"IO (EO)" is said to have been inspired by "Au Hasard Balthazar" while not being a direct remake. Regardless of what you want to call it, they're similar enough that's it fair to compare them. The latter focused mostly on the same characters, while the former is an episodic journey where the title character (a donkey) comes across different individuals. Some of them are uninteresting. And the ones that are interesting aren't even given the opportunity to leave a mark. I'm not talking about the amount of screen time or leaving their fates open-ended; I'm talking about setting things up and then going to the next chapter before anything of value really happens. Without spoiling the ending, I'll say that it's the classic example of "Let's show the audience an unexpected climax and, instead of an epilogue, let's roll the end credits immediately, because shocking them is the priority".

 

5/10