Night Is Short, Walk On, Girl (2017, Psychedelic anime rom-com)

[Chedney Honks]

This is an excellent animated romantic comedy based on a Japanese novel, and a spiritual sequel to another novel/anime called The Tatami Galaxy, which I understand was a decent hit. I haven't seen that one, but I'll be checking it out on the back of this.

The stills really don't do this justice. It's something that needs to be seen in motion so I've linked the trailer below.

https://youtu.be/RGHXqjCbyEQ

It's a wonderful combination of almost Pop Art mixed with Japanese folk art and paper cutting, plus a distinctive style of character design and some kaleidoscopic animation sequences (not just a cliché here, the only way to describe some of these scenes). The basic story is simple enough. A female student goes out on the town to have a few tinnies and see what happens. Meanwhile, a fundamentally harmless but inept older student tries to engineer various coincidences to bump into her and build a rapport.



Beyond that simple premise, the film is a one surprise after another and while the left turns occasionally stifled the romance for me, it was consistently sweet and funny, sometimes very much so. I laughed out loud a good few times on my own which is fairly rare.

While there are almost too many characters to explore any of them for very long, they're an intriguing and playful bunch. Some of the dialogue really touched me and made me wistful and happy in reminiscence of my own early 20s life, friendships and romance. It's a lot of fun but also quite touching and almost painful, at times. I think it's one I will definitely have to rewatch some day because there's simply too much going on to pick up it all up first time around.

Oh, it's also partly a musical and the songs are great fun and quite catchy. I must check out The Tatami Galaxy next!

Definitely recommend this to any anime fans, standard weebs or arthouse romantics.

[SteveDave]

How many demon cocks are in it?

[Chedney Honks]

Quite a few arses and some mildly suggestive erotica but no demon cocks sorry my frend

[Small Man Big Horse]

Absolutely loved this, and was a huge fan of Lu Over The Wall, Mind Game and Ride Your Wave (though if I had to choose a least favourite it'd be that, though it was still bloody good), I need to check out his tv shows as I've heard great things about them.

[Chedney Honks]

Ohhh, the same guy did Mind Game? I loved that, as well. That's what the animation most reminded of, that freewheeling abstraction. I'll defo check out Lu Over The Wall, as well. Just seen The Tatami Galaxy is only 11 eps and supposed to be excellent.

[The Mollusk]

Tatami Galaxy is fucking stunning, really similar to NISWOG (great acronym), which I thought was spectacular also. I wrote about it in the anime thread but it does really deserve its own personal mention here.

Don't bother with Devilman Crybaby, since outside of its wonderful animation it's a really dull generic story which I got bored of super fast.

DO ABSOLUTELY bother with Ping Pong: The Animation and Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! though, as they're both fucking brilliant little contained series. Watched them both last year and was floored. Ping Pong I would honestly consider a masterpiece.

[C_Larence]

Think I made it to just over an hour in when I watched it, but just wasn't feeling it and decided to give up. Might have just been in a funny mood so maybe I'll try again. Gripping stuff I know.

[letsgobrian]

Night Is Short, Walk On, Girl is my second favourite Yuasa film, next to Mind Game. Tatami Galaxy is my favourite of his TV shows, but arguably Ping Pong is better.

Harper Collins have a translation of The Tatami Galaxy novel by Tomihiko Morimi coming out next year, with its recent sequel Tatami Time Machine Blues in 2023.

The sequel is co-written with the screenwriter of Tatami Galaxy & NISWOG, Makoto Ueda, and based on Ueda's screenplay for the live-action film Summertime Machine Blues. It's a comedy about a bunch of college kids trying to use a time machine to make sure an air conditioner doesn't break and ruin their summer.

There are some other, non-Yuasa, anime based on Morimi's novels that have some cross over with the Yuasa ones in terms of characters. There's the TV show The Eccentric Family and the film Penguin Highway. Lots of people like The Eccentric Family, but I couldn't get along with it. I still haven't put the BD of Penguin Highway on after I got it in a sale.

[The Mollusk]

^ Nice, this info is greatly appreciated!

[Chedney Honks]

Great post. Cheers, LGB!

Got The Tatami Galaxy ordered and will follow up the rest of your suggestions.

[Small Man Big Horse]

The sequel is co-written with the screenwriter of Tatami Galaxy & NISWOG, Makoto Ueda, and based on Ueda's screenplay for the live-action film Summertime Machine Blues. It's a comedy about a bunch of college kids trying to use a time machine to make sure an air conditioner doesn't break and ruin their summer.

I watched Summer Time Machine Blues tonight but really didn't get on with unfortunately, it drags the slight plot out for almost two hours, is largely unfunny, all bar one of the male characters are irritating twats, and very little of interest happens for far too many a long stretch. 4.4/10

[Josef K]

Finally got round to this and overall I loved it - the animation, humour, pace and visuals are all incredible.

One thing I absolutely loathed though was how

Spoiler alert

after setting up the senpai character as a loathsome, manipulative incel type, it just ended with an suggested 'got the girl' happy ending for him, after no character development whatsover, no big moment of realisation how he's a piece of shit. My partner, who reads/watches a lot more mange/anime than me says that sort of thing is pretty common, but it was just completely tone deaf and almost ruined an otherwise wonderful film.

[close]

[letsgobrian]

Science Saru just announced they are adapting Tatami Time Machine Blues. This time it's Shingo Natsume (Space Dandy, the good first season of One Punch Man, the currently airing Sonny Boy) directing.

[Chedney Honks]

This is currently down to £5.99 at Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-Is-Short-Walk-on-Girl-Blu-ray/dp/B07CLVXHZG?tag=bluraycom-21&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE