After a spate of Disney CGI-heavy live-action remakes, here’s a palate cleanser featuring old fashioned hand drawn animation from Japan. With its heavy use of loud primary colors that makes it look very much like a comic book, this one looks even more traditional than usual. While its juvenile conception of romance is regrettably rooted in the young adult genre from which it was adapted, I do love its energy and originality. It’s easily one of the best animated films I’ve watched all year.

The film follows the adventures of an unnamed female university student, the Kōhai, over the course of a single magically long night. The evening begins with a gathering of the students where a Senpai tells his friends that he loves this Kōhai and plans to woo her by coincidentally appearing wherever she goes. The Kōhai goes to a bar to drink and earns the admiration of a couple of arts connoisseurs Higuchi and Hanuki for her drinking ability. They set out to challenge a local moneylender on behalf of Tōdō, a pervert she also meets at the bar to a drinking contest. Following that she also goes to a used book market to search for a book that she cherished as a child and later to the university’s fair. She runs into the same group of people again and again at each event while the hapless Senpai tries his best to earn her attention and affection.

This is an extremely fast paced film, so fast that sometimes simply keeping up with the subtitles through the rapid fire dialogue is quite a chore. But then that perfectly fits the character of the Kōhai who is a veritable whirlwind of liveliness and energy as she storms across the city. The art style is similarly manic and unrestrained as it depicts the wondrous events of a night that is filled with magic and even divine intervention. There is much humor and excitement as the Kōhai and her friends bar crawl drunkenly through the streets challenging the moneylender to appear or when the guerilla theatre runs from place to place setting up their makeshift stage while avoiding the security guards of the festival director. You never know what to expect next and the creativity involved here is just top notch. The scene where the Senpai’s friend breaks out in song on stage as he pleads for the mysterious girl he met to appear had me in stitches though I could guess where it was going. This is some of the most fun I’ve had from a film in a while.

There are some intriguing hints of progressive thinking here. It’s great for example that the main character is a can-do, powerful young woman and that she can excel without being shamed in the traditionally masculine activity of drinking. The story goes to some interesting places with regards to same sex relationships as well in the guerilla theatre arc though it ultimately chickens out and goes back to a more traditional arrangement. The main plot of the Senpai wanting to win the affections of the Kohai is of course old fashioned silliness and as she responds to him positively in the end it’s groan-worthy. Has it occurred to him that he could try getting to know her better as a ordinary friend first? But this kind of portrayal of romance is par for the course for the genre. At least the theme of the Kōhai weaving a web of friendships as she travels all over the city connecting people to one another is, while not terribly original, rather sweet and unobjectionable.

I didn’t know what to expect when I saw this unusual title but it certainly wasn’t this high energy, drug-trip of a film. It’s markedly different from the other Japanese animated films we’ve watched recently and I love how it’s unabashedly joyful and positive it is without even a hint of the usual Japanese bittersweetness. It’s not the most mature story but simply as a visual extravaganza of imagination it’s well worth watching.