Of all the animated shorts in the series Ani*Kuri15, my favorite has to be Shinkai Makoto's The Assembly of Cats (猫の集合):
I appreciate the Ghibli-like artistic simplicity, the originality and the humour. It really is top-of-the-line.
So Ani*Kuri15, a series of 1-minute animated films, has begun to air on NHK. The one I like best so far is Sancha Blues 三茶ブルースby Kobayashi Osamu 小林治. You can watch it on YouTube here. Usual desultory comments follow:
[Spoilers ahead]
1) If I am not mistaken, I believe "Sancha" of Sancha Blues refers to the Tokyo neighbourhood Sangenchaya 三軒茶屋, abbreviated as "Sancha". I am not sure how prosperous the place is these days - Wikipedia says it is a lively shopping district but Sancha Blues seems to depict a drab neighbourhood.
2) The first line of the signboard says, It is best to dance the way one dances after all. The second line reads - This is Edo Akemi. Apparently Edo Akemi is the stage name of a has-been musician. It seems that the record shop really exists too - it is called Fujiyama. You can see a photo of the shop front and the official website by following the links below:
ttp://styleblowheadstgm.seesaa.net/article/41242622.html
ttp://fujiyama.press.ne.jp/top.htm
3) The short film is about money. The shop-owner sees the heads of his customers turning into paper money or coins. Also, for the split of a second, you see a box with the scribble ozeze and a doodle of paper money. Apparently ozeze is an infantile word (幼児語) for the old word for "money" (zeni 銭).
4) I like the idiosyncrasies of the setting. Here is a shot of a corner of the shop. The banner reads an idiot is an idiot (which may well be the motto of the shop-owner). The man in the black-and-white image is one-eyed. And isn't the artstyle of the man with the green hat reminiscent of the artstyle of Ansai Mizumaru 安西水丸, best known as the illustrator of the books of Murakami Haruki 村上春樹?
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