Short anime Rusuban, adapted from the story of the same name in manga artist Okuda Akiko‘s short-story collection Shinzou, will screen for a one-week limited run at K’s Cinema in Shinjuku, Tokyo, beginning Saturday, August 1, 2026. Okuda is best known for her series Placebo Club (Purasebo Kurabu).

Story: One Summer Day, Home Alone

Set in August 1987, Rusuban follows a single day in the life of a girl named Tokko, left alone to watch over a large family home. The film captures the private, irreplaceable quality of time that only a child left home alone can know — a mixture of freedom, imagination, and quiet loneliness while waiting for the family to return.

Rock’n’Roll Mountain Takes on Full Hand-Drawn Animation

Production is handled by Rock’n’Roll Mountain, the animation studio led by Iwaizawa Kenji, director of Ongaku and Hyaku Emu. Notably, the studio has chosen not to use rotoscoping — the technique of tracing over live-action footage — and instead challenges itself with fully hand-drawn animation for the first time, carried out entirely by young staff members.

The director’s chair goes to Yanagisawa Ayumi, who served as assistant director on Hyaku Emu. — her first feature-length credit — making Rusuban her directorial debut.

Poster and Trailer Revealed

Alongside the theatrical announcement, the team has released a key visual poster and trailer. The poster carries the tagline “Everyone’s house, and I am alone” and depicts a corner of a nostalgic Japanese living room, scattered with a girls’ manga magazine, a dinosaur piggy bank, the character “ten” drawn by Tokko, and a rear view of the girl standing by herself. The trailer distills the contradictory emotions at the heart of the film — the richness and the loneliness of being home alone.

Comments from the Team

Okuda Akiko (original author): “The house I grew up in until I was 18 was demolished a few years ago. Rusuban was born from the memories of that house. Seeing it become an anime let me reunite with those landscapes and my past self. The memories in this work are deeply personal, but I hope they can reach the old memories of someone who isn’t me.”

Yanagisawa Ayumi (director): “It is a true honour to direct one of Okuda Akiko’s rare works that captures an ‘atmosphere’ rather than a plot. Finding the meaning in adapting a manga that is already complete in itself was enormously difficult, but together with the staff we faced every panel of the original and made a Rusuban that could only exist as animation. It is a work full of moments that cannot be put into words.”

Iwaizawa Kenji (producer): “After finishing Hyaku Emu., I was thinking about producing a short film in-house, and the idea of adapting Rusuban from Okuda’s collection Shinzou came to me. Director Yanagisawa and the RRM staff have turned Okuda’s manga — with its uniquely untranslatable atmosphere and inner world — into a wonderful animated film.”

Double Bill with “Yama” and Special Events

Rusuban will screen alongside Yama (Mountain), a short anime directed by Iwaizawa in 2010, adapted from a short manga by Ohashi Hiroyuki. Yama was the seed that eventually grew into the feature film Ongaku.

Throughout the run, director Yanagisawa will host a daily after-screening talk with a different guest each day. A 52-page document book — packed with staff comments, key animation, design materials, and image boards drawn by Okuda — will be sold at the theater box office.

Staff

• Original Work / Art Setting: Okuda Akiko
• Planning / Producer: Iwaizawa Kenji
• Director / Storyboard / Editor: Yanagisawa Ayumi
• Key & In-Between Animation: Noguchi Yuka, Makino Midori, Meibi Rai
• Background Art: Mansai Chisato, Pang Lian
• Director of Photography: Veronika Kholeva
• Color Design: Sekiguchi Ayame
• Sound Director: Kato Miyu
• Music: Harada Yasuo
• Sound Effects / Dubbing Mixer: Usui Masaru
• Dialect Supervision: Kato Yuka
• Production Desk: Sekiguchi Ayame
• Publicity: Hirai Mariko
• Production: Rock’n’Roll Mountain

Cast

• Tachibana Kokona, Kato Yuka, Miyazaki Atsuyoshi, Kobe Mitsuo, Imai Manami, Katsuki Akane

Screening Details

• Dates: August 1, 2026 (Saturday) — one week only
• Venue: K’s Cinema, Shinjuku, Tokyo