KakuRenBo: Hide and Seek

Reviewed by Carolyn Garner

Central Park Media/U.S Manga Corps

Based on Subtitled version

Rated 13 Up

What it’s (basically) all about: It's dark.  There's no one around.  Out of the corner of your eye you see shapes and shadows, and you hear noises that you can't quite place.  Doesn't that sound like an ideal spot to play games?Well, it is if your name is Hikora and you're looking for your sister Sorincha, who disappeared the other night playing O-to-ko-yo, a game all the kids want to play, even though no one ever hears from them again.

We're introduced to the idea behind O-to-ko-yo as seven children are making their way to the square of a darkened city, where they will begin the game.  They plan to play hide and seek in what some call the demon city.  But beware!  It's possible that demons will smell them and snatch them up.  The kids split up into three groups, the twins Inmu and Yanku, Noshiga and his two flunkies Tachiji and Suku, and Hikora and his new friend Yaimao.  A girl, who reminds Hikora of his sister, is on the edges of the group as the eighth player.

The chase begins as the Noshiga, being unbelieving as well as rude, damages a sculpture of a demon.  It turns out it is less a sculpture and more a demon.  Now a simple game has turned into a whole lot of Not Good.  And where there is one relentless demon, there are bound to be more, as each group discovers, each immune to sticks and stones and childhood bravado.  Eventually only Hikora, Yaimao, and the girl who may be Sorincha are left to discover what really powers the demon city, but it is already too late...

Nitty Gritty: KakuRenBo is an original short film, directed by Shuhei Morita (listed as "Syuhei Morita" in the Extras menu).  The single disc in anamorphic widescreen format is about 75 minutes long.  The film itself is only 25 minutes long, while the interviews and special features are about 50 minutes.  There are both English dubbed/American Sign Language and Japanese language/English subtitled versions, presented in Dolby 5.1 Digital Stereo.

The moody, simply-designed menu is easy to navigate and serves as a teaser to the rest of the film. It begins with a brief animated montage of scenes from the film preceded by a forceful suggestion, “IT IS BEST TO PLAY KAKURENBO IN THE DARK.”  The menu is a spookily lit alley from the film (most of the backgrounds are CG instead of traditional cel animation).  Two children run past at regular intervals in the distance, accompanied by ambient noise suggesting breathing, footsteps, and electrical hums. The title, KakuRenBo and translation, "Hide and Seek" are found in the upper right corner. The menu options of Play, Set-Up, Chapters, Extras, and Previews are arrayed in much smaller type at the bottom left.

KakuRenBo opens with a quote by Kunio Yanagida, considered by many to be the father of the study of Japanese folklore.  The folkloric aspect of the film makes KakuRenBo a great cautionary tale/ghost story.  The violence is mostly off-screen, although younger children might be scared by the oni (demons) and the sight of kids strapped in to otherworldly power generators.  The references to demons might also be off-putting to some parents.  There are no cursing or sexual references in the subtitled version.

The big selling point for parents would probably be that KakuRenBo was nominated for Best Film at the Seoul Comics and Animation Festival and won Best Short film at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal and Notable Entry in the General Category Tokyo International Anime Fair when it was originally released.

The special features are also quite hefty, with a running time double the original short film. The background and Character Galleries stood out for me because while I watched the film I could tell that a lot of detail and care had been taken in rendering each scene.  That attention to detail is emphasized in The Making of KakuRenBo with Commentary, the longest and one of the more interesting extras.  It features the movie in three separate screens (final release version, storyboards, and 3D-CG structures, or CG Preview), accompanied by informal commentary and insight about the creative process by director Morita and designer Daisuke Sajiki.  The interviews with Morita and Sajiki are very enlightening, and expand on their thoughts on the film and behind the scenes.  There are also U.S. and Japanese teasers and trailers for KakuRenBo, DVD Previews (Cat Soup; Grave of the Fireflies; The Boy Who Wanted to be a Dog; Doggy Poo; Hammerboy; Black Jack: Mutation; Shadow Star Narutaru 4; Now and Then, Here and There; Munto; and Legend of Himiko), and Graphic Novel Previews (Armageddon; Nambul War Stories; Mythology of the Heavens; Dark Angel; and The Sword of Shibito).

Survey says: I generally agree with the 13 Up rating, at least in reference to some of the cultural aspects of Japanese oni in the film.  The general mood of the film is probably too intense for younger viewers, although 10-12 year-olds who regularly read ghost stories might be ready for it.

Personal Ad: Cartoon Network showed KakuRenBo as one of its Halloween specials a couple of years ago.  I missed it then, so I was thrilled to see it in my library's DVD collection less than a year later.  Although I usually only watch subtitled anime, I am interested to hear the English dub for KakuRenBo.  It has Michael Sinterniklaas, who also does the voice of Dean Venture in The Venture Brothers, as the voice of Hikora.