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One of the more overlooked anime of the past few decades is the rather sweet Hotori<\/em>, and now it\u2019s finally remastered on Blu-ray.<\/p>\n A short one-off short story, Hotori <\/em>tells the tale of the titular Hotori, who has a condition where she is losing her memories, and Suzu, her friend, who\u2019s also a robot that is being implanted with memories of a dead boy.<\/p>\n The anime starts with Suzu walking to meet Hotori holding a gun with ominous intent, only for the story to go back in time and show how the two originally became friends.<\/p>\n Obviously, I\u2019m not going to spoil how this plays out, as much of the exposition is directly relevant to how the anime concludes. However, it is a surprisingly poignant tale and one that deals very directly with the theme of loss, both through death and the importance of a person\u2019s memories.<\/p>\n I remember seeing this back in 2005 and finding it quite moving, but I felt that it could have had a bigger budget and slightly better character designs.<\/p>\n Not that the character designs are bad, but from the side, they look a bit odd and flat. This is a minor gripe, as the anime itself isn\u2019t really impacted much by this.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also a noteworthy anime as anime creative veteran Ryosuke Takahashi was involved as a creative producer.<\/p>\n