A music video created for an in-game song from Bandai Namco Entertainment’s social game The Idolmaster Gakuen. The character Hanami Saki was a top athlete in track and field before aspiring to become an idol, and she has a past in which, due to being a late bloomer, she confronted the limits of her abilities at a young age and suffered setbacks. The song’s theme portrays her “setbacks and challenges,” making for an absurd tale in which she moves back and forth between the reality of the setbacks she experienced in the past and the uncertain glory of the future. In the end, she attempts to break through her own limits. To make this pulp-fiction-like story convincing, we aimed for a meditative music video in which the past and future are suspended, combining the image of sequential photographs that draw the viewer’s consciousness back into the past with animation that propels her into the future to the sound of drum and bass. The spirit of craving victory that she cultivated in her years as an athlete, caught between ideals and reality, shakes off notions of records and victory created by others through the act of “running.” By adopting abstract smear frames and a rough, painterly style, we sought to convey, in a sensory way, her spiritual rebirth as an idol (a performer).

Directed the web CM for Suntory Gin Sui Character concept by Tsubasa Yamaguchi, creator of Blue Period

Planned as part of Suntory’s #ZONe IMMERSIVE SONG PROJECT. A novel served as the basis for the story, which was then expressed as a music video. The specific narrative was abstracted and visualized graphically by combining hand-drawn animation and motion graphics.