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Ghibli Makes Calligraphy-Inspired Nisshin Commercial
posted on by Egan Loo
Studio Ghibli has produced a commercial to mark the 110th anniversary of Nisshin Seifun Group, a Japanese food and manufacturing conglomerate. Goro Miyazaki (Gedo Senki), the son of studio co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, storyboarded the commercial, and Ponyo animation director Katsuya Kondo oversaw the studio's first attempt to create an animation work entirely based on brush-pen calligraphy. The cat "Konyara" in the commercial is based on a kitten that Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki himself drew.
The 15-second and 30-second versions of commercial can be seen on Nisshin's website. (In the linked page, select the "てれび" link, and then select the links below each video icon for either the full-screen or the 720x405-pixel format.) The commercial began running in Japan on Saturday.
Yamori, the singing duo of Ryōko Moriyama and Akiko Yano (My Neighbors the Yamadas), performed the "Tadaima no Uta" song in the commercial. Suzuki personally appeared at Nisshin Seifun's press conference for the commercial in Tokyo on Friday. Nisshin had sponsored the launch of the Mitaka Forest Ghibli Museum Library video label of animated films in 2008, and then asked for Ghibli to produce a commercial.
Image © 2010 Studio Ghibli
© 2010 Nisshin Seifun Group
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