Ghibli Short Short - House Foods Ad #1

Here is a collection of several television ads for House Foods. If my understanding of kanji holds, I believe Yoshiyuki Momose directed these, with Hayao Miyazaki as his direct supervisor. Which would probably mean he was hanging over Momose's shoulder the entire time, struggling to resist the urge to barge in and take over everything.

This is just spectacular animation. Studio Ghibli has mutated and evolved computer animation in different directions than here in the West, and when you see something like this, you know they've hit the real paydirt. They've always emphasized the traditional art of hand-drawn animation, instead of completely throwing the pencils and paintbrushes away as we've done here. And now we see how that classical style can be brought into the computer age.

What we're seeing on the screen is mostly computer models, with hand-drawn characters, but what's most striking is the painterly way everything is presented. Everything is a lush, wonderfully detailed watercolor painting, but moving in three dimensions. It's the perfect realization of Ghibli's brilliant sketches and storyboard paintings.

It's a shame that the House Foods ads are so short. I don't know about you, but I want to see a lot more. It's still largely the domain of the studio's more experimental shorts. Ghibli hasn't committed to bringing this art style to feature-length animation, and that likely won't change as long as Miyazaki is still around (remember that Ponyo will be entirely hand-drawn). So that means some other artists are open to walk through these doors and really let loose. How about the Yanks? Getting tired of that rubber doll look? Missing the good 'ol days of hand-drawn animation? Well, here's your solution, gang. Get to work.