Short Peace is a complication of four animations which end with a form of 'peace':
+ The first animation, Possession, follows a humble merchant that seeks shelter from the rain, and finds a small abandoned shrine to rest in. As the merchant falls asleep, the shrine changes in shape and size, seeming to come back alive. The Merchant then wakes up in this shrine and to be able to move from room to room, he solves the ghosts and monsters problems by fixing their appearance. As the merchant faces the last room, he wakes up and thanks the shrine protector which was the last monster that he helped. This theme of peace can be seen through how the main character helps the spirits and monsters that are in the shrine and have been abandoned and forgotten, helping them to move on.
This animation was beautifully made with the mixture of CG and traditional 2D animation, which surprisingly worked well with the cartoon texture that was placed on the CG characters. The movement of the main character was smooth and very expressive with over exaggerated poses or stretches, it gave the character a bigger personality. I found that the shadows of the CG models could have been edited to work better with the traditional and CG backgrounds which the main character interacted with, I felt that the shadow stood out too much compared to the scenery he was situated in.
+ The second animation Combustion, follows a young woman who does not want to be forced into an arranged marriage and wants to be with her childhood friend who was rebellious towards his family, disregarded in the eyes of his family as he followed his dreams and joined the fire brigade. In order to see her beloved, she starts a fire, only for the fire to consume her entire house, forcing her to take to the roof and try to escape the flames by jumping to another roof. As the fire brigade try to tame the fire, she becomes cornered through trying to reach her beloved, who came to her rescue. Unfortunately the flames tear at the roof that she is on and is engulfed by the debris and flames that she falls into. This theme of peace can be seen with how she finally escaped the forced fate of arranged marriage but not in the way she had dreamed.
I found the animation to be well made through the visual aesthetics, a traditional Japanese scroll as the border for the animation with a traditional scroll illustrative approach to the characters; It worked well with the era that the characters were situated in, and also helped the idea of how difficult it was to tame fire back in that time period, made the death seem more believable with the lack of technology at their disposal. The style of the 2D animation contrasted nicely against the harsh vivid flames that plagued the scenery, with the character animation working well with the motion of the characters having that believable portrayal of volume with the action, the jump and landing of the main character ran smoothly.
+ The third animation Gambo was difficult to follow in both narrative and visual styles. The animation would constantly change between 2D and 3D, with the whole plot being as difficult to follow. It felt that it needed an episode or something before this animation to explain the use of a polar bear, and why there was a demon from space only eating the villages women, it does show that the demon uses the women to be able to reproduce, much like the film alien with the eggs hatching and attaching to their faces. I believe that this short could possibly take influence from an old Japanese folktale that involves a polar bear who saves the day, but honestly I couldn't follow what was happening for the majority of it, I kept questioning the use of characters and the added plot points. The whole animation is bizarre however it kept to the theme of peace, which can be seen as the polar bear destroys the ship and the demon, bringing peace to the village.
+ The fourth animation Farewell to arms, follows a team who collect and discover items in deserted and desolate cities that have decayed and eroded. The team head into the city with high hopes, only to be met with robots with a set program for destruction, one by one the team are attacked and killed, until it reaches the last two survivors of the team who escape by exploding the mine that they had found in the city, trapping the robots with the debris. However one robot escapes and kills one of the survivors and as the last team member prepares for his death, the robot stops and begins to drive away. The character works out that the work gear and helmets they had been wearing was what the robots were targeting, as the character had taken of his gear he had been spared. He begins to throw rocks at the robot in rage for his team mates death, and in return the robot gives him a leaflet to visit a popular vacation area which the city used to be.
The animation was set entirely in 3D which worked quite well with the textures that were placed on the characters to make it more cartoon like and aesthetically pleasing to the audience it was aimed at. I found the narrative quite funny and it worked with the characters personalities which helped with the comedy that was incorporated into the plot; I found that the narrative changed to a serious atmosphere quite well, with the scenes before being comedy based.
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