Film

Night Is Short, Walk On Girl

Name: Night Is Short, Walk On Girl
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Animation, Fantasy
Released: 2017
Cast: Gen Hoshino, Kana Hanazawa, Ami Koshimizu, Aoi Yuuki, Hiroshi Kamiya

Romantic comedy
Comedy
Light-hearted
Strange
Relentless

A delirious love letter to a single night in Kyoto, where a girl with black hair tumbles through absurdist encounters—talking books, mysterious bars, theatrical chaos—while her oblivious senpai orchestrates increasingly elaborate "coincidences" to cross her path. Gorgeously animated, wonderfully weird, and genuinely romantic despite the mayhem. For anyone who loves romance that refuses to be boring.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love warm, whimsical romantic comedies where a lovestruck schemer's clumsy devotion drives the story and the odd detours through nightlife are the real pleasure.

Skip it if you want a tight plot with steady momentum; this drifts from scene to scene, and its dreamlike wandering can feel repetitive if you need the story to keep moving.

What it asks of you: Ninety-three minutes of attention with few anchors; it rewards a viewer happy to let the strangeness accumulate rather than follow a tidy cause and effect.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Your Name.2016

A similarly dazzling blend of romantic longing, supernatural spectacle, and visual invention. It finds the magic in everyday moments and asks whether fate can overcome circumstance. Absolutely transporting.

But The emotional climax relies on a plot twist that some find contrived. It can feel emotionally manipulative if you're not in the mood for it.

Paprika2006

Surreal, wildly imaginative dream-logic animation from the same director's studio. Celebrates art, obsession, and the beauty of unchecked creativity. A kaleidoscope that somehow makes perfect sense.

But The plot is genuinely difficult to follow. It's more interested in sensation than narrative clarity.

Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei2010

A university student reexamines his youth in hyperkinetic, endlessly inventive episodes set across Kyoto. Same studio, same gonzo energy, same ability to make mundane life feel like an adventure.

But The rapid-fire dialogue and visual density is exhausting. Watching it requires active, full attention.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Night Is Short, Walk On Girl

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Midnight in Paris2011

Both films use a single enchanted night—or period—to explore whether love is something we find or something we create through obsessive choreography.

A writer adrift in modern romance stumbles into 1920s Paris and falls for a woman he's obsessed with before meeting her. Like *Night Is Short*, it's about romantic yearning meeting magical accident, and about whether you can love what you imagine vs. what's real.

But Woody Allen's particular brand of wistful self-pity won't work for everyone. It's also very much a screenplay about screenwriting.

Whisper of the Heart1995

Studio Ghibli's quieter gem about two teenagers circling each other through Shinjuku. Perfectly captures the particular electricity of first attraction and creative ambition. Genuinely swoon-inducing.

But Almost nothing happens plot-wise. If you need external conflict, this is pure character study and mood.

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!2020

Three art students making anime, shot as if the show itself is their animation. Bursts with creativity and joy. The female friendship at its center is as warm and specific as any romance.

But It's more interested in the *making* of art than telling a conventional story. The narrative is loose.

Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight2018

Girls in a theatre troupe battling for destiny through musical numbers and surreal staging. Wild, camp, visually daring, with genuine stakes hiding under the spectacle. Weirdly moving.

But The metaphors can feel opaque. The tone teeters between earnest and absurd in ways that don't always land.

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms2018

A woman ages slowly while raising a human child, exploring motherhood and love across decades. Gorgeously animated, with real emotional weight. A quieter kind of magic.

But It's heavy on sentiment and light on plot. Slowness is the point, but patience is required.

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms poster

I Lost My Body2019

Both use surreal, physics-defying premises—and absurdist logic—to tell stories about how people pursue love they have no rational right to pursue, and how that irrationality is beautiful.

A disembodied hand falls in love with a woman through flash-cut memories and impossible circumstances. Stop-motion-and-rotoscope hybrid, visually unlike anything else. About the absurdity of connection itself. Genuinely original.

But The formal premise (a hand narrating) is either delightful or too-clever-for-its-own-good. The film knows this and doesn't flinch.

Belladonna of Sadness1973

Where *Night Is Short* celebrates romance through surrealist joy and abundance, *Belladonna* uses surrealism to show romance and desire as traps. Both understand that animation lets you visualize the irrational—the realm where love actually lives.

A medieval woman sold into marriage makes a Faustian bargain with the devil himself. Painted animation, psychedelic, feminist nightmare-fever-dream. Visually stunning and thematically the anti-romance: about power, bodies, and refusal. Genuinely haunting.

But It's unrelentingly dark and deals with sexual violence. The painterly style, while gorgeous, means some scenes are hard to read. Not escapist.