Kick-Heart

It's so good, it even makes me wanna sing in doctor's handwriting.

After watching the odd, visually striking Mind Game, I was curious what other things had been created by co-director Masaaki Yuasa. And I found this little short.

The story is a rather nonsensical thing about a masked wrestler (part- time) who falls in love with another masked wrestler. It's not a compelling story, and seems to be there mainly as an excuse for some weird animation effects. Perhaps there is some greater significance, but if so it escapes me.

The animation has a loose, crazed style and the game has a goofy sense of humor. But it struck me as generally pointless. But I've found that's true of a lot of Japanese anime shorts, so I guess some people are okay with that.

A weird and concentrated burst of crazy. I think I kind of liked it, but I also have almost no idea what to make of it. Despite it being a short film, it feels like there's less to immediately grab onto compared to Masaaki Yuasa's feature-length films, or at least the ones I've seen. As such, Kick-Heart feels considerably more difficult to recommend, but I guess the fact that it's only 13 minutes means it won't waste much of your time if you end up baffled by it, like me. All that being said, I did find it interesting, and Kick-Heart was consistently stylish and cool-looking, but it kind of washed over me and left me more than a little lost by the end of it all.