OCTOPOLIS

OCTOPOLIS presents a surreal animated vision of an entire civilization built and inhabited by octopuses. Within this imaginative society, the residents sustain themselves on a diet of donuts and retire each night to sleep inside hollow tubes of chikuwa, a traditional fishcake. The film establishes a deeply unusual world where everyday life is defined by these peculiar culinary rituals and aquatic architecture. Beneath the surface of their daily routines, the octopus inhabitants grapple with a profound existential dilemma. They perceive themselves as mere holes in a donut—empty spaces defined by what they lack rather than what they are. Driven by a deep psychological urge to fill this internal void, they long to transform into suckers, which represent the ultimate embodiment of completeness and wholeness in their culture. This central conflict explores themes of identity, emptiness, and the universal desire for self-actualization through a strikingly original visual metaphor. This distinctive animated short was produced as a 2025 graduate work at the Tokyo University of the Arts, created within the Graduate School of Film and New Media's Department of Animation.