Short Peace is a five part anime anthology, and the fourth anthology created with Katsuhiro Otomo after Robot Carnival, Neo Tokyo (1987) and Memories. Uniquely, instead of another anime short, the fifth part is a video game developed by Suda51's Grasshopper Manufacture. It was released in 2013.
It contains the following parts:
- Possesions, directed by Shuhei Morita. A traveller shelters from the rain in an abandoned temple and encounters a group of very strange spirits. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
- Combustible directed by Katsuhiro Otomo deals with a boy from a wealthy family in Edo-era Japan who becomes a firefighter against his family's wishes, his childhood friend and their tragic love.
- Gambo directed by Hiroaki Ando is about a village terrorized by an Oni. A little girl prays for help and a white bear arrives to help.
- A farewell to arms directed by Hajime Katoki is about a salvage crew in a futuristic ruined city encountering a Spider Tank controlled by a rampant AI.
- Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day, directed by Yohei Kataoka is about a schoolgirl assassin who is on a mission to kill her own father.
Short Peace contains examples of:
- Animate Inanimate Object: The spirits in Possesions
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: A farewell to arms.
- Attack Drone: Used against the Spider Tank in A farewell to arms to no effect.
- Bears Are Bad News: Averted in Gambo.
- Body Horror: The female victim of the Oni in Gambo ends up horriby distended and with a transparent body that shows multiple demon offspring. She begs for a Mercy Kill.
- Determinator: At the end of A farewell to arms, Marl is still trying to destroy the GUNK by smashing it with rocks. Getting his clothes destroyed doesn't stop him.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The background in a A farewell to arms, looks suspiciously like Iraq.
- Expy: The crew from A farewell to arms resembles the salvage crew from Memories a lot.
- Karakasa: Show up in Possesions.
- Mars Needs Women: The Oni in Gambo rapes human women to reproduce.
- Powered Armor: The salvage crew in A farewell to arms wears powered armor.
- Retirony: One of the crew in A farewell to arms is going to retire shortly after the mission. He doesn't survive the mission.
- Reveal Shot: In A farewell to arms the ruined city is revealed to be Tokyo in the final shot.
- Spider Tank: The antagonist in A farewell to arms.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Owaka and Matsukichi in Combustible.
- The Tokyo Fireball: One starts up in the events of Combustible.
- Would Not Shoot a Civilian: The Spider Tank in A farewell to arms doesn't kill Marl, the Sole Survivor of the salvage crew, after he drops his dog tags and the Spider Tank scans him and determines that he's a civilian.
- Youkai: Possesions features Tsukumogami, the major antagonist in Gambo is a red Oni.
