Wildlife and the animal kingdom are familiar touchpoints in the works of Takeshi Yashiro, who also fancies a side of magic, humour, and fantasy to be woven into the main course of his arboreal journeys into unseen sights. It is this ‘Narnia-esque’ mindset that surrounds “Gon, the Little Fox”, wherein Takeshi imagines a whimsical and heart-wrenching tale of compassion shared between one human hunter and “Gon”, an orphaned fox who constantly annoys the poor chap.
Gon, the Little Fox is streaming on JFF Theater until 2025/02/01 11:00:00 [JST]
The men and a hunting partner prowl under the darkest shade of the night for a thieving rapscallion of a fox who goes by “Gon”. They are determined to get their revenge on the canine that had a field day on their crops. Alas, the moonlight exerts its beguiling charm on the hunter, who purposefully shifts the crosshair away from the creature right before releasing the trigger. That night was not the night for murder, not after the trauma he experienced from caring for his sickly ailing mother.
There are strong influences of Studio Ghibli’s, “Grave of the Fireflies” (1988) in this and boy does it get grim towards the end. For one, Gon, like the little girl in “Grave of the Fireflies”, is a playful lonely soul longing for attention, and under the guise of their skittish, vibrant nature, lie two similar characters who mourn for maternal love yet face life with such ferocious positivity that it pulls a gut-punch when things so south.
And it heads in that direction when Gon decides to steal the hunter’s freshly caught eel, and the latter suddenly appears not to be so forgiving anymore.
With its undertones of intimacy and tenderness, this simple story of ills and eels glides along with cool symbology (like the wilting of tiger Lillies) and colours (from the grim hunting chiaroscuros to vibrant bouncy hues when Gon explores the huge world out there) that signal shifts in tone.
With its startling opulence of exquisitely detailed claymation, Yashiro painstakingly frames his creations with stop-motion to deliver a fully realised and mature short film that is highly affecting and forces us to explore the boundaries of love, revenge and grief.
