A kappa's quiet longing for connection plays out in animation that moves like the water it lives in. Yoji Kuri built something that shouldn't work, a 1975 children's song stretched into a full narrative, but the restraint is the point. The melancholy sits underneath the surface, gentle and unshakeable, the way lost things stay with you after you've stopped looking for them.

Kappa no Kui Kuo Kua is a single-episode music video made for the song of the same name, sung by the Japanese vocal group Duke Aces together with actress Nobue Ichitani. Yoji Kuri animated the piece, and it was shown on NHK's Minna no Uta program in 1975. The video was later regarded as lost, and it was only recovered through the Minna no Uta Hakkutsu Project.