Santa moves through 1960s Kyushu like a ghost watching ghosts, never quite belonging to either world he guards. The rotoscoped live-action bleeding into hand-drawn frames isn't decoration, it's the show admitting that some stories can't be told one way. What hits hardest is how quietly it asks whether the monsters and the people are even different things, then answers you in the final episode in a way that actually means something.
Santa isn't your cheerful gift-giver. In 1960s Kyushu, during Japan's Showa era, greed is spreading through towns and cities. Enma, the King of Hell, warns that so many selfish souls will soon pour into Hell at once that the place could be overwhelmed. He sends Santa, a small boy who serves as a familiar from Hell, to guard the border between Hell and the human world and deal with the problem however he likes. Arriving at a cemetery in a lightning storm, Santa meets many humans and supernatural beings as he works to restore order without tipping the balance between light and dark. The show is a short-form horror series with supernatural elements.
