A blue-eyed girl walks into a WWII Japanese village and everyone's worst fears come alive.
The story is set in a village in the southern Japanese prefecture of Kōchi during World War II. Even in this remote mountainous area, the perception of American and British people as "brutes" has taken root, due to the deaths and injuries among the villagers' relatives. A elementary schoolgirl named Eiko transfers from the city of Yokohama to this village. Eiko happens to have blue eyes from her American father, and her classmates make no attempt to rein in their bullying. Other than Eiko's homeroom teacher Akiko, even the teachers view Eiko the same way that the children do. However, a boy named Kenta views Eiko more with curiosity than with hostility. The children's lives change as the injured father of one of Kenta's classmates returns from the battlefield and news of more casualties arrives in the village.
Direction
Hirai's restraint makes every glance land like a slap.
Writing
Yasumi's script trusts silence; no easy villains, no easy heroes.
Acting
Kuwashima's voice work — childlike fragility, ancient sadness.
Director
Minetaro Hirai
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kōchi's mountainous isolation historically bred intense insularity; the film weaponizes this geography as psychological prison. Director Hirai grew up hearing family accounts of war-era suspicion toward any 'foreignness.'
The 'blue eyes' were animated without reference photos — Hirai insisted animators paint from memory of 'alienness' to replicate how villagers would actually perceive them. The result subtly shifts hue across scenes.
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