Bannertail: The Story of Gray Squirrel

ProxyLain★ 6

Seton Doubutsuki: Risu no Banner is another anime from Nippon Animation that adapts a western book. Directed by Yoshio Kuroda, director of one of my favorite anime, Flanders no Inu. The story of Seton Doubutsuki: Risu no Banner is simple and functional. Basically the protagonist, Banner, is raised by a cat that he calls his mother. One day, where they live, there is a fire and they have to separate, and this is when "it all starts. Banner goes to the woods, a place totally unknown to him, and he ends up making friends with an owl that doesn't eat him because of his different wayof being, and he is treated as a stranger by the others. If I remember correctly, I believe that until episode 9 he is trying to get the others to trust and believe him so that he can get along with the other squirrels. Quite a bit happens until everyone trusts Banner. Banner is interesting in that at first he really thinks he is a cat and acts like a cat. In time he gets used to being a real squirrel, learning to eat what squirrels eat, and even learning to fly. All this when he meets Sue. The anime is mostly episodic, with Banner's adventures in the woods with his friends. Generally the comedy is good and the drama is well used. As an example of comedy, there is the episode where Banner eats a mushroom and gets extremely stoned (it is so funny to see a squirrel stoned). And there is also an episode where he gets stoned on wine when he goes to the city. There is only one episode that I didn't like, and that is an episode where Sue "sees the future by looking at the stars". This is totally clueless and unnecessary, even considering that she is a squirrel. I mentioned that he goes to the city, well he goes along with all the other squirrels. This occurs when unfortunately humans make a point of destroying the woods, and before that even the Owl who was Banner's friend ends up being killed, which I found unexpected coming from a children's anime. The final cut of the anime is pretty good, as much as the rest of the anime is cool. Basically the squirrels go off in search of another forest, and go through various things until they find one. Banner also finds his mother cat, but he leaves because of his friends. His mother cat tells him where there is food, but they accidentally end up being taken to a train where they end up going to a very far place, where they get off the train and go through an adventure in the snow until they find a forest to live in. The last two episodes are pretty cool. It's basically them stabilizing themselves in the new woods. The last episode is so cute. It's basically Banner asking Sue to marry him, and at the end there is a time-skip that shows them older and with 3 kids. It's a fun and functional children's anime, with its ups and downs. The characters are nice and there are many situations between them. When it comes to animation, there is nothing to complain about. The animation is simple, but good and functional. There are no static frames and whenever it needs fluid animation, it has it. It was nice to watch, even though there was one very pointless episode that prevented me from enjoying it even more.