Cute Things from Japan – Komaneko

My wife has been excited these last few weeks after stumbling across this ultra cute Japanese cat by the name of Komaneko.

Koma (as far as I know) stands for a single video frame and neko of course stands for cat. Which works well seeing that Komaneko is a stop animation video cat :)

Komaneko is the brainchild of director Tsuneo Goda who is also famous for creating the lovable brown Domo-kun.

Now I like to think of myself as a man’s man, man-about-town kind of guy, but there’s something pretty cute about little Komaneko.

Start with this short video of how Komaneko’s doll’s get created and then move on to the three part episode called True Friend. Give them a watch and tell me what you think.

I have to admit that it’s extremely impressive the amount of work that goes into making stop animation video. If you’re interested in how Komaneko gets made, here’s a backstage look at it’s production. It’s all in Japanese, but you should get the idea.

There’s also a full-length Komaneko film out, but so far I haven’t found a way to order new copies of it (we do have a couple of used copies in our Amazon store available). Check out the Komaneko website for more goodies. Again, it’s all in Japanese, but go ahead and click on stuff :)