If you’ve ever wanted to see the Hanukkah story reimagined as an anime cartoon — well, here’s your chance.
In a video posted to YouTube on Monday, director Nadav Nachmany tells the story of the Maccabees’ fight for religious freedom using the Japanese illustration technique, complete with the fast action sequences and stylized dialogue of the original form. With visuals that evoke “Pokemon” as much as ancient Israel, the film at one point appears to be set in the Land of the Rising Sun, although the warrior at its center wears tefillin and a yarmulke.
Written and produced by Nachmany and Shalom Tzvi Shore, the clip — entitled “Samurai Jew: The Eighth Night” — mixes its Japanese imagery with a bit of Yiddish, and suggests the anime sequences may be part of a sufganiyot-induced fever dream.
Whatever the origins of the images, let’s hope those traditional Hanukkah donuts were baked, not fried.
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