The Diary of Tortov Roddle is another one of those travelling anime. It’s an OVA, consisting out of six episodes of about two to three minutes. Each of them shows a thing happening to Tortov, as he travels with his strange, long-legged pig. There are no voices at all. All dialogue we see is in the form of Tortov’s diary, which appears at the beginning and end of each “episode”.
The major plus about this OVA is that it’s so incredibly close to Tortov himself, since everything is seen through his diary. Take this in contrast with Kino’s Journey, for example. Kino always maintains a distance from both the viewer and the places she visits, in order to protect herself from not getting too attached to her surroundings.
Still, don’t go out of your way to watch this movie. It’s a nice idea, I admit, but it’s just too short to really make an impact. Tortov also majorly lacks in background. We never even know why Tortov travels. One of the episodes also has a romantic subplot, but with only 2 minutes, that one went nowhere.
The production-values also won’t save this one. The music, albeit nothing special, is nice enough to create a fairy-tale-like mood, the character-designs are unique, but the animation is as simple as possible and rather unimpressive. I know that the creators wanted to create a certain mood, but they could have tried better for this one. Travelling is a great subject for anime, and they just didn’t use it well enough.]]>
The Diary of Tortov Roddle Review – 58/100
I read about this a while back, and it struck me as the same sort of whimsical oddity as Kogepan (which is also worth tracking down, if only for the cuteness and novelty value).
It’s funny, but the screencaps make Tautov look less like Japanese animation and more like, say, Tim Burton or some experimental European animator. I have to say I’d almost forgotten about this one…no doubt I’ll finally give it a watch out of curiosity.
58?! Surely you jest, sir!
Anyway, I loved this movie/OVA/thing. The art style is just so purty ^^
I adore this. It’s something that I can watch if I ever feel sad and it has a beautiful sense of wonder about it. I wish I lived in Tortalia.
Well, I thought “The Diary of Tortov Roddle” was worse than eating human crap.
There’s no humor, no drama, and no plot in this terrible Japanese cartoon. On the other hand…
Plot of eating human crap = Well, you’re eating human crap. So something’s already happening and it’s happening all too quickly (plot). You realise you’ve already out-done Tortov but that you’ve gone too far… suddenly your heart leaps (drama), as you struggle to continue, if only to make a point to someone for some reason. As it dawns upon you that you’ve really no idea what you’re doing… people around you begin to laugh (humor).
Screw Tortov Roddle. Right in the pooper. Wait, what is it with me and fecal matter anyway? Cheerio.
wow, but then again, you wrote this review years ago, honestly you’ve got some reviews from that period that really suck but oh well, you needed time to mature :p
anyway this was quite a good short anime, relaxing and it managed to completely absorb me in, the music used suits it perfectly, also the backgrounds and the landscapes look superb, loved the european animation style too.