Anime Review: Hotarubi no Mori e

Forests and Spirits, in Japan, it’s a tale as old as time and in this 44-minute OVA, we are treated to another one of these classic stories with Hotarubi no Mori e (The Forest of Firefly Lights). Even though this is billed as a movie, the 44-minute length is more like an OVA than anything which makes me worried if it will have enough time to tell a complete tale. Does it?

Let’s Jam!

The Story

Hotaru is a girl who takes a trip once per summer to visit her uncle who lives on the edge of a forest. One summer, she gets lost in the forest and is approached by a young man in a mask named Gin. He tells her that he is a spirit of the forest but dodges her when she tries to run and hug him for saving her. Gin tells her she must never touch him because if she does, he will disappear. He has a curse on him where that will happen if he is ever touched by a human being. This captivates Hotaru and she wants to spend more time with Gin.

So, every summer, she makes it a tradition to go into the forest when she visits her uncle to see Gin and spend time with him. Over time, the two grow closer together.

I wish I had a more in-depth synopsis but that is, literally, the premise of this OVA!

The Characters

Hotaru Takegawa

As a young girl, she’s energetic and mischievous. That’s how she ended up getting lost in the forest, to begin with. Of course, being young, she’s going to be full of sugar and energy and act very childlike. She climbs trees, falls into bushes and gets hurt, asks a bunch of curious questions, etc., etc. In other words, she is the child that every child is expected to be; however, as she grows older and heads into middle school and, later, high school, you see her maturation. You see her tone become a bit more serious all while remaining light and innocent. She’s still happy to go back to the forest to visit Gin but she starts to have more mature worries… such as thinking about Gin’s well-being during the winter months when it gets brutally cold in the mountains.

As she gets older, you also see her feelings come through. Gin becomes more than just a childhood friend to her. He becomes an object of her affection and despite her growing love, she never externally aches over the fact that she can never touch him. In fact, she becomes a bit protective of that fact the older she gets. It’s a nice transition over the course of time and it’s great to see that maturation process happen. Most of the time, an anime will do a time skip and you never see the events that mold and shape them. While the OVA does skip time, it does so where there isn’t anything mysterious about the transition of her personality!

A really solid main character!

Gin

Gin is mysterious from the onset. With his mask, he hides his face but doesn’t do so for any particular reason. Hotaru does see his face and he looks just like a normal human. He says he likes to wear the mask as it makes his story of being a spirit more believable.

We do get a backstory for Gin and why his spirit form is that of a human. Plus, we get to briefly meet all of the other spirits of the forest who keenly warn him about letting a human into his life… all because of the curse placed upon him. All of that gets explained throughout the course of the OVA but I will say it’s not as deep of a reason as I would have liked it to be and the OVA doesn’t have enough time to truly explore the spirit side of the forest. I would have liked to know way more about the spirits instead of just Gin but with the luxury of time not on our side, I can understand why the OVA chose to go this route. Still, Gin was an enjoyable character.

Art, Animation, and Sound

Brain’s Base handled Hoturabi no Mori e and did a pretty good job with it. It was definitely above a TV anime-level budget but didn’t stray too far from that. One of the more impressive pieces of art in the OVA was during the spirit festival on the mountain. They did a great job capturing a traditional Japanese cultural festival (not like the ones normally seen in high school anime). The lighting and use of colors were perfect in that sense.

Of course, most of Hoturabi no Mori e takes place in a forest so expect lush backgrounds filled with lots of different shades of green and blue sunny skies. The moments when we were in the city were also well-done as well. Visually, it was a pretty pleasing piece to look at.

The character designs were rather basic, though with nothing much to write home about but with this mainly focusing on just two characters, if you couldn’t tell who was who, that’s a problem that you need to sort out for yourself!

Overall Thoughts

As I feared, 44 minutes wasn’t enough. While Hoturabi no Mori e told a good story, the twist that we all knew was coming was sudden and executed rather hastily. Almost as if it was done in a way where they knew they were running out of time and just needed something to happen to get us to that moment. When the moment happened, it was over in an instant and didn’t have that typical drawn-out aftermath. Plus, the emotion of the scene was completely lost because Hotaru didn’t react at a level I would have expected her to.

The ending is always paramount to a story and I felt as if this OVA dropped the ball here. It was barely impactful and part of that stemmed from you knowing it was coming. It was painfully obvious that it would head in that direction and when it did you were like “Oh! Here it is” and then left with “Wait, that was it?… I guess so because it’s over and here come the credits.”

Even though the potential of this piece felt held back due to the time it was given, the overall story was pretty decent and still enjoyable. If you have 44 minutes to kill, feel free to check Hoturabi no Mori e out… just don’t expect an emotional masterpiece that it could have been had it been a full-length feature film with more subtle foreshadowing.