The joy of playing with miniature cars as a child. We brought that sense of immersion and excitement to the screen by fusing the warmth of handcraft with modern technology. The art direction was built by the director and production team using reclaimed materials. The character and background illustrations were also developed through repeated trial and error, down to the paper quality, printing, and finishing methods, in pursuit of textures that would suit the world of the film. Working with a small crew, we brought AI in as a “partner” for processes beyond our capacity. Rather than using the generated output as-is, we layered it with human touch, warmth, and texture, carefully bringing out the contours of each material. Taking into account the product’s size and structural constraints, we carried out extensive testing in the planning of the direction, aiming to create a cohesive on-set environment.

A convenience store in a rural town. Everyone who gathered there liked to drink the same beverage. A strange incident begins to occur in that town, where people disappear, leaving only their clothes behind. The sheriff spots a suspicious man on a full-moon night, but... A music video for Toma Baba’s “PRIME,” combining paper three-dimensional puppetry by Shotaro Kitada with cutout animation by Moji Tsuchiya.

Description: “Scuffin” refers to the lines etched into a bottle through repeated use. A returnable bottle requires the extra step of being returned in order to be used again. This is the story of a bottle journeying around the earth, marked with “scuffin” as proof that someone returned it. A web movie for Pocari Sweat’s returnable bottle. The scenes in which the bottle glows were filmed by shining projector light onto cut-paper artwork.