チャオ

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DIRECTED BY: Yasuhiro Aoki

FEATURING: Voices of Ouji Suzuka, Anna Yamada, Ryôta Yamasato, Kenta Miyake, Kavka Shishido

PLOT: Stefan, a mild-mannered company drone with a dream, finds he is the key to peace between landmen and mermen when Neptune’s daughter chooses him to be her husband.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: This collision of Plymptonian flourish and anime fundamentals is an hour and a half of wild lines, vibrant colors, giant heads, small heads, robo-antics, and the pratfalls of a literal fish out of water. Intense. Cute, too.

COMMENTS: In an introduction recorded for the Fantasia screening, director Yasuhiro Aoki tells us to enjoy the fun, and that we should keep an eye on the many little details. It is well to heed his soft-spoken advice: his film is stuffed to the gills with sight gags, throw-away visuals, and plenty of narrative slight of hand. As a conjuring trick—for ChaO is nothing short of magical—this account of Stefan’s strange courtship pays off handsomely for the observant viewer. The wild flow of line and form, not to mention the glorious buffet of colors, builds to a fantastical showdown as the lowly hero bumbles from one awkward challenge to another.

The meet-cute between the lovebirds comes like a bolt out of the blue. (Albeit the ocean blue, not the skies above.) Dreaming of fabricating a marine-friendly ship propulsion system, Stefan faces a hectic journey one morning when alerted, and then attacked, by his roommate’s new robot-alarm invention. Shouted at, and ultimately smacked upside the head by, this assertive electronic, he escapes his tiny apartment, tossing a cool drink to the ever-present, never-working rickshaw driver out front. He’s charged with swabbing the deck of his boss’ ship (“Mr Sea”, a Little Tikes Toddle Tot-proportioned opportunist) and before he knows it, the sea king’s daughter singles him out as her suitor—and all of Shanghai is on board for the courtship.

Framed as a recollection from a burnt-out Stefan talking with an eager reporter, ChaO‘s energy is (barely) contained within its anecdotal form. Highspeed chases with feral reporters, inexplicable animated asides, and the omnipresence of ChaO herself—in glorious-pink koi form, five-foot tall, with golden high-top sneakers and jets of blue water flowing from her gills—make for an experience akin to one’s eyeballs being speedily pulled about by an enthusiastic raconteur. So much craft is packed into its ninety minutes that by the breathless, face-scrunching finale on the high seas as Neptune launches his watery arsenal at the hapless Stefan, some may be relieved that the end is in sight.

ChaO is a marvelous experience, with Yasuhiro Aoki batting the optic nerve with cleverness, cuteness, and confusion. (The infinitely long hospital bed, or the casual heaping of spun lavatory paper as Stefan panics in the men’s room, are among the head-scratching moments that could lead the viewer to a new bald spot.) Being so visual in its nature, I can only hope to convey a fraction of the peculiar charm. The child-friendly nature of this romantic comedy fish tale adds to its appeal, landing ChaO as another of the all-too-few gateway films for young weird-o-philes in development. Like Spirited Away and Ghost Cat Anzu, Yasuhiro’s madcap outing compels a manic grin which lingers well after the closing credits.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“There’s a dreamlike logic to the world that might not make literal sense, but it holds surprising emotional weight…  This weirdly beautiful and absurdly humorous fable timelessly unfolds, reveling in its Japanese tendencies and aesthetic.” — Joshua M. Hayes, Josh At The Movies (festival screening)