Reviews for Buta

I don't get why everyone associates this one-off as a furry anime. Have none of you seen Ducktales, Rescue Rangers, Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Looney Tunes, or Tom and Jerry??? They are anthropomorphic animals. Big deal. It didn't focus on anything sexual or anything related to furries. It just so happened that all of the characters were animals. I really liked this one-off. I wish they would have made a series for it because I enjoyed the characters and wanted them to develop more. I was engaged in the story even though there wasn't really much to go off of. The animation is enjoyable as well.It isn't the greatest thing out there but it wasn't horrible either.

The characters were pretty cliche but that is fine because it worked out. It was more about the relationship that the samurai pig and kid fox were developing.

I would definitely recommend this short to friends and fellow lovers of anime because I enjoyed it so much.

There was a period during the short that I was wondering how long it was going to take to get to the end. Chalk that up to boredom or whatever, but I feel like I was amazed that the short was actually the length of a regular anime episode.

Young Animator Training Project/Anime Mirai short reviews: Part 5/12 Buta is a story about a lone samurai guy helping a kid find some lost treasure. Except the samurai is a pig. And the boy is a fox. Yes, all the characters in Buta are anthropomorphised animals. Anthropomorphisation does have narrative purpose beyond trying to appeal to furries. Sometimes it’s about grafting these animal traits onto human characters to emphasise that characteristic. Sometimes it’s about distancing us from the reality of events so we’re able to take a step back from the reality and spend more time analyzing the symbolism which is the reason why Night onthe Galactic Railroad decided to turn its brothers into cats.

In Buta, it doesn’t really serve any purpose. If anything, it cheapened its story because turning the characters into animals distanced me from them enough that I didn’t really care about them. At least, that’s my theory as to why I never got into Buta. It could have just been the story was boring. But I’m rather baffled as to why they decided to go the anthropomorphised animals route anyway, so I’m going to blame it on that.

Verdict: Skip

Rate of 7 seen via english subtitles The characters are furies not humans. A warm heart tale about pirates. Even though this movie was comedy based some of the actions made were not bright. For example, say you have guns and you were robbed are you going to rant or shoot? Especially if they are within shooting range. The random luck usage was crazy. I have a problem oh wait here is a solution to help me out. The message i got from this was money buys. Not quite the message i would want kids to get. Yes, money is needed to live but to portray money in aform of friendship base is not recommended.

So this was a very short little movie about a sword for hire and his interesting adventure with a small Kitsune. The story is very simple, wealthy family gets attacked by pirates for an item they have and one of the children is taken away, only wanting to get the item back and get a little revenge for what had happened. Along the way, he hires a sword for hire to help him. The reason I didn’t start out with the sword for hire, Buta, was because the show doesn’t start out with him and yet both characters seem to take on the feeling ofwhat a main character is supposed to be for different reasons.

Let’s talk about the main characters now I guess. First we have the little fox boy who is trying to get his map back from pirates. We never get an actual name for him; just that he is the oldest child of his family so will end up getting the map on his birthday. He is just like a normal child who was raised in a loving home; naïve, kind, and knows what is right from wrong. The second main character is Buta, the sword for hire. He is pretty much the exact opposite of the little fox. He is slightly dirty, worried more about surviving then doing the right thing, and is always looking for a way to make money. This doesn’t make him a bad guy though as the show has tried hard to show that. It just shows the difference between the privileged and the not so privileged without demonizing the two.

There is one group of characters that I sort of feel really did not need to be in the show, and that’s Guppi and her group. Guppi is a female thief who just didn’t seem to fit into the story at all. Her and her group just seemed to pop up every once in a while. I think there are only like three or four scenes with them and it’s just like they were there for comedy relief.

The animation is very beautiful; something I would be proud to put next to Studio Ghibli to compare though I do believe Buta was not made by hand. The colors are very bright during the happy points and pushed back slightly when they need to be in order to match the scene that it was trying to portray. The anthropomorphic creatures are very simple but it almost adds to the charm the movie was trying to portray as this is a movie supposed to be meant for all ages. The only problem I had with the design is that the dried fish did not look like dried fish. It’s a very small problem to me but the final part had it as a main point and I just couldn’t understand what they were doing till the fox said they were dried fish.

The Japanese voice acting was really nice to hear surprisingly. I don’t normally say that as it’s a little harsh on my ears being a non native speaker but this show’s tone was actually quite nice. The story was slow enough that I could read the subtitles fast enough without stopping the show and the voice acting had a nice tone that made it rather enjoyable.

Buta, a wealthy boy is separated from his family and is captured for his treasure. Through some silly occurrences, a samurai working with the pirates were forced to make a deal with the said kid to retrieve a treasure map. Similar to Sword of the Stranger in terms of the relationship between boy and samurai fighting off against their fate but with Human like Animal Characters. Potential is there but for me there just isn't much to go on in terms of the overall message. Seems mixed in theme but what can you do with just 24 minutes for a story like that. In termsof positives animation, sound, and design aesthetic is its strong points for sure. For that, so far the weakest of the 4 but by no means bad, but is cluttered which is not the story's fault but. As a whole, Was entertained for the animation but that is pretty much it, the substance is not something this has in terms of message or story.

Yeah, you really can't force a heartwarming story. Could be due to the length. That's why this short movie fails for me, even though it had all the makings for a good story/my favorite tropes: 1. Morally gray, anti-hero only cares about himself until he finds something, cute, plucky kid he begrudgingly protects. 2. A mixture of bumbling and competent villains 3. Ninjas and/or samurai SN: The fox boys' voices are annoying to me. Too cutesy. Overall, this is the equivalent of a children's' Saturday morning cartoon. No real character development but cute animation and a seemingly fun story (though I was pretty bored). Again, I think if this hada longer format, whether an anime or full-length movie, it would have been more compelling.

This anime is such a strange anomaly but I think one of the greatest things you can take out of the world of anime is sometimes you can make a nice compelling viewing experience in 24 short minutes even if you don't see these characters or this world ever again. It shows in the world of animation that an incredibly short story can often be just as compelling as a feature length film or even a fully fledged anime series as long as you have a deep understanding of what your trying to present to the viewer. The story of Buta initially focuses on afox child by the name of Kitsune who is shown a treasure map by his father that shows the location of an immense treasure and that this map will be gifted to Kitsune for his birthday. As he is being told this, their house is being invaded by pirates (The Tufugu Priates), the pirates kidnap the fox boy (Kitsune) and take the treasure map for themselves. In another area of town at a local restaurant/bar the same pirates that invaded the home are reaching out to any able bodied warriors to help them with regards to finding the treasure and this is where they come across an apprehensive and disgruntled samurai by the name of Buta who is a Pig that has this silly irrational fear of cats. Buta ends up fighting many of the patrons of the restaurant/bar with relative ease and the pirates think he would be a perfect candidate to join their crew but he is not going to do it for free and there is always a price with regards to getting his help. I should also mention the fact that all the characters throughout this anime are anthropomorphic. They are all different animals of various sorts which adds to the anime's charm.

Once Buta is on the pirate ship he comes across the fox boy Kitsune, and he ends up tricking Buta with regards to helping him escape and therefore it starts Buta's reluctant adventure with this boy whether he likes it or not. Buta was never really suited for the pirate life anyway and he has taken up his responsibility with regards to getting the fox boy safe and sound with his treasure map in tow while the pirates are hot on their trail. For a 24 minute anime there really isn't a lot of story to tell but for the remainder of this adventure we get to see some really good bonding moments between Kitsune and Buta with a very hilarious and very epic finale that will give you plenty of laugh out loud moments.

When watching this title, there is an undeniable amount of charm that comes with watching a very easy to follow story such as this one. It's incredibly easy to compare it to something that we would see out of Studio Ghibli and I couldn't help but make very small comparisons to Porco Rosso while watching this short 24 minute adventure. There is some really good humor throughout this anime, and when the action does happen in this anime it often has this Looney Tunes silliness vibe to it because a lot of the humor will catch you off guard. The violence is not bloody but it doesn't need to be. The pirates are lovable incompetent idiots that can't do anything right and the fox boy has some really sharp witted dialogue.

The animation in itself is not the smoothest it could be but it doesn't have to be because it has an 80's to 90's animation aura to it despite it being made in 2012. It's also a great anime for kids to enjoy as well. The music doesn't really stand-out per se, but it's used fairly well throughout the entire viewing experience.

I think ultimately this is an anime that really understands how to make itself enjoyable within it's very short length. It knows when to be funny, when to give you the action you want, and it knows to keep things relatively simple because watching this is going to make you smile from ear to ear because it just has a simplistic enjoyable charm to it that is really hard to ignore. It's just a crying shame we never got more adventures with Kitsune and Buta, but for the short amount of time we got to see these characters on their little journey - it was absolutely worth it.