Released in the UK earlier this year, the Japanese animated film Mary And The Witch’s Flower featured some stunning hand-drawn artwork. There’s a good reason for that, too: Studio Ponoc was founded by Yoshiaki Nishimura, a former producer at the eminent Studio Ghibli, while its director was Hiromasa Yonebayashi, a former Ghibli animator and maker of Arrietty and When Marnie Was There.
With its mix of traditional animation and delicate use of CG, Mary And The Witch’s Flower was a more than promising debut for the fledgling studio – and, as the trailer below proves, it’s only a start of more things to come.
Between features, the studio’s releasing a series of shorter works, collected together under the title Ponoc Short Films Theatre, Volume 1. Adorably subtitled Modest Heroes, the three films are: Kanini & Kanino, directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Life Ain’t Gonna Lose, by Yoshiyuke Mommose, and Invisible, by Akihiko Yamashita.
The stories range from the fantastical to the everyday, and display a range of different techniques, from pencil-and-ink-wash aesthetics to a gloriously detailed CGI fish. We don’t know exactly how long these films are – whether they’re five minutes or 45, for example – but we know we dearly want to see them.
If the Google translation of Ponoc’s website is accurate, the films are due for release in Japan this August. We’re hoping they’ll make their way westwards before too long, so we’ll keep you posted as we learn more.