Young Animator Project (2010)

[monir]

About a year ago there was an announcement made in Anime!Anime! that the The Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan would invest to develop young animators who will receive hands on training. Here is a portion of a post in MAL for those of us don't read nihongo:

According to Anime!Anime!, The Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan invested 214 million yen ($2.26 million) in "Young Animator Training Project" and entrusted the execution of the project to Japan Animation Creators Association (JaniCA). JaniCA will produce four original anime (23 min long with OP and ED sequences) in cooperation with four production studios by the end of next January. Young animators will receive on-the-job-trainings under the supervision of professional anime creators. The anime works are planned to be shown on TV or at anime events.

As mentioned above 4 episodes were planned. Three of these four episodes have been subbed by GG and I've watched them all with much interest. We need a thread. I don't know about the chronological order these four episodes were released, so I'll list the three I've watched according to the order GG subbed them. I'll try my best not to give away too much.

Kizuna Ichigeki: This episode starts out with a martial art match between a blonde dude and a kid. The winner of the match attracts the attention of a free lance journalist. To get an interview from the winner the journalist ends up going to the winner's house. The animation is very fluid at times. The background drawing is equally on par to capture the mood of the story.







Ojisan no Lamp: The story is a reminiscence of the past. It's about a boy who discovers a mean for a better living by adapting to a new technology. When such technology advances even further, he is unable to cope with the change. The background drawing is very good which I think captured the setting pretty well.







Wardrobe Dwellers: In this episode we have an office lady whose mother sends her an old fashion wardrobe. The story is so simple that I think I'll give away too much if I say anything further. Out of the three I've enjoyed the OP/ED song for this one the most. The drawing is amazingly simple too and has a dream-like, surreal quality to it. It helped so much that I got into the story before I knew it.





GG has my thanks for subbing these. I'm looking forward to the last one out of the four.

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Really awesome series. I was wondering why it didn't have a thread. The first two I watched were seriously good. Gonna watch the third soon.

[delirium]

Those actually look really nice! Thanks for pointing them out, shall check them out.

[Dop]

Just watched Ojisan no Lamp. That was absolutely beautiful!

[monir]

Originally Posted by Dop

Just watched Ojisan no Lamp. That was absolutely beautiful!

When I was watching that episode, I couldn't help but observe how the situation is so very similar to where people who benefited from oil can't let it go. No wonder we are so resistant to consider alternate solution for our growing energy problem.

I also see gg has subbed the 4th episode.

[Dist]

Only the Ojisan no Lamp was something I liked. Kizuna Ichegi's art style was weird and story uninteresting so I dropped it after few minutes. And then ... well, the Wardrobe anime was not bad in sense of story. The art was pretty for backgrounds since they were dream-like as you said. However, I can no express enough how I hated the character designs. Simple is sometimes good, but this ... This is TOO simple. It's so simple, that I thought the main character to be a teenager until she went to work ... and I was like '' wtf ''. Somehow I can't see the animators of this series to make it far in the industry .. you don't really see anime out there with art like this.

Not sure about the fourth one as I haven't watched it yet but I'm not expecting much.

[faythz]

Ojii-san no Lamp is good, the Background kinda remind me of Production I.G Anime, and unexpectedly good Story , It was something that could happen to anyone in business

[Azuma Denton]

Well enjoyed most of them with the exception of Ninninman.
All of them gives different feeling than any other anime that airs frequently.

While Ojiisan no Lamp and Wardrobe Dwellers is one-shot type, Kizuna Ichigeki & Ninninman can be serial types.

[Haak]

I just finished all of them. What a great project! I think Oujisan no Lamp really stood out as the best one. The rest were okay but i didn't think were great (the kung fu cat was good though)

[Kanon]

I agree with what seems to be the consensus - Ojii-san no Lamp was the best. It stood out a lot compared to the other works. I enjoyed Kizuna quite a bit too. The animation style reminded me a lot Yuasa's stuff.

If I had to rank them:

Ojii-san no Lamp >> Kizuna > Wardrobe dwellers > Torracman.

[ars89]

I concur Oji-san no lamp was the best. I did like them all though. Haven't seen the last one though

[Guardian Enzo]

Yup, chalk me up fr Ojiisan no Lamp. Really quiet, thoughtful and involving story with some very nice visuals - they did remind me of a (very) poor man's Seirei no Moribito.