This Week in Anime

Is Child of Kamiari Month Worth Watching?

Nicky
Look, this bunny is having none of your shit, Steve.

This movie may take place in October but it is keeping the April spirit by giving us the gift of bunny.

Animated by LIDEN FILMS and conceptualized by Toshinari Shinohe, Child of Kamiari Month is a movie that is made possible through a series of three crowdfunding campaigns. It was released in Japanese theaters in 2021, and now available to us through Netflix.

Kanna is a sixth grader who has many fond memories of running with her mother. Unfortunately for her, this is an anime movie, so of course her mother contracts a terminal case of anime mom disease and passes away, taking away Kanna's love of running with her.

Anime making a good argument against me not having any children when I can't even go outside in the spring without feeling a little chilly and having to wear a sweater like it's fall. Curse you low constitution rolls!

Anyways, as I mentioned before, the film takes place in October, which in Japan is called "Kanna Month" or The Month Without Gods. It is the month when all the local Shinto gods take off to go to their big party called Kamihakari where they decide fates, with some gods staying at home to protect the lands. However, in Izumo where the summit takes place, October is instead known as Kamiari Month, or "The Gods' Month." Hence the title!

Even though some of the gods have to miss the feast because of their duties at home, that doesn't mean they should feel entirely left out of the celebrations. So the Idaten has to go all around to collect their locally-based food contributions, or Chiso, before the party starts in order for the party to be a full success.

If I were a local deity, I'll be sure to send over some chips and salsa.

Yeah, the visits to the local gods are pretty brief. We really only get a few seconds of most of them, and most of the time the gods themselves are barely animated, but it's still charming even if you only have a vague idea of Shintoism. And Kanna doesn't have a lot of time since she's going everywhere by foot within a few (albeit magically slowed) hours before the big shindig.

I want a time-stopping bracelet so I can take even more naps than I already do. I'd seem so powerful and productive and be able to get my preferred twelve hours of sleep a day!

Our long-eared friend and timekeeper is simply named Shiro after taking the form of a rabbit from Kanna's school, and the demon boy is Yasha. The latter immediately presents himself as Kanna's rival because of a longstanding feud between their family and the Idatens, after the demon gods tried to "retrieve" Buddha's bones.


But even if they have a lot of perceived time, they still have to move rather quickly, since real time is only slowed and not stopped. After all, the banquet is a very important date and they really mustn't be late! Kanna's regular pace since losing her mom is too lax, so having Yasha to travel with and to put a fire under her butt helps. Especially since she's convinced that doing this might allow her to see her mom again.

It seems like she took Shiro's platitudes about trying to connect with her by running in her footsteps a little too literally. But the kid has gone through a lot.

You can tell it's getting to her what with that big weird smoke thing following her around. Man, I love VISUAL METAPHORS!

I'm a bit forgiving since this film was crowdfunded, which obviously means that it doesn't have the budget of, say, a Makoto Shinkai production. That said, most of the time the animation is only about comparable to a broadcasted TV anime, which left a bit to be desired for a movie that was released in Theaters. The direction is also mostly standard and only the animation director is credited. Even the Farewell, My Dear Cramer movie, also produced by LIDEN last year, looked more polished overall. (Though, this isn't nearly as rough as the Cramer TV anime...)

However, I agree that that was one of the more creative moments, and there a few other instances where the film looks quite nice. I personally enjoy this moment with the dragon diety. Especially since it reveals that he also deeply misses his parent who it cannot see because of it's sworn duty.

Yeah, while the animation can sometimes make it count despite all its shortcuts, if the story is just so-so then it doesn't really stand out compared to similar premises about coming-of-age and overcoming grief. I was thinking maybe for a kid who didn't know that stuff it would be okay; it's a pretty inoffensive film, it has a dub, and it's available on a large platform. But it would also probably be too slow for a kid to engage with since there are few spectacle moments and a lot of exposition.

Oh yeah, I probably liked much worse movies as a kid and there always seems to be just a bit too few movies that are okay for kids to consume even with the infinite variety afforded by streaming. It just wouldn't be my first pick because it's mostly very forgettable.

Or if you wanted to use magical realism as a means of processing grief, something like A Letter to Momo could be a better approach, which is a more lax take on the theme but has a much more mature psychology about it that's really engaging. I wouldn't say Kanna is a bad character since most of the film is spent on her emotional state, but there was very little that felt truthful or relatable to me because so much of it is so derivative.

Which is a big problem particularly when you're writing stories about children for children. It's really important that your primary audience can relate to the characters and that kids feel like kids instead of adults' mouthpieces.

The designs aren't bad; they have a scruffiness to them, and I appreciate that they're not overly cute. Yasha had my favorite design but I have a weakness for trash boys who are actually quite nice deep down. But I felt like I could've liked him more if the film bothered to make him more conflicted considering his whole deal of having to carry all the expectations of his family.

While I appreciated that he was the one that got Kanna out of her funk at risk to himself, or that Kanna deliberately failed her previous trial against him in order to save him, their friendship never felt anything deeper than being pleasant because the film doesn't spend a whole lot of time on developing their chemistry. I talked about the film having slow pacing but we're also mostly moving from one shot to the next in a way that it doesn't feel like much of a journey.

And as someone who's only vaguely familiar with Shintoism the film doesn't really make it clear what would happen if the gods' Uber Eats didn't make it on time other than they'd be bummed out, maybe? So when Kanna goes on her big depression rant about how none of it matters, I couldn't help but agree even if it clearly wasn't the message. Spending time with each god would've gave this moment more of an emotional payoff.

Maybe receiving the ire of the gods for all eternity by getting a bad star rating felt too dark for a sixth-grader?

Overall, Child of Kamiari Month is inoffensive, but it's also not a largely ambitious film. I wouldn't say it stumbles; it's really more of a slow jog to the finish all the way through. It might be good to put on as background noise but I couldn't imagine going out of my way to see this in theaters.

Maybe the real friends were all the bunnies we met along the way? 'Til next time, folks.