ONI: Thunder God's Tale is a 3D Stop Motion hybrid animated fantasy limited series written by Mari Okada, directed by Daisuke "Dice" Tsutsumi and produced by Sara K. Sampson for Netflix. Based on "Onari's Lullaby" by Emi Tsutsumi, and inspired by a variety of Japanese folklore and mythology, the series tells a story of Onari on the path of becoming one of the folklore heroes, protecting her peaceful village from the mysterious Oni, but must work out their kushi power before the devils' moon arrives.
Produced by Tonko House and animated by Megalis VFX, Animation Planet, and Anima in Japan, as well as Dwarf Studios to make for a Japanese/American co-production. The series premiered as a Limited Series on October 21, 2022.
The majority of the voice actors and crew consists of Japanese-Americans, notably George Takei as Mr. Tengu and Momona Tamada as Onari. The cast also consists of Archie Yates (Kappa), Craig Robinson (Naridon), Tantoo Cardinal (The Principle), Brittany Ishibashi (Amaten), Omar Benson Miller (Putaro), Anna Akana (Ann-Brella), Charlet Chung (Tanukinta), Miyuki Sawashiro (Emi), Yuki Matsuzaki (Tanukinta Papa), Seth Carr (Calvin), and Robert Kondo (Nama and Hage).
Tropes in this series include:
- Alpha Bitch: Amaten, Tengen-Sensei's daughter is this to Onari, but it's revealed in Episode 2 that she acts like this out of jealously for whoever her father is focusing on, rather than Onari specifically.
- Bad Moon Rising: The blood moon (or Devils' moon as the Kami call it) signals to them that a fight with the Oni is coming.
- Black Bead Eyes: Many members of the cast have this; Kappa, Onari and Naridon in particular, though they turn into full sclera eyes when they are surprised or scared.
- Concert Climax: In a weird sort of way. The only way to beat Naridons' fear is by them and the rest of the Kami doing the dance Onari and Naridon perform when they are playing.
- Fantastic Racism: When the horns fall off of Onari, the whole village of Kami turn on her, despite some of them being friends with her and outright knowing she isn't like the other humans.
- Fish out of Water: A good chunk of Episode 3 is spent by Kappa and Onari going round the human village and trying to discover if the doll Onari has back in the village is the same one that a baby was carrying. At one point, they get stuck in a photo booth, as well as a Japanese arcade. It's only until they meet Calvin that things become clearer for them.
- Genius Ditz: Naridon is an odd duck, to say the least. He speaks in vague vocalisations that only Putaro seems to understand coherently, his work during the day involves playing in the forest (in actuality he's healing the forest from the destruction of the Oni), and that he tends to act very irrationally, often putting his care of Onari over anyone else.
- Hammerspace Hair: Naridon has this, and uses it to store his thunder drum, as well as some other trinkets.
- Human All Along: It's revealed in Episode 3 that Onari is human, rather than a Kami, as their horns fall off when Putaro and Onari fight, something which Naridon tries to keep a secret as he took her in when her parents were killed in a car accident caused by thunderstorms Naridon and Putaro were creating, and was asked by her original parents to take care of her.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The Kami claim humans are this for destroying their villages and killing their family
- Gasshole: Naridon whenever he eats natto, or really, when they exercise too much.
- No Antagonist: While the series features the reveal that Human expansion are why the kami are going extinct, they are surprisingly absent for much of the series' conflict, and are not really an active antagonist in the story. Putaro actively shoos Onari out of the village and wants to kill the Oni before they kill them, but even that's out of his overwhelming fear of Humans, rather than Onari specifically, with whom he was actually smitten with.
- Oni: The main threat is this, but there's a twist; the Oni are are revealed to be humans that the Kami despise for ruining their lives. When Onari visits the Japanese village, Calvin, the human Onari befriends, mentions that humans aren't Oni, they are.
- Painted CGI: The show uses 3D CGI for the character models, but the great majority of effects are stylised to look like traditional clouds or drawings. The frame rate of the film is also surprisingly inconsistent too; instead of being animated on two's like other examples of the trope, it often gets animated in considerably longer intervals (three's, fives and sixes) depending on the scene's complexity, making it feel like a cross between an anime and stopmotion.
- Pacifist: Naridon became this after he unknowingly got Onari's parents killed in a thunderstorm.
- Superhero School: This is the kami's academy for young children to develop their kushi powers in preparation for the Blood Moon festival, which happens every 100 years.
- Wham Shot: The end of the second episode has Onari cross the bridge into the forest, and then following the Oni's light beams out of determined curiosity... in which we then we see an electrical grid tower, followed by a modern-day Japanese village. Up until this point, there was no indication it was set in the modern day, and this completely flips the script.
