The French
have always been ahead of the game when it comes to taking film and animation
seriously as art forms. Thus it comes as
no surprise that Arte, the French/German
arts TV channel, would come out with a series of animation DVDs for kids
featuring the some of the best of independent world animation. It's a wonderful alternative for parents looking for quality entertainment for their kids.
In addition
to La boite à malice (Box of
Mischief, 2012), a DVD of Kōji Yamamura’s
animated shorts for children, the Arte Editions for kids includes DVDs of
animation by Břetislav Pojar, Paul Grimot, Rodolfo Pastor (whose darling Capelito
shorts I recall seeing on Japanese TV), Xiaonghua Hu (Shanghai Animation Film
Studio), Lotta and Uzi Geffenblad (Zig Zag Animation, Sweden), and much, much
more. It is a wonderful selection of
films, my only disappointment is that the German branch of Arte did not follow
suit with German language editions so that I could order them for my kids and
family friends.
La boite à malice features five Yamamura
shorts: the three Karo and Piyobupt shorts (1993, strangely in reverse order as on
the Japanese DVDs), Kipling, Jr. (キップリングJr. , 1995), and What’s
Your Choice? (どっちにする?, 1999). What’s Your Choice? Came out of
animation workshops that Yamamura did with children in the States and in Japan.
My kids love the Karo and Piyobupt (カロとピヨブプト, 1993) shorts, which originally aired on the NHK
and were followed by the spin-off series of short-shorts called Pacusi (パクシ, 1995). Not only
are they aesthetically beautiful with super-cute original characters, but the
stories are told with humour. When my kids
were small they were particularly delighted by the use of onomatopoeic words
like paku-paku (for eating) and would
mimic them.
Although
I already own copies of Yamamura’s kids’ animation, I just had to add this one
to my collection to see how the film was packaged. There
is an accompanying booklet with games for kids such as design your own house
like Karo and Piyobupt do in A House
(おうち),
spot
the difference using a character from What’s
Your Choice?,
a
design-your-own sandwich game inspired by A
Sandwich (サンドイッチ),
a “who
is who” game using silhouettes of characters from Kipling, Jr.,
an
imagination bubble game inspired by my favourite of the shorts Imagination (aka A Rainy Day /あめのひ), and a
crossword puzzle using instruments found in Kipling, Jr. The booklet is really too sweet to consider
giving to kids to destroy – I made my daughter colour photocopies instead.
Yamamura has
made many other animated shorts for kids which could easily have been included,
but as the NHK is involved I imagine that doing a complete works would have
made the DVD too expensive for parents.
Yamamura has also illustrated many books for children that are well worth
collecting.
La boite à malice can be ordered via the
Arte Boutique.
Catherine Munroe Hotes 2013 / photos ©cmmhotes 2012