The animation “Night is Short, Walk on Girl” is as unique as its title suggests. The film is a Japanese movie by Masaaki Yuasa that sends the audience on a psychedelic voyage focused on a single carefree night out in the city, portrayed from the views of two individuals as they wander where fate leads them. The film contains stunning imagery, fast-paced plot transitions, comedy, and a multitude of spontaneously-appearing characters. While the film’s outlandish persona draws attention, the film is also an ambitious effort at understanding what it implies to be youthful and what it is to take risks.
This film follows a young woman, Otome, who loves drinking alcohol, as well as a young man called Senpai, who is unable to deny that he loves her. After being bullied by a drunkard who happens to be a smut vendor and a member of a hidden society of smut hustlers, she encounters Higushi and Hanuki through a sequence of incidents. There is also this other guy, Don Underwear (who Otome encounters), who is pals with Senpai and who believes in love so strongly that he maintains the same pair of undies each day without cleaning them. The film is really amusing. The lead actress once says to her companion, “I didn’t know humans could live that long without changing their underwear,” to which he responds, “I immediately became sick, but I am living the best I can.” (Yuasa) The film continues to keep shocking the audience throughout, and as the movie develops, it becomes progressively ludicrous and wonderfully bizarre.
During one unfortunate night, two individuals decide to embark on their own escapades amid Kyoto’s booming nightlife, which becomes the basis of the film’s plot. “The Girl with the Black Hair” or simply Otome (implying “maiden” in Japanese) is the first personality introduced. Known as Senpai–a phrase intended to designate somebody of a superior social level, like age and prowess– is the second character in the series. Otome, a college-aged student, scours the neighborhood for alcoholic beverages, downing every beverage that crosses her path, and subsequently participates in a bar tour.
In contrast, her male counterpart focuses his sights on charming and professing his emotions to the naïve Otome and searches for her around the city. As the story progresses, Otome and Senpai are put into several situations that appear to be completely unrelated to one another, such as a drinking competition and a spicy meal consumption contest. Though the film appears to promote college indulgence, I assume the lesson is to encourage learners to concentrate on their schoolwork, which is the major reason they are in school. Partying might potentially lead to alcoholism and other drug abuse, destroying the learner’s future (Lasky et al. 174).
When viewing the film for the first time, it is immediately apparent that director Masaaki Yuasa’s trademark artistic approach from movies like “Ping Pong” and” Lu Over the Wall” has been poured into the picture’s core. Yuasa is recognized for experimenting with rich colors and simple patterns, and he is not afraid to use bright colors, sharp lines, and context. According to Li, color may help story development and convey subtle emotions in a film (604). Plot advancement in animated films is dependent on color variation and narrative storyline, repeating film frame. Most contemporary Japanese animations emphasize intricate sketches and surroundings; however, Yuasa’s artwork veers away from the norm, simplifying his figures further. This plays out well for him all through the film, as his stylistic flair serves to underline further the beauty of Otome and Senpai’s expensive night out.
Regardless of the fact that it was also created by GKIDS Films and that it features Yuasa’s deconstructed aesthetic, the animation is far from being as harmless as it appears on the surface. Yuasa has a long record of combining his saturated and basic visual aesthetic with controversial subjects such as nakedness, romance, aggression, drugs, and other such things as well. “Devilman Crybaby,” an animated series produced by Netflix in 2018, is an excellent example, as Yuasa manages to depict the raw sensations of adulthood despite all of the sexuality, graphic violence, and apocalyptic scenarios thereby defying popular preconceptions of animation as being immature and inconsequential. Despite this, the mood of the film is markedly distinct from that of his previous art, with aggression being replaced with romance and awe and sexual humor being used instead of actual sex scenes.
The forms and manner of Yuasa’s work accentuate the fun and fantasy of the movie’s inconceivable night, rather than the seriousness that his colors would have suggested–however, his strategies remain just as powerful as they were before. Despite this, there are several issues with such a large-scale production. Due to the enormous amount of information crammed into its tale, “Night is Short, Walk on Girl” is an exhilaratingly fast-paced comic that struggles from an overabundance of its spectacular colors and personalities. An individual’s ability to understand the actions that occur after the initial fifteen minutes of the animation is likely to drive them insane. The picture runs at a breakneck pace, frequently jumping between tracking the escapades of Otome to Senpai and then back to Otome as the storyline becomes increasingly bizarre as it progresses.
Even though Otome appears to be a simple girl out for a good time, she is depicted as an opportunistic girl who makes the best of her time. Whenever the figures Higuchi and Hanuki-san volunteer to accompany her throughout Ponto town in quest of alcohol, Otome reluctantly agrees. When Otome is given the opportunity to participate in an audacious guerrilla performance, she leaps at the opportunity with enthusiasm. The film promotes that one should take risks and make errors while they are young–that one should not be scared to step outside of their comfort range no matter how unpredictable, chaotic, and deluded life appears to be–and that one should never give up. In fact, it is matched by the name of the film, “Night is Short, Walk on Girl,” which may be taken to indicate “life is brief, just continue pushing.”
Incorporating the contrast between destiny and opportunity serves to convey the notion that existence is about embracing opportunities (Hermann 137). Despite the fact that they are both dealing with personal difficulties, Otome and Senpai find themselves bumping into one other on a regular basis. Viewing Senpai’s perspective makes audiences ponder if or not Otome is correct in her belief that everything is a result of chance. Senpai’s entire purpose for the evening is to amaze and connect with the woman of his desires, and his plot suggests that these events are the consequence of chance encounters.
The amorous Don Underwear believes that he is supposed to be with the girl he met someday while believing to have tasted love at an initial glimpse later on in the series. Following a tragic narrative turn, all of his illusions are shown to be incorrect, shattering his emotions as audiences doubt the legitimacy of chance for the second time in as many episodes. However, despite the movie’s attempts to demonstrate that everybody and everything on the planet is tied and interconnected, the issue is never addressed, implying that audiences should refrain from asking questions and ride with the tide.
There are no easy explanations for how a quest for alcohol and romance transforms into a chase and a battle at a used book market, into a sequence of “guerrilla performances” at a college celebration, and eventually into a journey throughout the town the next day. Furthermore, the diverse array of secondary personalities, such as Toudou-san–a despondent proprietor of a faltering Karp store who is inebriated and serves on the “Bedroom Investigation Committee”–and “The God of the Old Books Market,” contributes to the overall story.
Since each place Otome and Senpai found themselves in has its separate tales and themes, the movie might have been split into a series of films with an intermittent aspect. This would have rendered the animation more palatable. Another argument might be made that separating the film not be fair. Behind a thick layer of obscene humor, breath-taking visuals by Yuasa, and seemingly random circumstances, the film is concentrated on subjects that demand such a fast-paced production. If there were interruptions in between and the film was episodic in structure, this stress on the audience to just persevere might be missed on the audience.
“Night is Short, Walk on Girl”, which is among the most complex animation movies to be released to date, is a lovely and contemplative movie that promotes an independent mindset and way of thinking. Even if the film is stormy, Yuasa’s colorful visual style, along with a turbulent yet entertaining tale, makes it a film to recall and one everybody watch.
Works cited
Herrmann, Andrew F. “Criteria against ourselves?” Embracing the opportunities of qualitative inquiry.” International Review of Qualitative Research 5.2 (2012): 137.
Lasky, Nicole V., et al. “Binge drinking, Greek-life membership, and first-year undergraduates: The “perfect storm” for drugging victimization.” Journal of school violence 16.2 (2017): 174.
Li, Meiyue. “Perfect interpretation of the influence of color background on animation art in my neighbor Totoro directed by Miyazaki Hayao.” DEStech Transactions on Social Science, Education, and Human Science issue (2017): 604.
Yuasa, Masaaki. Night Is Short, Walk On Girl. Prime Video”. Amazon.Com, 2022, Web.