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Short Peace is a theatrical anthology of four independent animated shorts, each imagining a different era of Japan. Possessions follows a wandering traveler who takes shelter in a mountain shrine full of tsukumogami, animate spirits born from discarded household objects. Combustible tells a tragic Edo-period tale of childhood sweethearts torn apart by class and duty, building to a catastrophic fire. Gambo pits a lumbering white bear-demon against a rampaging red oni terrorizing a feudal village. A Farewell to Weapons closes the collection with a squad of soldiers hunting self-replicating robotic war machines in the ruins of a devastated future Tokyo. A kaleidoscopic title sequence, directed separately by Koji Morimoto, opens the program before the four stories unfold.
⚠ Background — may contain spoilers
Conceived by Katsuhiro Otomo from his own 1976 manga concept and produced by Sunrise with Shochiku, Short Peace premiered in Japanese theaters on 20 July 2013, pairing four films by four different directors: Shuhei Morita's Possessions (14 min), Otomo's own Combustible (13 min, adapting his 1995 manga), Hiroaki Ando's Gambo (13 min, written by Katsuhito Ishii), and Hajime Katoki's A Farewell to Weapons (26 min, adapting Otomo's 1981 manga) — roughly 66 minutes of shorts preceded by a 3-minute Koji Morimoto title sequence set to music by Gumi. Possessions was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 86th Academy Awards; Combustible won the Grand Prize at the 16th Japan Media Arts Festival and the Ofuji Noburo Award at the 2012 Mainichi Film Awards. The anthology was released in North America by Sentai Filmworks in 2014 and in Australia by Hanabee. A companion PS3 game, Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day, was co-developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Bandai Namco. Note: MyAnimeList/Jikan never consolidated this release into a single anthology entry — it lists the four shorts and the Morimoto title sequence as five separate, unlinked pages, which is why this record was previously mistitled 'Short Peace Opening' and described only the 3-minute prelude. It has been corrected here from primary/Wikipedia sourcing to represent the full theatrical anthology; schedule and dub sync from Jikan have been disabled so a future auto-sync doesn't overwrite this with the opening-only data again.
An excellent collection of short films coupled with a flawed, short but broadly fun little game, Short Peace is worthy of a place in any anime fan's collection.
