Vali

Vali (Вəли) is a 2017 Russian animated short made by studio TASMA. It is one of the notable animated shorts produced in Republic of Tatarstan (administrative division with own co-official language and customs).

Bad Qualities

 * 1) First of all, the purpose of this short is to teach children how to speak Tatar. Titular hero barely knows Tatar with words (Ati - father, Abi - grandmother), but he seems to understand Tatar speech of his father, grandmother and elder brother.
 * 2) *Or might it be Vali reading Russian subtitles?
 * 3) This show seems like a rip-off of Gravity Falls.
 * 4) Animation here is blatantly lazy. Looks like if Gravity Falls was made using Flash animation with some blurs and size goofs.
 * 5) False premise: In the intro, Vali travels across Tatar folk tales - Shurale (forest spirit), Su Anasi (water mother) and meeting Gabdulla Tuqai (a Tatar poet) with magic book, but in the actual short, there was no magic book.
 * 6) Unlikable characters: Vali's parents who sent him to the village as a punishment on summer vacation for getting a bad score in studying Tatar (why the parents didn't even try to help their child to learn Tatar or sign him for additional Tatar classes). Vali's brother Ainur is a Soos knock-off, but, unlike Soos, he doesn't go well with technology.
 * 7) Jokes are lame: when Vali imagined that his grandmother would look after him, what is he eating (by putting a triangular beef pastry (Ocpocmak) into a popcorn bag) and where two birches in the video clip offer two cups of tea (trying to make a pun on the word Dvach).
 * 8) There is a creepy moment when Alsu (a local 8-years old villager girl) is revealed to date a grown-up man after he called her following a conversation with Vali.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Decent art style.
 * 2) Some characters are likable.
 * 3) Still educational to some viewers.

Videos
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