You're watching a real woman's life disappear into a political void. The animation is threadbare and the direction stumbles, but none of that matters once you understand that Megumi Yokota was 13 when North Korea took her, and decades later, the world still doesn't know if she's alive. This isn't anime trying to be profound. It's a 22-minute plea for someone's daughter, told with the quiet exhaustion of people who've been waiting for an answer that may never come.

In 1977, thirteen-year-old Megumi Yokota is kidnapped by North Korean operatives. North Korea later admits to taking her and at least twelve other Japanese residents during the 1970s and 1980s, yet it offers no conclusive evidence of what became of her or most of the others. This single-episode drama recounts her family's effort, stretching across thirty years, to bring their daughter home. It is free to watch on its official website in nine languages.