Honey Tokyo...

According to Anime News Network...

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's "Welcome to Tokyo" tourism promotion website has launched. The site features a map of Tokyo tourist spots, a quiz game about Tokyo sightseeing spots, and an original short anime titled "Honey Tokyo." The streaming anime short film is viewable in high and standard quality in Japanese language with subtitles in English, Chinese, Korean, German, Italian, Spanish, and French.

Yasuhiro Aoki, director of the "Kung-Fu Love" segment of Studio 4℃'s Amazing Nuts! music video collection and select episode director on 4℃'s Tweeny Witches and Kimagure Robot anime series, drafted the Honey Tokyo character designs, drew the film's storyboards, and directed the short at Studio 4℃. Reportedly the short was produced at a cost of around 50 million yen ($550,000 USD) funded by the Japanese government.

I've been a bit leery of downloading anime on the web for two reasons. First, there's a lot of unknowns in the world of anime -- it's difficult to know if a title will be worth the time to download ahead of time. There are a lot of opinions and speculation, but, there aren't really any authoritative sources. Second, I'm a big fan of archival media -- I like to have something that is professionally made, that I can hold in my hands and display on a shelf. There are also some legal issues and a few technical concerns.

Honey Tokyo seemed like something really unique that wasn't likely to be officially released on archival media here in the U.S. and it was short enough that I didn't feel it was a burden to download. Besides what other government on the planet would spend more than a half million dollars to produce a really nice 11-minute anime commercial (China -- perhaps, but, who would want to watch it). I gave Honey Tokyo a 3 out of 5.

Note: The only version available on YouTube, appears to have Italian subtitles...