[1][2] The dark drama of Asura follows the struggles of a child who resorts to cannibalism and murders to survive during a terrible famine that ravaged medieval Japan who is abandoned by his starving and impoverished mother.

Asura tied for the Audience Award for Best Animated Feature at the 16th Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal.

[3] In mid 15th-century Japan, flood, drought and famine transformed the landscape of Kyoto into a barren wasteland.

Eight years later, the boy has practically become a cannibalistic beast and wanders the countryside surviving in the wild with an axe which he uses to butcher his human preys with.

One rainy night, as Asura waits for Wakasa outside, he sees her meet Shichiro and together they discuss leaving the village.

However, this time, Asura speaks in the human tongue he learned from Wakasa, cursing himself and wishing he wasn't born.

Shichiro and some village boys transport Wakasa's body on a cart, unknowingly passing Asura who somehow survived the fall.

Director Keiichi Sato was influenced to send a life-affirming message to those who found themselves without the will to live following the events of the natural disasters that hit Japan in 2011.