I actually came across Candy Boy while searching for anime music videos (I’m rather fond of well-crafted AMVs and have been for years), and watched a bizarre sequence with Kanada and Yukino sitting together under an umbrella while it snowed around them, and the bizarre transformation of Yukino into a short little fox-girl. Finally Kanada woke and I realized this wasn’t a story of two girls with reality-shifting powers, but rather a rather inventive dream sequence. It also worked quite well as a stand-alone story segment. I was able to understand the fundamental character dynamics, with Kanada and Yukino having an intimate relationship and Kamiyama Sakuya (a short platinum-blonde haired girl) being the annoying squeaky third wheel and tagalong with a huge crush on Kanada.

Naturally I detested Sakuya fairly quickly, even though she’s portrayed as fairly nice (if extremely stalkerish). Given the intimacy of the relationship between Kanada and Yukino, Sakuya’s antics annoyed me not only because of my innate tendency to detest embarrassing situations, but also because it interfered with the quiet intimacy between our two protagonists. It would not be until I read the Wikipedia article on Candy Boy that I learned that our couple? They’re twin sisters.

This admittedly freaked me out a tad. Now, I don’t know any twins myself, but the relationship between Kanada and Yukino felt more like two girls who were dating than siblings. Hell, at the 12 minute 40 second part of Candy Boy 2, Yukino describes herself and Kanada as lovers, bringing the anime from sweet to squick in five seconds flat. Of course, when you consider the term “lover” has multiple meanings, most of which are non-sexual, and the fact that this is a translation and thus we may have Yukino’s exact meaning distorted in translation, it’s probable that Yukino’s comments are far more innocent than they seem.

Then again, in episode 1 Yukino told Kanada she should have woken her with a kiss. So maybe I’m not imagining things.

Innuendo aside, the relationship between Kanada and Yukino is fascinating to watch. There is a yin/yang element to the story, as these two are very different and yet at their core are similar. Kanada acts more mature, but tends to procrastinate with her class work and occasionally splurge when she shouldn’t. Yukino acts more like a ditz (though far more realistically than most female ditzes in animes) and yet is the one who keeps up with her class work and urges Kanada to study more. And while Kanada acts older and more responsible, it’s Yukino who is the eldest (though with twins, I’m not sure if that short amount of time matters much).

While Episode 5 is perhaps my favorite (with its bizarre dream and the Valentine’s parfait), Episodes 3 and 4 are also truly touching with the introduction of Kanada and Yukino’s younger sister, Shizuku. While Shizuku starts out seeming to be the bratty kid sister, her story slowly unfolds and we learn how desperately she misses both her sisters and longs for the deep intimacy these two have for each other. And in the telling of this tale, we even learn a little about Sakuya and her massive crush on Kanada. She made a suggestion to the younger girl that Sakuya thought sounded cheesy at first, but which meant a lot to her parents. Which I suppose says something about Sakuya as well… for all she’s a ditz and keeps bribing Yukino with snacks for pictures of Kanada and being a pest, she’s actually a fairly nice person outside of that.

It is this combination of incredibly human characters, characters who live and breathe in the anime, and some truly spectacular artwork (to the point that in some scenes I wasn’t sure if the backgrounds were a drawing or if it was an actual photograph) that dragged me into this series. For a while, I’d been drifting away from anime; the tendency toward idiot plots and embarrassing situations kept me from watching many series. I’ve hours of anime sitting unwatched and unopened because I couldn’t get past the first couple of episodes. But with Candy Boy, I found myself forcing through that block… and once again enjoying anime.

This is due in part to the dedication of the actors who worked hard to remain true to the characters. Visually and aurally, Adrian Webster is a close match for Viggo Mortensen (who played Aragorn in the trilogy movie) and while Christopher Dingli and Matthew Cunningham were not nearly as superb a voice for Gollum as Andy Serkis, they still did a good job of portraying not only the schizophrenic nature of Gollum, but even add a touch of humanity (or perhaps Hobbitness) to the character.

There were several flaws to be found with this film; perhaps greatest in my eyes is the lack of subtitles for the brief moments of elvish dialogue, as well as a lack of English subtitles for viewers who have hearing impairments. Closed captioning would have been especially useful as the movie is fairly quiet. I was barely able to hear dialogue on my computer’s speakers, and was forced to attach speakers to my system to make out what was being said. The prosthetics also vary from some fairly decent masks and costumes to one Orc whose face honestly looked like a sack had been put over the actor’s face with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth.

Flaws aside, The Hunt for Gollum is a superb example of a quality short movie created on a limited budget. Computer generated effects for Gollum were kept to a minimum through the simple method of sticking the little sneak in a sack (which was used to capture Gollum partway through the film). Most CG effects for Gollum were of the character at a distance, though the closing shot of the film presented a close-up of Gollum in his ending dialogue; the CG effects for Gollum were fairly close to those of the professional film.

The Hunt for Gollum is a film by fans for fans; anyone who enjoyed the novels and wished that Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy had included more of these forgotten elements will undoubtedly find something to enjoy with this short film. While it doesn’t recapture the precise imagery of the trilogy, it does a superb job of capturing the heart and soul of those films. As such, it is well worth the half hour’s time to watch the movie.