This one hands you a sword fight and expects you to already know why the country is on fire. Ryo is twenty-odd minutes of Anime Mirai muscle, a government-funded animator bootcamp where the whole point was letting young talent swing for the fences, and it shows in the blade work: weight, footing, real choreography instead of speedline soup. The setup is pure Bakumatsu heartbreak, a samurai's son orphaned when English ships shell his town, renamed Ryo, and planted at the shoulder of Ryoma Sakamoto as the man tries to drag Japan into a future it isn't ready for. Be honest about the catch. The narrative is chopped to ribbons by the runtime, and if you can't already place Sakamoto on a timeline you'll be lost by minute eight. Watch it as a demo reel with a pulse, then go read about the man Ryo is guarding. It sat in the same batch as Little Witch Academia and Death Billiards. It never got its shot.

During the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate, a British naval attack destroys a Japanese village and kills the parents of a samurai's son, leaving him a nameless orphan. He and another boy resolve to become swordsmen and train under a skilled fighter. His talent with the blade draws the attention of Ryoma Sakamoto, a samurai working against the Bakufu who hopes for a better Japan. Ryoma names the boy Ryo and takes him along as his bodyguard, traveling the land with Ryoma and his wife Oryuu while Ryoma pursues his plan to bring about a new era. The action drama is a short film made for the Anime Mirai 2013 young animator training project.