The streets of Harajuku in Japan are overflowing with Kawaii, a chaotic yet pure and unfiltered youthfulness. I walked through Harajuku several times while making this music video, and I wondered what “love” in this city would look like visually. After listening to City Cyndrome’s music, I wanted to create an animation that captures the intersection of the perspectives of a tough woman and a Harajuku boy, their near-misses, and an almost arrogantly personal point of view. As for the technique, I started by drawing with air spray and watercolor.

tamanaramen - glowing arcade　Music Video

An animation created as the music video for “Close to Me” by in the blue shirt. Drawing on the song’s origins as a work made entirely through sampling and cut-up techniques, the piece interprets rotoscoping as an animation method with the same structural logic. Rotoscoping is a technique that traces live-action footage, allowing the movement of the subject to be directly and vividly reflected on screen. In addition, this work combines stencil-based spray techniques. By incorporating the non-deterministic fluctuations of particles, it seeks to transform the vividness of rotoscoping into the subject’s own indexicality, and to reconfigure it.

TAKESHI TSUNEHASHI SHOWREEL 2024