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Death Billiards (2013) poster

2013 · animation · drama · mystery

Death Billiards

Directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa25m2013

Death Billiards is one of the four anime works that each received 38 million yen (about US$480,000) from the "2012 Young Animator Training Project." Just like in 2010 and 2011, the animation labor group received 214.5 million yen (US$2.65 million) from the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs, and it distributed most of those funds to studios who train young animators on-the-job. An old and a young man find themselves in a mysterious bar where they have to play a game of billiard. The bet: their lives.

Our read: Death Billiards (2013) reads as a sombre, kinetic, surreal animation · drama · mystery entry — measured in intensity, epic-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook.

Movie DNA

Sombre, kinetic, measured animation / drama, surreal in texture. Ambivalent, epic, measured.

ElsewhereIMDb7.42k
  • sombre
  • brisk
  • surreal
Video previewNo trailer available for this one.
Game · before you press play

Watching Death Billiards tonight? Spin for your lens.

Everyone on the couch spins once and gets one craft to watch for. After the credits, compare what you caught.

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Everyone on the couch gets one craft to watch for. Spin the wheel to get yours. Sound on: the narrator reads your mission.

Where to watch
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Where the cast leads
DNA · twelve axes

How Death Billiards feels to watch.

Each axis is scored by hand, not from votes or genre averages. The bar uses the film's own colours.

MoodHeavy ↔ Cosy
PacingSlow-burn ↔ Kinetic
IntensityGentle ↔ Extreme
WeirdnessConventional ↔ Surreal
HopeNihilistic ↔ Redemptive
StakesIntimate ↔ Epic
HumourNone ↔ Broad
RealityGrounded ↔ Fantastical
DensitySparse ↔ Twisty
WarmthCold ↔ Tender
AuteurTransparent ↔ Signature
Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

“You want a tense 25-minute anime psychological game deciding heaven or hell.”

ends ambiguousit stays with yougrabs you earlygrips from the openattention 4/5breezes bysubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violence

Skip it tonight — Skip if high-stakes mind games or animated violence will unsettle you.

Nearest by DNA

Eight films that feel like this one.

Closest in the twelve-axis space, not “people also liked”. All films like Death Billiards, with why →

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