The Girl From the Other Side - OVA (2022) - REVIEW
"She is my light in the darkness. That darkness where l've always been. If it weren't for Shiva, I would have stayed there forever."
The Girl From the Other Side is a gorgeously animated OVA series that rests at just 3 episodes long, was directed by Yûtarô Kubo, who had previously only directed a couple of even shorter projects, and it was produced by WIT Studios, home to titles like Spy x Family and Attack on Titan.
The team at WIT Studio utilized a new animation method they've qualified as an, "Expression Technique", which makes the animation look more akin to traditional hand-drawn animation, even prior to cel-animation, where the lines and shading all appear to shift frame to frame. The shading and colors also look like they've been applied through smudging charcoal and paint, which adds to the overall children's fairy tale feeling of the story. The series is shown through mostly black and white tones, so when the production does showcase color it's meant to convey a very specific and powerful emotion or feeling.
Essentially, the story is centered around two main characters - a young girl named Shiva, and a nameless being enshrouded in shadow that the young girl endearingly calls, "Teacher". In this world, there is a split between what's known as the "Inside", and the "Outside", and the two are never to come into contact because those from the Outside will curse those on the inside.
Shiva finds herself alone in the Outside, where Teacher finds her, and brings her to safety. The story moves through subtle emotionality as their affection for one another blossoms. It's a soft, touching story of a man who has lost his way in the darkness, crawling his way back to the light when he finds his heart through taking care of a young girl.
It feels like there's a lot more to the story that was likely expanded on in the original manga, exploring the inner workings of this world, and the mysticism that it kept brushing against, but never diving into, but that lack of exploration doesn't take anything away from the emotional highs that this short series takes the audience on. If any other anime would have attempted to condense a story that feels much larger in scale to just a three episode OVA, it's likely that it would pale in comparison, but the wonderful production and emotional script in display here with The Girl From the Other Side makes it a comfortable contender for the Definitive Top 100 Anime of All Time List.
My Current MAL Rating: 7/10
Top 100 Contender: Yes
Current Top 100 Ranking: 51/100
