Disclaimer: Spoilers ahead.
Today is the 10th birthday of the release of Porter Robinson and Madeon's song Shelter. Being not only an anime admirer in real life, and someone who ascribes a lot of that to this song, but also having this huge milestone come right off the heels of my birthday, I decided to make a post about it.
I first had experiences with the song for certain in 2022 when I heard a cover of it on piano that I deeply fell in love with. Maybe I heard the song proper at some point in 2016 around the time when it was released, but I was 10 and not actively seeking things like it out, so I can't be sure. I don't remember exactly when I first watched the music video either, though it was most likely in 2023. One time in January 2024, I watched it after a TV show I enjoyed had finished, and this particular experience became the reason I'm able to write this post in the first place:
I ended up me feeling more emotionally moved after this particular instance had finished than any other time I had checked out the video. It's worth noting that I had just watched a show that was somewhat-anime influenced in its animation and overall situation, so I may have already been more calibrated to receive an anime MV than I had not, but that's only a hypothesis as to what caused these feelings. In any case, this was the particular instance that, for some reason, moved me the most. And ever since then it's been almost impossible for me to not feel touched after watching it.
The whole song is just beautiful in every way I can think of. I can't even unpack it well enough in the time I have today, so let me speedrun it. The verses are ambiguous yet somehow hopeful and relatable (like "when I'm older I'll be silent beside you - I know words won't be enough"), and the chorus brings that grounded promise of carrying something forward before the 'ayy I will ayy' riff comes and just opens up the song into this magical, somewhat wistful sonic world. The music video is also simply so exquisite. The concept, a 17-year old living alone in a simulation wondering about what lies beyond it, is relatively thought-provoking and neat itself, but the way that concept is executed is beyond lovely. I absolutely love the way it's able to balance the blocky, technological magic of the tablet while simultaneously animating all kinds of environments in an emotional (and yes I do mean that) way. There are some very iconic stills, like the one of Rin jumping off a rock and smiling as she flies through the sky, from this video.
The music also perfectly synergizes with this beautifully animated story, and the way it explores such powerful themes predominantly visually with only the lyrics as words to verbally anchor what's going on is something very magical. Take the sequence towards the end. The tablet starts producing a world Rin didn't consciously try to create and as she free-falls begins to relive her youth as a young girl is usually what gets me. Seeing not only the sheer amount of devotion to his daughter Rin's father has, building that spacebound vessel knowing he doesn't have much time left on Earth himself, but the reversal of seeing her unaware of what was going on while we do make this sequence absolutely heart-tugging. And the way the images regularly shift perspective like a memory re-surfacing rather than just a story being told makes Rin's feelings palpable. The whole video is honestly such a potent and lyrical exploration of love and memory and family and future for something that's less than 6 minutes long and has very little dialogue of its own, but this sequence in particular is really the heart of it.
And finally this is to say nothing of how well-composed I think the song itself is. The 'ayy I will ayy' opening riff is so unique, the synth textures are absolutely gorgeous, the melody is so singable and snappy, and I think the way the harmony just doesn't settle around a clear root chord without calling attention to itself is really clever. All these things to me make it perfectly capture the 2010s zeitgeist, that is, it's a song that really sounds like the 2010s and could easily be picked to represent that decade if we're comparing various eras of music.
In many ways, the Shelter MV became the earliest touchstone I can think of for anime being a medium able to emotionally move and communicate complex ideas in ways you felt rather than just cogitated on. Even today, when I think about how much I want to find anime that ends up moving me in layered ways, or create music that can take on complex emotional states, a good chunk of that comes from how I felt watching this video many times, along with plenty of slice of life suites or anime music playlists. The themes of resilience and the importance of memory it explores have only grown more and more relevant to my life as university has forced me to tackle these not only in class discussions but in my own life, even if just 2.5 years on the calendar passed.
In all - Happy 10th birthday to Shelter. It's, quite fittingly, become something of a home for so many people that they've carried with them ever since first hearing it. And I really hope I can and am trying to live its messages of honoring what brought you up even through the winds of change for the rest of my life.
-Tin.
