Mou ii kai?
Mou ii yo.
Thus begins a game of kakurenbo.
When you’re part of a group for a long time, you get to see the culture of that group develop and traditions emerge. The anime club I attend has always had a Halloween event where, rather than watching the typically scheduled anime (the series that people have voted on for that particular semester), there’s a costume contest and selections of spooky one-off anime to watch instead (some of the selections I’ve featured so far on this list have turned up in the past). Oftentimes folks will watch something as a younger attendee of the club that they’ll want to return to again a few years later; since many of the special event episodes that we watch are more obscure/lesser-known that your typical mainstream anime, I’m sure it leaves a stronger impression on many people. The first time I saw Kakurenbo was at one of these events many years ago.
Kakurenbo is a bit of a rare breed nowadays; while I think one shot episodes and OVA’s were much more common several years ago, I feel like I don’t see them crop up as much anymore. The short film is only about 25 minutes long, but tells a full, rich, and scary story within that short time-frame.
The story begins as a group of children wearing fox masks enter a mysterious abandoned and ruined city to play a game of “Otokoyo.” The game can only begin once seven children are gathered, but there are rumors that all the people who have played the game previously have gone missing. One of the boys, named “Hikora,” is there to see if these disappearances are true, because his sister has gone missing. There are whispers that demons may be involved with this terrifying game and are spiriting away the children. He soon discovers what it means to be called “it” in this game of tag.
This short film is an early and unexpected example of 3DCG anime that manages to get the animation right. One reason why and something that I’m positive was no accident but a conscious choice is that there’s no need for facial animation – all of the characters wear static masks, and emotion is shown through gestures and voice acting. That helps the production to avoid the awful uncanny feeling that characterizes so much 3DCG anime. The setting is also more industrial than organic – cluttered like a big city, with bright neon dotting the landscape – but empty of people living there, which plays to the strengths of this style of animation. There are a lot of smart choices that work well within the limitations of the animation of the time, so the visuals hold up well.
Kakurenbo is a classic of spooky anime for a reason. It’s self-contained, easy to watch and fun to share with others (even if they don’t know that much about anime or Japanese culture – most people know what a game of “hide-and-seek” looks like, and that’s primarily all the context that’s needed).
Kakurenbo is available to watch as a paid rental on Amazon Prime video. It was previously released on DVD with a dub from US Manga Corps, although I believe this is out-of-print and could get expensive.