Kachi-kachi Yama

**Kachi-kachi Yama** (*Kanji: かちかち山*) is a 2007 anime short produced by Studio XYZ and aired on NHK.

## Synopsis

Based off of the folktale of the same name, a rabbit fights against a tanuki that keeps causing trouble to an old couple living nearby.

Unique to this adaptation is the addition of another incentive for their rivalry: Sakura, the old couple's beautiful granddaughter both the rabbit and the tanuki have a crush on.

## Plot

One day, a man caught a troublesome tanuki in his fields, and tied it to a tree to kill and cook it later. When the man left for town, the tanuki cried and begged the man's wife who was making some mochi, a sweet rice dish, to set him free, promising he would help her. The wife freed the animal, only to have it turn on her and kill her. The tanuki then planned a foul trick.

Using its shapeshifting abilities, the tanuki disguised itself as the wife and cooked a soup, using the dead woman's flesh. When the man came home, the tanuki served him the soup. After the meal, the tanuki reverted to its original appearance and revealed its treachery before running off and leaving the poor man in shock and grief.

The couple had been good friends with a rabbit that lived nearby. The rabbit approached the man and told him that it would avenge his wife's death in exchange for a date with his beautiful granddaughter Sakura. Pretending to befriend the tanuki, the rabbit instead tortured it through various means, from dropping a bee's nest on it to 'treating' the stings with a peppery poultice that burned.

Finding out that the tanuki had a crush on Sakura too, the rabbit decided to play an especially painful trick. While the tanuki was carrying a heavy load of kindling on his back to make a campfire for the night, he was so burdened that he did not immediately notice when the rabbit set fire to the kindling. Soon, the crackling sound reached its ears and it asked the rabbit what the sound was. "It is Kachi-Kachi Yama" the rabbit replied. "We are not far from it, so it is no surprise that you can hear it!". Eventually, the fire reached the tanuki's back, burning it badly, but without killing it.

The tanuki challenged the rabbit to a life or death contest to prove who was the better boyfriend for Sakura. They were each to build a boat and race across a lake in them. The rabbit carved its boat out of a fallen tree trunk, but the foolish tanuki made a boat of mud. The two competitors were evenly matched at first, but the tanuki's mud boat began dissolving in the middle of the lake. As the tanuki was failing in its struggle to stay afloat, the rabbit proclaimed his love for Sakura and friendship with the human couple, and that this was the tanuki's punishment for its horrible deeds. All the while the tanuki exclaims that violence won't win Sakura over, but the rabbit refuses to listen and strikes him with his oar to ensure he sinks.

The rabbit then goes back to the old man's home and tells him about the vengeance, much to the relief of the old man and horror of Sakura. While he thanks the rabbit for his deed, Sakura is completely horrified to see how far he'd go for a date with her. When asked for her opinion by her grandfather, Sakura replies by slapping the rabbit across the face, calling him crazy and that she never wants to see his face again, then adding she had already been dating a classmate of hers while the contest was going on.

At that very moment, that same classmate, a handsome guy named Takeshi knocks in, and Sakura goes away with him, leaving the old man confused and the rabbit trying to go after her but tripping and falling to the ground, heartbroken.

The story ends with the rabbit raising an ear to a familiar voice: turns out the tanuki had actually survived the sinking of his mud boat, angrily proclaiming that he was indeed right, leaving both the rabbit and the old man to scream in the sky as the story ends.

## Cast

* Kōichi Yamadera as the troublesome tanuki.
* Akiko Nakagawa as the rabbit.
* Hiroshi Masuoka as the old man.
* Miyoko Asō as the old man's wife.
* Sawa Ishige as Sakura, the old man's granddaughter and catalyst for the tanuki and the rabbit's rivalry.
* Junichi Suwabe as Takeshi, a guy that Sakura was revealed to be dating at the end.

### Opening

1. "Koi no Bakudan (恋の爆弾, Love Bomb)" by MEG
*Lyrics by* Maria Anzai
*Composition by* Hiroshi Kamayatsu

### Ending

1. "Amai Zeitaku (甘い贅沢, Sweet Luxuries)" by MEG
*Lyrics by* MEG
*Composition by* Yasutaka Nakata

## Trivia

* The short is included as a Special Feature in the DVD releases of Kogitsune Kon to Kodanuki Pon.