The Art of the Animated Music Video, Vol. 2

Three inventive, eye-grabbing videos from Japan.

Dore Dore Song (2005)

Happy Thursday! In this issue of the Animation Obsessive newsletter, we’re looking at three animated music videos from Japan — each one intensely unique.

In Japan, music videos are a longstanding haven for left-field styles of animation. They’re small projects, meaning that tiny teams (even solo artists) can make them, and do so outside the standardized pipeline of anime. Animating a music video may be a work-for-hire job, but it can offer a certain freedom.

The three videos below are good examples. They get unusual with their aesthetics and structures. They’re by turns melancholy, funny, surreal and overwhelming. One comes from Studio Ghibli — the other two from independents. All of them belong to the other side of Japanese animation.

This is the second volume of our series on music videos. The first one came out in 2022. Our picks today are quite a bit different from last year’s — we hope you’ll enjoy.

Here we go!