Nobody talks about this one. Budori walks into impossible weather to save strangers he'll never meet, and the OVA never asks you to cry about it, the quiet acceptance of sacrifice IS the entire point. It moves with the pace of folklore, not anime, which means it trusts you to feel the weight of a kid choosing duty over survival without explaining why that matters. This is what happens when Miyazaki's restraint gets its own story.

Ihatov is a utopia, but a harsh cold wave is about to strike it, and no human power can hold it back. Budori, a lumberjack's son, travels alone to Mount Bonard in hope of rescuing the people of Ihatov. The story comes as a single OVA episode and mixes drama, fantasy and slice-of-life elements.