Tales of the Street Corner

The Acorns and the Wildcat is a unique short film in picture-book format from the creator of Night on the Galactic Railroad and Gauche the Cellist. Unusually for an anime, a narrator reads Kenji's story aloud while the action is played out on the screen by a succession of warm and evocative illustrations brought to life by subtle touches of animation. If the film feels somehow familiar yet you can't put your finger on the reason why, it's probably the sumptuously minimalist animation by Yasuhiro Nagura, who was the animation director of Mamoru Oshii's artsy 1986 feature Angel's Egg. That, and Kenji's wildcat is said to have been the inspiration for Miyazaki's Panda/Totoro creature. The idea of reading Kenji's story aloud instead of playing it out as a drama is quite refreshing, and Kenji's magical language and narrative style are entirely sufficient to sustain interest. Combined with the spacey music and breathtaking art, the result is a pleasantly unassuming little gem of a film.

An alternate retelling of the beginning of the original series. Mikako and Tsutomu lived next door to each other since they were little. They both attend an art school, where Mikako is pursuing her dream of being a fashion designer. They formed a club called Akindo with several of their friends. Akindo participates in flea markets, where they sell their creations--clothes, dolls, and artwork.

The story centers on a young man named Giuseppe, who is called "Toristukare Otoko" by the townspeople because once he gets absorbed in something, he cannot look at anything else. One day, he falls in love at first sight with a girl selling balloons named Pechka. He goes crazy and tries to get closer to Pechka, but she has a sadness in her heart and... For the sake of his beloved Pechka, Giuseppe and his partner, the mouse Cielo, secretly solve her worries by using the many tricks he has been obsessed with.

The animation was produced for the Tezuka Osamu Manga Museum, thus it features scenes from the "life and nature" of Tezuka Osamu's childhood, themes that are central to the museum as a whole, through exchanges between the boy Osamu and the carabid beetle (Osamushi) who provided the origin for the artist's name.