Short · Family

Paper Lantern Parade

A single unbroken evening at a summer festival, told without a word of dialogue.

Format Short
Genre Family
Year 2022
Length 8 min
Director Kaori Fujishima
Studio's role Original production
Genga (approx.) ~950
Douga (approx.) ~1,700
Paper lanterns strung along a festival street at night, an anime-production key-art reference

Commissioned for a regional festival’s opening reel — eight minutes, no dialogue, and a genga-to-runtime ratio far higher than anything else we’ve made, because a silent short has nowhere for the animation to hide behind a conversation. Every lantern in the parade sequence is animated individually rather than as a repeated cycle, so none of them sway in sync.

Most of the crowd background is on threes to keep the budget honest, but the two lead children carrying the lantern are on ones for the entire eight minutes — the one deliberate extravagance the runtime could afford.