Anime: Higan

A part of Studio 4°C's Sweat Punch anthology, Higan is a six minute short directed by Yasushi Muraki that tells a story about a man dying in a hospital and the last visions he has, where he and his comrades ride mechas in the night forest and fight against some tanks. The whole thing may be perceived as a tale about horrors of war or an unusual allegory of life & struggle against death, which makes the OVA serious to the core & pretty interesting for its mature themes.
However, the short lacks any backstory concerning the battle and the parties involved, and what's even more frustrating, it gives literally zero information about the main character - we never learn his name or what he's thinking during the combat, which in its turn prevents the viewer from establishing any strong connection with him. Therefore, the anime lacks context & feels more distant than it should, and instead of a person's story presented as a war drama in miniature you basically get a fighting sequence with an ending attached to it.
Nevertheless, the short might be worth watching at least once as it features very good animation of the night combat, and the ending is still quite impressive as the ice-cold silence it brings sharply contrasts with the heat of the battle.

Not bad for a quickie, but significantly limited.

Basically this little OVA is about a man's last thoughts on his death bed. He recollects of an intense battle, death, and agony, whereupon the shriek on his face seems to be peaceful.

The story and characters are really simple. A recollection of a group of comrades fighting against the enemy. I won't spoil anything, even though it's kind of obvious what will happen.

I must admit that I've developed a heart for these quick series, but sometimes when they are too short for the content they display, they leave less of an impact than they should. It would have helped to know a little bit of back story, where it occured, and most importantly why he was thinking of this battle. Even if anything else can't be answered, I would at least want to know why his life isn't flashing "before his eyes," or he isn't "seeing a white light." It's a bit biased of me I must say, but I felt disgusted and more frustrated by this recollection rather than enlightened (which I'm certain was supposed to be the intended reaction.)

Nice animation, cool sound effects - the whole bag of tricks. It's nothing to really go indepth into; for being so short it packs a lot of special effects in animation and sound. The contrasts in colors from the deathbed to the battlefield are really nice, too.

I can watch this again if I have the heart to, but for the most part I don't really feel anything from this one. I'd recommend more Kigeki, Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko, and Ame to Shoujo to Watashi no Tegami over this one.

Final episode in the Grasshoppa Punch series, Higan is about three men in mech suits fighting to the death with two gun-tanks.

The most impressive aspect of this really short video (6 minutes and a half, the other 2 minutes are reserved to end credits) is the "sound", mostly consisting of battle sound effects, very few sentences and absolutely no music, except for the end credits. I strongly feel the creators wanted to exploit the saying "an image is worth a thousand words", and while they are successful at it throughout their animation, I felt the video ultimately fails in delivering its message. You barely get a feel of what the characters are going through with flashback-like transitions, and you never get hit by the realization of something important, leaving you open-mouthed with the word "...What?" barely coming out at the end... hence boo points for story and characters. There's something fishy concerning the three men, but you don't quite get it.

This one was indeed too short, compared to the other Punch episodes.

The animation itself is not impressive, and it mostly consists of dark foggy stills (a description that could also fit the characters!) with computer-colored explosions. Not a surprise, most of the video is telling the story of mechs fighting tanks, and you barely get a glimpse of human flesh (and bones!).

Overall, quite a deception and not representative of what Grasshoppa has offered so far.