is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese cel-shaded

Cel-shaded animation

Cel-shaded animation is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make computer graphics appear to be hand-drawn. Cel-shading is often used to mimic the style of a comic book or cartoon. It is a somewhat recent addition to computer graphics, most commonly turning up in video games...

 anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 short film written and directed by Shuuhei Morita.

The film is based around "Otokoyo", a game of hide and seek

Hide and seek

Hide-and-seek or hide-and-go-seek is a variant of the game tag, in which a number of players conceal themselves in the environment, to be found by one or more seekers.-Variants:Numerous variants of the game can be found around the world...

 played by children, wearing fox masks, near the ruins of an abandoned old city. The children who play this disappear, believed to be spirited away

Kamikakushi

The expression to "spirit away" means to remove without anyone's noticing. means "spirited away". Kamikakushi, in Japanese folklore, is used to refer to the mysterious disappearance of a person that happens when an angered god takes a person away....

 by demons. Kakurenbo follows Hikora, a boy who joins the game with hopes of finding his missing sister, Sorincha. The storyline is built on the idea that Tokyo is losing its natural aesthetic, which includes child's games such as hide and seek in order for industrial progress to ensue i.e. lighting the city of Tokyo costing innocence of childhood games.

Characters

The young boy who plays the game to find his missing sister.

Hikora's sister who went missing when she played the game with the other children.

Hikora's best friend who plays the game to lend a hand in finding Sorincha.

The leader of his little gang who claims is not afraid of demons.

One of the members in Noshiga's gang. He has blond hair and wears glasses.

Another member of Noshiga's gang. He is short and has a large, red scarf.

and

Twin brothers with a dark past. Their reason for playing is a mystery.

Demons

Once the seven children pass through the gates to enter the abandoned streets, they are pursued by four different demons and then finally by the one demon who is "it". They guard the battery tower within the center of the city, where every child they caught is taken. The tower has socket rows that go on to the very first children who played.

A three-armed, four-legged, red humanoid demon that holds a mechanical wheel on its back. Captures Tachiji, and then Suku.

A horned komainu

Komainu

, often called lion-dogs in English, are statue pairs of lion-like creatures either guarding the entrance or the inner shrine of many Japanese Shinto shrines or kept inside the inner shrine itself, where they are not visible to the public. The first type, born during the Edo period, is called , the...

 demon that wears a tarp over its back. Captures Noshiga.

The twin child-like demons. One is sitting on a menacing-looking cart, while the other pulls it. Captures both Inmu and Yanku.

A spider-like demon with eight arms. Captures Yaimao.

A nine-tailed fox

Kitsune

is the Japanese word for fox. Foxes are a common subject of Japanese folklore; in English, kitsune refers to them in this context. Stories depict them as intelligent beings and as possessing magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. Foremost among these is the ability to assume...

 who is the leader of the demons. It possesses the last child who wins the game of "Otokoyo", and wears a fox mask that changes into an oni mask that the person who is "it" wears. In the beginning of the film, it possessed Sorincha (who apparently won the game before Hikora), and in the end, it possessed Hikora after he won the game.

Reception

Kakurenbo premiered in March 2005 at the Tokyo International Anime Fair

Tokyo International Anime Fair

The Tokyo International Anime Fair also known as Tokyo International Animation Fair is one of the largest anime trade fairs in the world, held annually in Japan. The first event was held in 2002 as "Tokyo International Anime Fair 21". The event is held at Tokyo Big Sight, a convention and...

, where it won the award for Notable Entry in the General Category. In Korea, it received a Best Film Nomination at the Seoul Comics and Animation Festival. It then went on to win Best Short film at the Fantasia Festival

Fantasia Festival

Fantasia International Film Festival is a genre film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996...

in Montreal.