Night Is Short, Walk On Girl

An animated film set over a single night in Kyoto. A university student is in love with a girl. Neither is named; he is called the Senior and she is the girl with black hair. He has a method. He turns up by chance wherever she is going and has given the practice a name. She is aware of none of it. The night starts with drinking after a wedding. She goes into bars. She drinks far more than her age and never gets drunk. From there the film proceeds section by section. Each is like a separate world. The first is a drinking marathon. A legendary liquor is being sought in the city. The second is a secondhand book fair. She is looking for a book she read as a child. The third is a guerrilla theatre. A play is performed and the actors are on the run. The fourth is an epidemic. The whole city falls ill. Time stretches through the night. The narrative claims no realistic duration. What the narrative is interested in is not love but chance: its idea is that all these strange events are in fact connected, and that the network of connections built in one night is the city itself. The images are in Masaaki Yuasa's known manner. Colours spill, proportions distort, and the characters change shape. The speech is very fast. The narrative uses voiceover constantly and moves between two points of view. The source is Tomihiko Morimi's novel, one of his books set in Kyoto. Another book by the same writer had been adapted into a series by the same team and the two share a universe. Gen Hoshino, Kana Hanazawa and Hiroshi Kamiya are in the voice cast. Masaaki Yuasa directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes formally free animation and fast comedy. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a straight narrative; the film keeps changing subject and its visual density tires some viewers.