Movie Review: Night is Short, Walk on Girl

Night Is Short, Walk On Girl ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Masaaki Yuasa.

Written by: Makoto Ueda based on the novel by Tomihiko Morimi.

 

Nothing much happens in Night is Short, Walk on Girl – and I think that is basically the point. This is a anime, romcom of sorts for director Masaaki Yuasa, and every frame is a visual delight, more inventive and whimsical than most animated film – either in the US or Japan – with a style that is all its own. The film is part psycheldic trip, part romcom, part, well, something else. I wish it came together in some way – or had something to hold it together, something other than the visuals to make it worth recommending. It’s an odd film, and I know some will adore it. Those looking for something more traditional, aren’t going to find it here.

 

The girl of the title is the unnamed Girl with Black Hair, who spends the whole night in question flitting from one boozy party to another. When she gets bored, she just wanders off to whatever is next – crossing paths will all sorts of interesting people – a collector of vintage erotica who tries to feel her up, a demon she gets into a drinking contest with, a pair of boozy students who keep reappearing, etc. It’s all one big party for her, and even if she drinks pretty much the entire movie, she never really seems to get drunk. The other protagonist in the story is her fellow student, Senpai, who has a crush on her. His plan involves running into her again and again and again, and eventually, he figures, she’ll fall in love with him (he hasn’t quite figured that part out yet). While she walks through the film blissfully unaware of him – and just having fun – he gets himself involved in one embarrassing situation after another – a surprising number of which involve his underwear.

 

The film pretty much plunges you headlong into the story, and doesn’t slow down to let you catch up. You pick up everything you need via context with everything else, but this does make for a confusing movie at times – particularly near the beginning as you try and catch your bearing, and near the end, when Masaaki’s flights of fancy get perhaps too fanciful for their own good, and are difficult to keep track of. The film is both episodic yet repetitive, often doing essentially the same thing again and again.

 

In a way, Night is Short, Walk on Girl, may have been better as, well a short. The film does look amazing, and I think the film both tries to deconstruct the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” and “Nice Guy” tropes at the same time in some interesting ways. It also pretty much does all of that in the first half of the movie, but then just keeps going. In a way, it’s welcome – that just means more wonderful visuals to look at. But it is also gets rather dull at some point when you realize how much work is being put into telling what is essentially a nothing story. The film does look great – I will watch whatever Masaaki Yuasa does next – I just hope he finds more a story worth telling next time around.