A two-minute film that moves like a fever dream without apology. Tanikawa's poem becomes something colder on screen, a clockwork dissection of human nature stripped down to its most unsettling mechanics, rendered in lines so spare they feel like bone. The minimalist animation doesn't soften the ideas; it sharpens them. Rewatch it and you notice what you missed the first time because the first time you were still bracing for a plot that was never coming. This is the kind of work that reveals whether you came to animation for comfort or for confrontation.

Human Zoo is a short animated film by Kuri Youji, adapted from a poem by Shuntarou Tanikawa. It shows people locked in cages, with silly noises on the soundtrack. It was first screened in 1961 or 1962. The film took the Special Jury Prize at Annecy and a bronze animation award at the Venice Biennale, both in 1963. In 1965 it was one of the Kuri shorts that jointly received the Oofuji Noburou Award.