Although he has made several short animated features previously, it was not until “Fumiko’s Confession” director Hiroyasu Ishida (“Penguin Highway”) made the necessary experiences which laid the groundwork for his future career. In his statement about the 2009 short, he explains how working with others departments and coordinating made him realize the collaborative effort behind each production and how everything needs to be communicated properly in order for the final result to work. “Fumiko’s Highway” was quite well-received and would go on to win a Best Film Award at Tokyo International Anime Fair and also an Excellence Award at the 14th Japan Media Arts Festival.
The story revolves around two characters, Takashi and Fumiko. After school, the latter finally has the courage to confess to him her affection and her desire to be in a relationship with him, but Takashi seems to misunderstand her statement, and is more interested in baseball. The rejection of her secret love makes Fumiko quite angry, and she lets out her frustration as she walks, and then runs through her neighborhood, all the way downhill until she is realizes she is unable to stop.
In the aforementioned statement, Ishida highlights that “Fumiko’s Confession”, above all, was more of a training exercise for him and those involved. Considering its length and its story, the feature is most certainly an exercise, but one which is quite interesting and unique in many ways, especially in terms of animation and how Ishida and his team establish the notion of speed and movement. As the majority of “Fumiko’s Confession” shows the titular character unable to stop her frantic running downhill and through her neighborhood, the design of the world constantly shifts, emphasizing her speed and how her environment blurs, becoming borderline surreal in the process.
Throughout the short, the animation is excellent, showing his ability to transform the world of the characters as a metaphor for the intensity of their emotions. The use of 3D animation is perhaps the most important aspect, making you enter the perspective of the main character, having lost control over the speed at which she moves and thus her emotions as a whole. At the same time, the overall effect is quite comedic occasionally, reminiscent of Harold Lloyd’s “Speedy”, especially due to the combination of visuals and score.
In conclusion, “Fumiko’s Confession” is a quite entertaining and skillfully-made, animated short. Hiroyasu Ishida, 21 at the time of production, showed his talent at combining all the elements of a production as well as his theme of blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, which would become even more important in his future works.
