Japan can come up with some weird and wonderful things. This is a country where people can pre-order their Christmas dinner months in advance from KFV, have hotels with rooms that are slightly larger than coffins for those who simply need a place to sleep on the cheap, and have mascots for literally everything that you could think off, such as bottled water, train lines, and even prisons. But it's not like the west doesn't have it's fair share of weirdness either, just take a look at wrestling for example.

Throughout the history of wrestling, there have been wrestlers such Doink the Clown, a depressed clown, Xanta Claus, who is an evil Santa Claus, and who could forget Perry Saturn, a man who has a mop with a face on it that he fell in love with. So naturally there would be some crossover between the two. The culmination of the two is the wonderfully weird Kick-Heart.

Kick-Heart came out in 2013 and is a short film produced by Production I.G. and directed by Masaaki Yuasa, having previously directed and wrote Mind Game (2004), Kemonozume (2006), Kaiba (2008), and The Tatami Galaxy (2010), and went to work on Ping Ping the Animation (2014) not long after this, and Kick-Heart was produced (closer to a supervisor that producer) by Mamoru Oshii, who directed Ghost in the Shell (1995). So there is some serious talent behind this OVA.

It was fully funded on Kickstarter and it was the first anime to be fully funed by crowdfuning and opened up the doors to many other anime projects to make the plunge into crowfunding. It was screened at several festivals such as the BFI London Film Festival and first aired on television on Toonami.

Kick-Heart is a love story between two people who have a secret to hide, one a pro-wrestler and the other a nun. There isn't much of a story to Kick-Heart beyond it's initial premise, and considering that it's only about 12 minutes long, anything beyond it's inital premise would be a spoiler.

In short, this short has a high energy art style and animation, and boy does it have a lot of energy and style. It's animation is fast and energetic, and it goes hand in hand with the concept and plot very well.

Unsurprisngly, because of it's style and concept, Kick-Heart has ended up with a cult following. Surprisingly, it did manage to get itself an English fandub while the fans were waiting for the official English dub to get released. Whether it's worth listing to is up to you, but I imagine if you're already into something like Kick-Heart, the fandub wouldn't be too much of a stretch for you to enjoy.

If you're into watching some unique and on the weirder side, Kick-Heart would be right up your alley. Just be warned, it's not for everyone. Plus it's short enough for you to watch on a lunch break, so it's easy to pick up and watch.