Short Peace

The last movie I caught before leaving Japan in July of this year was the anime anthology, Short Peace, featuring, among the anime heavyweights, Otomo Katsuhiro. Each of the four films differed respectively from one another in terms of setting and theme, although in the line-up was explained to trace a coherent (if faint) line from the past and into the future. Of the four directors Otomo-san is slightly over-represented, having his hand in at least two of the stories, 『火要鎮（ひのようじん）』 and 『武器よさらば』, the last of which was adapted from a strip penned by Otomo-san long before I knew which end was supposed to go onto the paper. Technically five pieces, with an opening by Animatrix: Beyond director, Morimoto Koji, the piece that stands out the most in memory has to be Morita Shuhei's 『九十九』or, Tsukumo. Following an Edo-period tailor who gets waylaid in the middle of a stormy night, and is therefore forced to seek refuge in an old, abandoned temple, the film's delivery was singularly refreshing, in apparent answer, it seems, of the slogan that accompanied the anthology's publicity posters ("For the grown-ups who have forsaken anime"). The results was a little too successful, perhaps, although the darker themes explored immediately after could be seen as an exercise in range, if nothing else. The DVD hits the shelves in Japan, early January in 2014.