoyed the story line, kinda reminded me of a Tik Tok pov lmao. But I thought it was super cute. And although it was short, I think it was able to portray a good story in that short amount of time. I'll talk about the plot, the characters, and my final thoughts in this review.

The plot:

(I wrote this without writing the characters names so sorry about that!)

So basically a little six year old gets lost in a forest and starts to cry. That all changes when a spirit with a really ugly cat mask pops up. (Okay was I the only one who thought that the cat mask was ugly and creepy?? Lmao sorry if I offended anyone). He leads her out of the forest and back into her world. She promises to meet him tomorrow to give him a thank you gift and that's where the story kinda moves on. It turns into every summer they meet and talk about life and just hang out in the forest all while the spirit starts to catch feelings for this girl (JAIL periodt). And I remember thinking while watching this " please don't make a fifth grader fall in love with a spirit lmao" but they time skipped to when the main character was in high school so it was all good ( I think?). So while they are hanging out in the forest the spirit asks to hang with the main character at a festival and she accepts. They then hang out at the festival and talk and that is when the main character is told by the spirit that they are on a date. (I screamed when he told her lmao). So they have a super cute montage of them hanging out and being super cute. Then tragedy happens. As they are walking home the spirit grabs a kid to prevent him from falling down. Honestly at first I thought it was ok since they were leaving a spirit festival and that kid must have been a spirit but then the main character reveals that the boy was in fact a human and we see a shot of the spirits hand fading away. And so of course they hug and it was super cute. Then the spirit disappears I started crying, the girl started crying, and then the spirits thanked the girl for letting the spirit touch her. Then girl goes emo mode and was like "I'll always remember you." all that cliche stuff. So yeah the plot badly explained by me :)

Characters:
I'll just do the two main characters

Hotaru Takegawa: I liked her lol. Average girl in a romance story, no spicy character development or anything like that.

Gin: I love hiiimm. He was so sweet and funny. Perfect love interest in my opinion.

Final thoughts:

Overall really good. Nice and short for anyone who wants a short sad ish anime. Also the music and animation is beautiful.
Continue on AniList
EblusDraws
75/100
A predictable bittersweet romance

I'll start by making a little sum about the movie.
Hotaru is a 6 years old child who gets lost in a forest near her grandfather's house. She starts to cry, calling out Gin's attention. Hotaru wanted to touch him but there's a problem, Gin is a youkai and if a human touches him, he'll dissapear. Despite this, he guides Hotaru out of the forest. Since then, Hotaru visits Gin every summer.

Mythology and acceptance

We can say this movie's center are mythology and acceptance, this things are important because will forge and determinate the relationship our protagonists have.
This movie constantly reminds us our story happens in a forest full of youkai, mythological spirits from japanese culture. Youkai usually have a bad relationship with humans and live far away from them to avoid conflicts. Gin once was a human but his parents left him in the forest when he was a baby, youkais found him and decided to raise him as one of them. The spirits choose to make him be a part of their family, they accepted him despite their differences. However, Gin don't want to forget his human part, his biggest dream is being touched by a human.

Relationship

Our protagonists meets when Hotaru was 6 years old and get lost in the forest, that day her relationship with Gin began. Naturally they started being friends, everyday Hotaru went to the forest to see Gin and play with him. Hotaru's childhood is one of the two points we can see more development (the other being Hotaru's middle adolescence) and when we know she only can visit Gin in summer because she don't live there. Then we see a little bit of the next summers until we the last year she visited him. Gin asked Hotaru to go together to youkais' festival that night and she accepted. They spent all the night having fun while we see a stereotypical japanese festival. This is the moment when their friendship becomes a relationship.
However I have a problem with this development. Yes, it's fine they started as friends and later became a couple, but we don't see very much development on screen since we have a lot of ellipsis between Hotaru's first and last summer. It's normal to use this element because this is a short film and we don't have a lot of time, but to me this is risky and misused. We can't connect very much with them or their relationship if we only see the beginning and ending of it. If this movie was a little bit longer, definitely this relationship would have a better development and not have a mutual loving interest suddenly.

Backgrounds

Now I'd like to talk a little about backgrounds. Usually backgrounds have a lot of detail, even more with ancient buildings and statues. Something I saw is forest backgrounds have more detail than city backgrounds, this makes sense because the forest is where almost all the movie takes place and where our protagonists' relationship grows. Regardless of this, sometimes the corners were cut, but this is just a little detail.

Color palette
As I already said, our story takes place in summer and that's why all the colors are bright throughout the whole movie. This summer ambience is respected even in the night scenes at the end. A normal but good choice.

Continue on AniList