Lets cut straight to the chase. Hanoka isnt good per se I dont want to blow your ear off talking about how Hanoka is some misunderstood masterpiece or whatever because it really isnt it looks very clunky moves very clunky and shoots way higher than something with its budget and duration could ever hope to achieve. What I will however talk about is how good it is that Hanoka even exist As of writing this review this anime has a 30 score on Anilist both other reviews give it pretty bad scores overall and the general feeling towards Hanoka seems to be that one time they tried to make an anime in flash and it looked like ass. This is understandable if you look at Hanoka in a vacuum/apply the same standards to it that youd do the newest season of whatever sakugaslop is currently popular. To which I must ask: Is it actually right to judge Hanoka like this? Making something is hard making something people like its actually easy because mfs be watching Kamen Rider Ryuki but I digress. Making something with any merit or vision in a titan of an industry like anime is easy if you dont mind bankrupting your studio penny pinching and/or alienating 99 of the audience. Hanoka is the latter 2 its very clear this is a sidesideproject or a weird experiment. It was made by people that wanted to tell a story but barely had the time or resources to but fuck if they tried its not wasted potential as much as its this is probably even more potential than they could squeeze out of what they had Nowadays people have a ton of tools to tell their own stories. That hack Makoto Shinkai started off with an indie film made by one guy him and a dream AsH puts his heart and soul into his Yuri mecha short films every few years information and technology travels at a MUCH faster rate today than it did back then. Which makes it even more admirable that some guys grabbed Macromedia Flash and just tried. Thats what I love about Hanoka that they tried Its very different being backed up by a large studio and a million dollars and not doing enough than it is having none of that and just doing the best you can. In the former youre a bum for having the opportunity most artists can only DREAM of and wasting it on making Shuumatsu Train. In the latter you will probably make something suboptimal that is 90 rough edges but yknow what you made something in a world where most people make nothing and nobody can take that from you whatever indie film you made probably has a million times more artistic value than 90 of the things that exist And that last line is why I find it hard to dislike or critique anything about Hanoka. Its flaws are too obvious to point out it feels almost counterproductive scolding it for being paced like a fever dream or having weird animation at times because Im sure that if you told that to any of the people that worked on it they would just answer yeah. Hanoka exists through miracles and compromises it exists its terrible score is understandable but it is not fair or deserved in ANY capacity. Youre free to dislike Hanoka of course but its reputation being that one flash anime that sucks instead of what it should be Something sort of inspiring like if a few guys were able to make this 20 years ago whats stopping ME from just making my own stuff? feels just plain wrong