Reviews WebAnimation / Song In The Sky

(first episode review) A lot of story and world-building packed into a single episode

This is how you do storytelling and pack it into 11 minutes.

First thing you see, falling buildings, as lyrical music plays. Then, we meet Angela, a fighter pilot who speaks with a tone of voice indicating that she's weary and emotionally broken. Her companion, some kind of flying robot, is more upbeat.

Already we're in an intriguing world, and both it and the characters are set up.

During 11 minutes,

• we see a photo of someone named Helen, who may be a friend or girlfriend of Angela
• we see the words "GOD KILLER" painted on the side of Angela's plane
• we see a missile with the words "FOR HELEN" written on it
• Angela thinks about the crystal used to power her floating city took six months to find, and only has one month's worth of power left
• Angela kneels as if crying, and thinks about the same song that's played during the beginning
• Angela thinks about how everything is falling out of the sky, and wonders if anything exists down at the bottom - if there even is a bottom

All of this reveals character and sets up the world, in the process of telling the story. It creates a character I'm invested in, and a world I find interesting and want to see more of. How many cities are there powered by crystals? Why did they end up this way? What is with the strange looking metallic monsters flying in the sky, attacking the humans?

I'm impressed with how much story, character and world-building was packed into only 11 minutes of this indie animation. All this feels like it tells more of a story than, say, 11 minutes of the typical action-adventure cartoon episode.

And the art style, while simple, mostly works. Angela's design is simple, cute, and appealing. The city, buildings, and trees look rather flat and 2D, and could look better. The metallic creatures have a neat, freaky design to them, and Angela's plane is cool looking. While the animation itself is limited, it doesn't look bad in motion - mouth movements work well, and everything moves nicely enough to make the action work. This was clearly made on a low (or no) budget, but it comes together very well.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of this cartoon whenever more episodes are made, and have already subscribed to the channel that produced it. It's an intriguing story, world, and character so far, as well as a stellar example of how to achieve a lot within a very limited budget.