The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl Movie Review

Original Title : 夜は短し歩けよ乙女 (Yoru wa Mijikashi Aruke yo Otome)

Eng  Tittle : The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl

Released Date : 07 April 2017

Director : Masaki Yuasa

Writer : Tomohiko Morimi

Secreen Play : Makoto Ueda

Distributor : Toho Animation

Voice Actor : Gen Hoshino, Kana Hanazawa, Hiroshi Kamiya

Genre : Comedy, Romance

Theme Song : Asian Kung-Fu Generation - Kyou Wo Aruke

Country : Japan

Poster picture source : www.kurokaminootome.com

When Absurdity Leads to Explosive Creativity

If you look at the poster, you may be already wonder that this anime’s style is little bit different from common anime in Japan. The drawing lacks of details but feels so refreshing that you won’t get a pressure from details intense. This anime won the 41^st Japan Academy Prize defeated Hayao Miyazaki’s work Mary and Witch’s Flower, popular anime movie Fire Works : Should We See It From The Side Or The Bottom, Napping Princess, and Detective Conan : Crimson Love Letter.

What makes this anime interesting? Actually it’s quite hard to explain since this anime is really serously absurd (I mean it's way too imaginative that I can’t’ really digest every detail well lmao).

Interesting yet absurd story. Well basically it’s a comedy romance which tells us about ordinary senior university students who fall in love with a black short hair girl. She is a long time crush of that senior. She is also his junior in a club he joint in. He intends to get closer with her by using SEE technique (Seen, Everytime, Everywhere, LOL I laughed hard). 

That short black hair girl really loves cocktail and is a strong drinker. In a bar she meets old hentai men (Todo) who lost his fish farm because of windstorm, that old man even naming his favorite fish with Jirokichi and Yuko. He even collecting erotic ancient drawings to pay this debt back to Rihaku. At that bar she also meets Seitaro and Hanuki and becomes good friend with them. She then gets lots of interesting experiences after that. Otherwise, senior gets so much unfortunate experiences when he tries to tailing the girl (lost his pants, alleged doing bad things to a liitle boy who is actually a book guardian, eaten super-hot and spicy food to get a ratatam book, and so on). 

Senior meets Todo when Todo lends his hand to help him get a pants. When Senior accompanies Todo to sell the erotic drawings suddenly a man who the girl met at the rhetorical event appears and throw up over the drawing (LOL). Unfortunately, Rihaku then comes to ask the drawings but they are already wrecked. Hearing Rihaku comes, the short hair girl challenges Rihaku on drink battle to help Todo. She wins that battle and liberates Todo from his debt. 

After that, the girl remembers about her old book titled Ratatam and tries to searches her missing book on an old book market. Senior is found by School Festival Executive Head when he falls into a river. He promises senior to help him gets closer to the girl as a pay back if he help him. 

Then he suggests senior to get Ratatam book to win the girl’s heart. But suddenly asked by Todo to get an ancient book at Rihaku’s place, and finds that Ratatam book is there. He competes with others to win the books by eating hot and spicy food (this is super funny I laughed hard because of senior lips). Senior wins the eating competition and gets the Ratatam. Suddenly books guardian appears and makes the ancients books fly away to the old books market. 

There the girl meets Don Pants (a man who will never change his underpants before finds his crush) and her friends. Then a Guerrilla Theater suddenly appears out of nowhere (at first I thought that this scene is absurd but I knew that the theater actually connected to the whole story lol). This mini musical theater is actually an action of finding Don Pants’s crush (Marudama Girl). Through that theater he wishes his crush watches and notices his feelings. 

But then School Festival Executive team raid that theater because it’s illegal opening a stage randomly without permission. Even so, Don Pants and team still continue the show until he meets his crush. In the last show the black short hair girl replaces the artist to play the lead role because all of them caught by SFE team. Knowing that the last show is about love scene between Don Pants and the black short hair girl, Senior determines to not let it happen. He will do everything just to make the show stop running. He happens to hold the girl on the stage but failed to stop the show. Don Pants crush appears but she is actually a School Festival Executive Head who disguises as the marudama girl to deceive Don Pants from the start. In the middle of the show, one of Guerilla Theater staff confesses her feeling to Don Pants. 

Then suddenly windstorm struck above the stage and Todo’s fish (Jirokichi and Yuko) fall from the sky (this is super random lmao). Don Pants think it’s a fate like an apple falls incident with her crush. Bacause of that Don Pants accepts her feelings. 

Everybody in the town gets sick in the only one who is not is the black short hair girl. She take care of people she met in previous events that night. And finally she comes to senior’s house. At his house she finds her books Ratatam and says that it’s a coincidence (lol even though she is aware that it is not a coincidence). What makes me amazed is that all of those events are happened in just one night (this girls really has amazing strength lmao). In the end of story, senior invites her on a date at a book store-cafe.

Chronological but yet interconnected plot. The plot itself is not hard to get, easy to follow.  Lots of unexpected creative scenes appear to express the emotion of the characters and connect the gap of missing links between scenes I guess. I really like how every character is connected step by step and build up a strong relationship between them, from totally strangers to close friends. The only thing I don’t get is why there is a scene in the beginning where senior drinks beer on the same table with Don Pants and SFE head. It means that they know each other from the start but in the middle of story when the theater begin to show, senior and Don Pants looks like they don’t each other. If you happen to solve this issue please write a comment and explain it to me.

Explorative Art. This kind of animation is usually used by indie artist to make an animation. Put the expression first over details which makes the animation is full of unexpected unique emotion. Delivering emotion not always associated with facial expressions of characters. The movement of settings and music and color composition also able to express it well. The screen play is really great which makes a typical romance story interesting combined with strong unique art. This animation movie style is different from the rest of 41^st JAP animation of the year category nominee which have likely the same style of animation, only the story that distinguish them. So no wonder if this animation movie won this award.

Considerable Actors. I don’t really know how to review a voice actor since their voice expression that is gonna be judged. It’s harder to understand voice expression than facial expression. All I know is if you make an excessive voice that’s not good. Your voice have to fit the character and expression shown on the animation. Sometimes when I watch serial anime, their voice expression often mislead character expression which somehow make it feels wrong lmao. But it is probably pretty nice getting Gen Hoshino to play senior role here since he has not only an actor background but also a singer background which is useful in the musical scenes. Kana Hanazawa is a popular and talented voice actress and already starred so many role in hits anime movies. Plus she can sing too which make her more considerable. So I guess she is a good choice to play the short black hair girl.

I can proudly say that this anime movie’s strong point lies on its art and screen play. So I rate 8.5/10 for Yoru wa Mijikashi Aruke yo Otome. Well that’s all my review hope you enjoy it.

- Destiana

(the review above is written by me also all those screenshots pics above are took by myself, if you want to to make them as a reference please contact me first)

Here's my recomend for the download link

https://zonabatchid.blogspot.co.id/2017/12/yoru-wa-mijikashi-arukeyo-otome.html

And here's the English Subtitle

https://subscene.com/subtitles/the-night-is-short-walk-on-girl/english/1674006