Yasuhiro Aoki

In ChaO (2025), thin figures, round bodies and oversized heads share a near-future Shanghai inhabited by humans and merpeople. Aoki places these differently drawn characters against detailed, realistic backgrounds, allowing their peculiar shapes to stand out rather than making everything match. The framing changes to accommodate bodies of different sizes, giving them room to move and the city a sense of depth. We were charmed by those mismatched bodies and the care taken to fit them into the same frame. This is where we rate him: he makes the surroundings worth watching even when the central romance struggles to hold our interest.

ChaO is his solo feature debut at Studio 4°C, after decades as a key animator, animation director and storyboard artist. His earlier work includes key animation on Mind Game (2004) and Steamboy (2004), followed by directing the ‘In Darkness Dwells’ segment of Batman: Gotham Knight (2008). The more direct route to ChaO runs through Kung-Fu Love (2006), a short that served as its conceptual pilot. That background helps explain the confidence with movement and layout, although it cannot by itself make a relationship convincing. The step into features asks him to sustain interest between the visual surprises, and that is where we remain less persuaded.

The variety of bodies also gives the humans-and-merpeople premise some substance. Aoki's interest in coexistence is visible in the inhabitants themselves: there is no single shape against which all the others look wrong. That is a sound reason for the mismatched drawing styles, and part of why the city holds our attention.

Saku Konohana's screenplay for ChaO keeps finding distractions when its couple needs attention, and Aoki's appetite for invention does little to curb them. At 90 minutes, there ought to be room for both the fanciful city and a romance with some development. The animation has expressive, peculiar designs, but there is so much energy that the film begins to wear itself out. We would welcome another feature that lets Aoki spend more time on how his characters respond to one another once their appearance has caught our eye. Try ChaO for the animation, rather than in the hope of being swept up in its romance.