I discovered a number of Studio Ghibli shorts on YouTube from the Short Short DVD, so I decided I'd better move quickly and post them here before they're all shut down. Hopefully, these will be around for a little while, perhaps long enough to inspire you to grab the DVD.
This is Osamu Tanabe's 2005 short, Doredore no Uta, a music video featuring the music of Meiko Haigou. She was a discovery of Toshio Suzuki's, and apparently he was involved in launching her career. The Short Short DVD includes a lengthy video segment featuring the both of 'em, and there's even a CD single as an extra. Really nice. The song is amazingly catchy, too.
Tanabe's video is the latest incarnation of that Ghibli watercolor style birthed by My Neighbors the Yamadas. As always, the animation and attention to details is exquisite, and I'm a real sucker for color saturation like this. It follows the daily lives of bugs-as-modern-citydwellers, a nice metaphor for Tokyo and Japan. The passing of the seasons brings about the cycle of life, from birth to death, comedy to tragedy. Everything is cartoony, but poignant, and that gives Doredore a real sentimentality.
There's a shot of bugs in a line busy at work, handing off nuts, that reminds me of all those early title sequences from Animal Treasure Island, Panda Kopanda, and Heidi. Perhaps a way of paying tribute to Ghibli's roots. All in all, this is one of my favorite Ghibli animations, and I hope you enjoy watching.
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