ccording to one Japanese legend, children who play hide and seek at night risk being carried off by demons. But that possibility doesn't initially seem to bother the kids in the 25-minute short anime film Kakurenbo: Hide & Seek. They've heard a rumor that in an abandoned city, an exciting game called "O-to-ko-yo" is played. Kids who follow the dim beams of partially illuminated neon signs, looking for the lit-up syllables O, to, ko, and yo will find their way to the staging ground for a game of hide-and-seek unlike any other. And once seven kids, all properly arrayed in fox masks, have arrived, the game will begin.
But when the gates marked "Demon City" open, there are eight players waiting outside. Two are slim, silent children who look like twin sisters, in opposite half-white, half-gray masks. One is a loudmouthed, swaggering bully who claims he's going to unmask the city's "demon"; two smaller hangers-on call him "boss" and follow in his wake. Tall, mohawked Yaimao says he's always wanted to find the children who disappear while playing O-to-ko-yo. His nervous friend Hikora is just there to find his sister Sorincha, who recently disappeared while playing the game. And the eighth player is a girl with an uncanny resemblance to Sorincha.
It doesn't seem to occur to any of the children to ask who's It in the hide-and-seek game, or what the goals are; they all have their separate agendas, and winning or losing doesn't seem to be on anyone's mind. But when the promised demons manifest, and the game turns into a frantic race for survival, it's possible that some of them regret having not asked about the rules. As the game of O-to-ko-yo plays out in a mostly darkened, richly animated empty city full of mechanistic monsters, it becomes clear that it's a far more serious enterprise than they anticipated. Part ghost story, part dark urban myth, Kakurenbo is a short, creepy little tale from beginning to end.
Like a lost scene from Akira
Kakurenbo opens with a slow, precise, two-minute single pan from the rooftops of Demon City down to street level, and the wealth of atmospheric detail that one long shot showcases promises a great deal to come from the rest of the piece. Created with computer animation, but styled to look very much like cel work, apart from the characters' tellingly fluid gimbaled motion, the 25-minute short resembles a lost scene from Akira, possibly one of Tetsuo's nightmares. The colors are that rich and intense, and the fantastic detail painted into the backgrounds is that fine. It looks like something Katsuhiro Otomo might have conceived. But apart from the machinelike demons, whose motion and design also recall Akira in some ways, Kakurenbo is much darker and more folklore-tinted than Otomo's work.
It's also more effective as a mood piece, thanks to the eerie dark designs and the sporadic lighting effects, primarily from assorted lanterns and signs and from the demons' burning, glowing eyes. But while it effectively brings off its creepy horror tone, it also tells a tight, traditional story. All too often, short anime pieces are more about animation proof of concepts or commercial tie-ins than about effectively communicating a stand-alone story; Kakurenbo could easily be a longer work, with more development of the characters and more time spent explaining its simple setup, but it still reads like a campfire ghost tale, with an actual beginning, middle and big-"Boo!" ending.
And Central Park Media compensates for its short length with some nice extras, including interviews with the director and designer and a making-of piece, in addition to the usual trailers, teasers and galleries. It all adds up to a terrific package, albeit one best explored in a dark room alone at night, where the soundtrack's eerie chants and unsettling neon buzzing can take proper effect on the nerves. Only younger viewers are likely to actually be scared by Kakurenbo's demon chases and sudden shocks, but older viewers should appreciate the beautifully calculated tone and texture that make this short a spooky little gem.
The hardest thing to get right in CGI is human faces; often those are what make a CGI piece look distractingly artificial. Kakurenbo's conceit of making all the characters wear fox masks is a bit of a gimmick, but it works really well for getting around this problem while still giving each character a personality and an expression.
— Tasha
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