It’s Spooky Season! – Day 30: Some Shorts and One-Shots

Have you ever had a memory that you weren’t exactly sure was real? Recently, when I was coming up with the list of episodes and series to cover throughout October, I faintly recalled an OVA I’d seen some years ago. All I could remember about it was that it involved people fighting using calligraphy, and that the title probably started with an “S.” Not very helpful. I first checked over what I had saved on my large hard drive of archived anime, and no dice. Then I tried to Google search based on various keywords. Nope. It wasn’t until I took my entire lunch break today to go through My Anime List year-by-year that I finally figured out what it was. Hopefully the result will be worthwhile to my readers!

The OVA that had so confounded my anime memory for the last week and change is called Shoka. It’s a one-shot, based on a winning script in the Animax awards (note that the information at that link is severely out-of-date; if anyone feels like editing the Wikipedia entry, it sorely needs it). In it, calligraphers battle with the power of the written word, which is used to conjure up magic spells, animate supernatural creatures, and perform other such feats.

There are individuals who oppose the shogunate and attempt to use their magic to undermine its power, while others work to thwart such efforts. This episode culminates in a battle between our heroic calligraphers and a giant demon summoned by an artist who was let go from his position.

I’m sure what struck me about this OVA at the time was its interesting animation style, which appropriately feels almost like a moving sketch at times. Having recently re-watched it, I found myself fascinated by how much story is conveyed in its relatively short run-time. Because the characters wield such unique powers, the action choreography is a lot of fun as well.

If you can manage to find this anywhere (I wasn’t able to find a recent download in the typical places, but it’s possible some animation-appreciator may have uploaded it to a streaming site somewhere) it’s a fun watch and a bit more “exciting” than some of the items I’ve written about.

The next item is part of a compilation from Studio 4C called Sweat Punch, which is comprised of five different animated shorts. The short I’d like to talk about is called Kigeki: Comedy, which takes place in Ireland, under attack by the English. A young girl has heard rumors of a mysterious swordsman who lives in the woods and who has an affinity for books. If one brings him a book he wants, in exchange he’ll offer his service.

In order to save her village from attack, the girl pulls a certain book from her shelf and races barefoot to the edge of the forest before collapsing. She awakens to find herself in the swordsman’s castle. Offering him the book, it takes him a couple of days of reading it to make the decision to help her. As the invading army arrives on horseback, he unleashes an almost supernatural power to fulfill his part of the bargain.

I’ve loved this short since I first watched it many years ago. It’s another example of “less-is-more,” in that it isn’t focused in particular on its brief moments of action but instead features striking visual framing and characters in silhouette set against a soundscape of “Ave Maria.”

This one is somewhat less difficult to find than Shoka, and I suspect that a simple web search will get you where you need to go.

Last but absolutely not least is a very short, very striking 3-minute animation called Puparia. To attempt to ascribe a particular narrative to the short would be difficult; the creator himself describes its series of brief scenes as more focused on capturing a particular mood, that of being on the cusp of change.

I’m always fascinated by one-man projects. Puparia took three years for animator Shingo Tamagawa to create; that’s three years out of his life on one project. Animation seems like such hard work for such brief reward and watching this you really start to feel it. Each frame is so detailed and so crafted that it’s difficult to ignore the amount of singular effort involved. On the other hand, I think about this short a lot and have revisited it several times since I discovered it.

Puparia is available officially on Shingo Tamagawa’s YouTube Channel. There is also a “making of” documentary that’s relatively easy to find, and a worthwhile watch for folks who are interested in the process.

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Apologies for picking a couple of items that are difficult to find this time around; I know not everyone is comfortable digging around in the legal gray areas of the internet in search of anime. But speaking as someone who spent a lot of time doing such things in the past, these are all well worth the trouble, and great mood pieces for this time of the year.