General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Night Is Short, Walk On Girl (夜は短し歩けよ乙女)

Night Is Short, Walk On Girl (夜は短し歩けよ乙女, Yoru wa Mijikashi Arukeyo Otome) is a 2017 Japanese animated romantic comedy film directed by Masaaki Yuasa, adapted from Tomihiko Morimi's 2006 novel of the same title. Set in Kyoto, it follows a university student called "Senpai" (先輩, senior) who schemes to run into his club junior, the unnamed "black-haired maiden" (黒髪の乙女), as she drifts through a surreal night of drinking, festivals, and encounters with eccentric characters.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	April 7, 2017 (Japan), 93 minutes, distributed by Toho¹
Director / screenplay	Masaaki Yuasa; screenplay by Makoto Ueda of the theater company Europe Kikaku, based on Tomihiko Morimi's novel¹
Production	Science SARU; production committee "Nakame no Kai" (Fuji TV, Toho, Science SARU, KADOKAWA, BS Fuji)¹
Voice cast	Gen Hoshino (Senpai), Kana Hanazawa (black-haired maiden), Hiroshi Kamiya (festival executive director)²
Music	Michiru Oshima; theme song "Kōya wo Aruke" (荒野を歩け) by ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION³
Source novel	Published November 29, 2006 by Kadokawa; winner of the 20th Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize (2007) and 2nd place in the 4th Booksellers Award⁴
Structural change	The novel's four seasons are compressed into a single night in the film⁵
Honors	Grand Prize, feature category, Ottawa International Animation Festival 2017; Japan Academy Prize for Best Animated Film¹^•⁶

Spoilers

Story and structure

Senpai, a shy university student, loves the black-haired maiden but cannot say so directly. His plan, the "Nakame strategy" (なるべく彼女の目にとまる作戦, the "be noticed by her as often as possible" strategy), amounts to arranging accidental encounters. Across spring's Pontocho nightlife, a summer used-book fair, and an autumn campus festival, he circles her while colorful companions trigger one absurd incident after another, and the relationship advances only by degrees.²^•⁷

The Japan Media Arts Festival summary describes the film's central adaptation choice: the novel moves through four seasons, while the film compresses them into "one night," and stages the novel's guerrilla theater (spontaneous political street-performance activism) episode as a musical.⁵ Critics noted the elastic treatment of time; Screen's review describes watches that run slowly for the young and fast for the elderly within a single fantastical Kyoto night.⁸

The title

A comparative-literature study traces the title to "Gondola no Uta" (ゴンドラの唄), a 1915 Japanese popular song with lyrics by Yoshii Isamu and music by Nakayama Shinpei, whose famous line runs "Inochi mijikashi, koiseyo otome" (life is short, fall in love, maiden). Morimi's 2006 title inverts it to "the night is short, walk on, maiden," and the study reads the film's romance as an extended engagement with that song.⁹

Production

The film reunited the staff of the television anime The Tatami Galaxy (四畳半神話大系), another Morimi adaptation: Yuasa directing, Ueda writing the script, and Yusuke Nakamura providing original character designs.²^•⁷ Yuasa had founded the studio Science SARU in 2013, and the film was produced there as a commission for the studio.¹⁰^•¹¹ The production committee took its name, Nakame no Kai, from the protagonist's strategy.³

Gen Hoshino, a singer-songwriter and actor, voiced Senpai in his first solo lead in an animated film; Kana Hanazawa voiced the maiden.²^•¹² The supporting cast includes Hiroshi Kamiya as the festival executive director, Ryuji Akiyama as the "underpants overlord," Kazuya Nakai, Yūko Kaida, Hiroyuki Yoshino, and Aoi Yūki.²^•¹³

Style and reception

Reviewers emphasized the film's visual invention. The International Film Festival Rotterdam program describes elastic figures, simplified silhouettes, flat color fields, split screens, on-screen text, and fourth-wall-breaking voiceovers, and reads the story partly as an allegory of entering adulthood.¹⁴ Screen called it "restless and relentless," praising its flights of fantasy while noting that some stretches work less well than others.⁸ On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 90% Tomatometer from 31 reviews and an 84% audience score.¹⁵

Awards and festival run. The film won the Grand Prize in the feature film category at the 2017 Ottawa International Animation Festival and an audience award (bronze) at the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival, screened at the 2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam, and won Best Animated Film at the Awards of the Japanese Academy.¹^•⁶ It was also a jury-recommended work in the animation division of the 21st Japan Media Arts Festival.⁵

North American release. GKIDS distributed the film in the United States with a limited theatrical release on August 21, 2018 and streaming from January 29, 2019; it grossed $397.6K in the US.¹⁵

Availability

In Japan the film has circulated across subscription and rental platforms; as of the sources' 2026 snapshots it was available on subscription (見放題) on U-NEXT, Disney+, FOD, and ABEMA, and for rental on Prime Video, while Netflix and Hulu did not carry it.¹⁶ Availability changes frequently, so current listings should be checked on each service.¹⁶

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026