Pascoite reviews another kind of old but not so old anime movie because he's not in the mood to read any stories tonight · 5:10am Mar 7th, 2018
Another one, huh? This time, it's a pretty short movie, which means a pretty short review, which also means an even shorter lead-in. Get the rest after the break!
So, this one is called "Kakurenbo: Hide and Seek" or just "Kakurenbo." This is not the kind of movie I normally like. It's horror, but not the least bit gory, and that's actually on the unusual side for anime. Or, I guess, for just about any horror in the last 40 years.
Let me take a step back to plug a movie I love. One of my favorite movies is actually a horror one, and there are very few of those I'm even willing to watch. It's called "The Haunting." And I mean the original black and white one from 1963, not that steaming pile remake starring Owen Wilson and Catherine Zeta Jones from 1999. This movie really embraces the adage of "the scariest monster is the one you never see." It's all suspense and not the least bit gross, and it's got some wonderful creepiness to it. I do think acting has gotten better in general over the years, as in a lot of these old classics, it can still feel like the actors are reading a script more than really getting into the role, but maybe that's not a fair value judgment. I think modern fiction is much more emotionally evocative than the Victorian novel, but that's just the way things were done back then, and you kind of have to be able to appreciate things in context.
Anyway, Kakurenbo is a movie more in the sense that it's a one-off thing, but it clocks in at less than half an hour. And like "The Haunting," it deals out creepiness in spades, but it's not actually done through keeping the monsters hidden. It's done in an obvious CGI style, one that can leave the human characters seeming a bit lifeless at times, but that dehumanizing stiffness works in the monsters' favor.
The premise is that an urban legend exists whereby children gather in an abandoned part of town to play a game of hide and seek. Children have disappeared doing this, or so they say, but that only adds to the appeal. So a young boy decides to try his hand at it, going so far as to satisfy all the rules for entry, which include wearing a particular kind of mask. Several other children show up as well, and the game begins.
There's a surprising amount of characterization packed into this short a movie. While this aforementioned boy could be called the protagonist, since he's the only one we ever get a motivation for, at least beyond wanting to tempt fate just because. But the action doesn't center around him for much of the middle of the story, where it jumps around to multiple of the other kids, who have loosely associated into groups. They sometimes encounter each other during their attempts to hide, and sometimes they even cooperate, but how they relate to each other says a lot about who they are, even for the twins who don't speak at all.
Who's actually chasing them? Here's where the story actually does show their monsters, but they're still effective. They do appear very creepy, but for the most part not outright dangerous, not like someone wielding a machete or chainsaw would be. Some have more obvious ways of hurting you than others, but even by their sheer size, they're menacing. Following the motif of the children wearing masks, the monsters have a feel of concealment about them, too, which allows them to keep some of that "monster you don't see" air about them. One, for example, resembles one of those Chinese dragons you see in parades, so it's still something very much akin to a mask or costume.
The ending is a bit of a twist, but it's one you'll probably see coming, so then does it really qualify as a twist anymore? This has to do with both the ultimate fate of these participants and the protagonist's motivation for wanting to be there, as the story does get back around to him.
It's also one of these movies where you just have to accept the premise. Whether or not children actually go missing is a very provable thing, and when none of these kids can say they've ever heard of someone actually coming back from the game, and parents don't tell their kids this is bad juju, and this area of town is allowed to remain standing... yeah, you simply have to accept all that. If the plot has a weakness, it's that it doesn't stand up to much logic about how the situation could even exist. But once you buy into that, you get a beautifully eerie tale that whips through about three twists at the end.
Everyone wants to win, after all. You just have to be the last one to get caught. But none of them know what the prize is supposed to be.
If you enjoy this kind of spookiness on the more subtle end of the scale, check it out! It's not like it takes much time investment...
Sounds really intriguing!
EDIT: Available from Netflix on DVD, BTW.
Oh, wow, I haven't seen that one in ages! Forgot all about it.
Have you tried Summer Wars?
Kakurenbo is a visually gorgeous movie. I don't remember it being quite that short, though. Might need to see it again.
More like understand it:
and when none of these kids can say they've ever heard of someone actually coming back from the game, and parents don't tell their kids this is bad juju
Kids will go there anyway, regardless of the place's reputation and no matter how much their parents tell them not to. Most kids, at least. And the less brave ones get often peer-pressured into coming along anyway.
Kids are kids. The more exciting and dangerous something is, the more they want to seek it out and see it for themselves.
Not a plothole here, that the "movie" doesn't explain this in its plot. It's a simple fact of society that does need no explanation. If you ever were a kid yourself or even have children yourself or work a lot with children, you know that.
And if you don't and if you also somehow forgot your childhood, yeah, then this could seem weird to you. But, as every work of fiction, this is obviously made for those who will understand it. And a good work of fiction should never cater to (read: pamper) those who don't understand the plot because they lack certain experiences or knowledge, as that would always either dumb the plot down or drag it out with unnecessary, long-winded explanations of things that should be obvious to the audience anyway.
and this area of town is allowed to remain standing...
That's harder to explain, cause there are several possibilities for that. The most likely reason, the government has still plans to kill those monsters and reclaim the district, for economical reasons.
Factories that stand there, that are still functionable and that would be expensive to rebuild elsewhere. Or maybe apartment complexes that were built not too long ago and contain valuable living space they don't want to give up. Maybe it's even because of the town's population itself, they want their homes back and pressured the government into not tearing the district down via protests because of that.
In short, human greed. Human greed that exceeds the desire for safety, even if that means they endanger their own children..... A quite typical trait of humanity, even though one no one wants to admit to, so that's another (sad) fact of society. One that everyone will get who has their eyes and ears open and is able to think critically of their own species.
For the rest, see the last paragraph above.
Okay, I'll watch it when I can. Thanks!
Interesting stuff. Definitely had the animation festival vibe to it, which was appropriate given its premier.
Like Paul, I would like to read your take on Summer Wars.
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Have you actually seen this movie? Because I'm not saying these things in a vacuum. They're addressed explicitly or by their absence. For example, the protagonist (minor spoiler) absolutely knows that kids have gone missing. It makes sense for him to want to find out, but I also never get the sense that his parents even vaguely cautioned him against it, when they would also absolutely know. Some of the kids were there for general childish reasons. One of them keeps professing he's not afraid of demons, so he has something to prove, and he's pretty much forced his lackeys to be there. But we have no idea why the twins are there. They're very workmanlike about it. And the protagonist has a very valid reason to go, and his friend tags along to support him.
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I have in fact seen "Summer Wars." In these blogs, I tend to go for things that are a little more obscure in case I can help people find something new, but it seems like "Summer Wars" was pretty widely seen, so I doubt I'll do a review of it.
I did like it, and it avoided a lot of the tropes that these AI movies often get caught in. The way things keep going wrong for the protagonist has a comedy of errors feel, but the movie plays that angle well. I did have to roll my eyes at the "cousin is secretly involved in a government conspiracy" not-twist, plus of course it's the US government perpetrating it. It's not as blatant as the "US is big bad evil" that "Read or Die" pulled off, but still. Really, I'd have to say that "Summer Wars" is good at succeeding despite its tropes, because it plays them so over the top. We have the sullen teen who turns out to be a badass, the pretend boyfriend, the huge family. On the whole, I liked it, and I would recommend it, but it's not top-tier for me.
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Obscure anime, eh? In that case, have you seen Yoshitaka Amano's and Mamoru Oshii's Angel's Egg?
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Not sure what you mean with "vacuum" or what you even object to or disagree with in my comment. I just explained why these two things you criticized are not plotholes just because they don't get explained in the "movie".
I'm not saying that it isn't rushed, just that these two things don't need an explanation in the plot, because they are both things that are easy to understand, provided that the audience has some common knowledge about society.
Whether or not I've seen it myself doesn't matter for that.
Edit:
Why is this relevant? In this particular situation, he has no reason to point out how his parents warned him of the place. Just stating his motif for going there is all that he has to tell the others and therefore, all he does tell them.
Just because he didn't say that his parents don't want him to be there doesn't mean they didn't forbid him to go there.
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Haven't heard of it, but I have limited avenues to see anime, so there's only so obscure I can get. Though I will own up to having seen one anime movie that, aside from the few of us who watched it together, I've never met anyone else who's seen it. And that's a good thing. I'm not going to name it, because that means owning up to having watched it.
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So your assertion is that significant numbers of real kids would willingly participate in something when they have verifiable evidence that they probably won't be coming back from it?
Yeah, not buying it.
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Children are naturally curious. Children (but not necessarily just children) like exciting things and mysteries. The more dangerous, the better.
You underestimate children a little. Children do a lot of dumb things.
Besides, it's not like that's anything new or not well-known in fiction. There are tons of movies, especially horror movies, where people/children go to a haunted place that is actually dangerous with verifiable evidence for this to check it out and see what it's actually about. One of the children in that "movie" even said he wants to find out the identity of the demons, indicating that he did not believe they are actual demons and that something else is going on instead.
The others were just there out of morbid curiosity. Didn't one of them even say that this place is cool right during the intro? It's a clear case, really.
If you wanna talk plotholes in regards to this "movie", then someone should please explain me how 1. children are suddenly able to empower lanterns/lights with their bodies (WTF?) and 2. how children can apparently still be alive after said lanterns/lights got (probably brutally) pushed into their bodies.
That needs an explanation. But the two questions you had about it are easy to answer.
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I somehow underestimate children despite having one. Got it.
This doesn't answer anything. Children do gravitate toward danger, but not certain doom. That's like one voluntarily jumping in front of a bus knowing they won't be coming back from the experience. And surely you know that "others have done it" doesn't make it a valid thing to do. The lanterns? Clearly something supernatural at work. That's no harder to accept than magic. These are demons, after all. But no matter what the setting, I still expect people to behave in reasonable ways. Children will take risks when they should know the might get hurt. Not so much when they know they'll certainly disappear.
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If you really have a child, then I'm at a loss for explaining why you have a problem with this aspect of the plot.
However, letting that aside, what makes it so certain that they knew they would disappear? All that is stated at the beginning is that children did disappear there. Not how many or how often, just that it happened. Maybe they thought they could survive it? Maybe some children did come back from it? It is known that demons live there, so there have to be some children who lived to tell about everything.
There are also the two twins, who dealt really well with the demons and for whom it was never shown if they did survive or not. Maybe they didn't, but they were very skilled in fighting the demons, so, they are possible survivors who came back over and over again because they love the thrill of the place, but then had bad luck for once and lost the game for the first time.
And, of course, the fact that it's referred to as a "game" already implies that it can be won, meaning, that one or more children got out alive.
All those factors combined, I would say it's not unreasonable at all for the children to go there and for childish/morbid curiosity being at work.
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Alright, I've had about enough of you acting snide and talking down to me. Children don't do things they know have a high likelihood of not surviving. It just doesn't happen. I don't think that's the kind of thing that even needs to be explained. Maybe I have a problem with that aspect of the plot because I actually have experience parenting?. Children don't disappear in those numbers without people noticing, either, yet none of them talk about beating the odds or hearing of anyone who's returned or anything like that. We just get the bully unconvincingly saying he's not afraid of demons and the protagonist saying he wants to find his sister. No sense of alarm, no going against their parents' advice, nothing. There's a connecting piece missing in the middle somewhere.
I once again have to ask if you've even seen it. The losers all get effectively imprisoned, and the winner becomes the head seeker for the next round, then gets imprisoned after that. This is explicitly shown in the movie.
Wrong again. They, appropriately enough, got captured by the twin demons.
I don't know why you're taking a minor point I made and blowing it way out of proportion. Reply if you like, but I'm done discussing it unless you start being more civil and less condescending.
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No I'm good. It's the kind of response I expected to get sooner or later, so I'm done discussing this, as well.