Short film was in stage play based on Machiko Kyō‘s Mitsuami no Kami-sama manga.

“Pigtails,” Production I.G‘s animated short film based on Machiko Kyō‘s Mitsuami no Kami-sama (Braided Pig-Tail Deity) manga, won the Platinum Remi Award in the Classic Cel Animation Category at the WorldFest Houston International Film Festival. The screening of the short during the April 8-17 film festival marked the short’s international premiere.

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Production I.G describes the stort:

“The earth shook. The sea roared. And then… There is a small house solitary standing by the seaside. A pigtail-braided girl is living there alone since that day. Mail is no longer delivered, but even this morning, she’s hanging out the laundry as usual.”

The 28-minute animation was part of a mixed-media stage production that ran in Tokyo in October. Yoshimi Itazu (Miss Hokusai chief animation director) helmed the short film for his directorial debut.

The stage production combined line readings, animation, music, and sand art to present the story. Production I.G was a co-producer of the stage play, and has international rights for the whole play, but will focus on the animation part only.

Kyō’s original Mitsuami no Kamisama manga centers around a pigtailed girl who lives alone in a solitary house by the sea after a disaster that is never specified. The manga is a reflection of Kyō’s personal feelings toward the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, though it is never explicitly stated in the story, out of consideration for those affected by the disaster.

Kyō published the manga in Shueisha‘s now-defunct Jump X (Jump Kai) magazine in 2013, and Shueishapublished the manga’s first and only compiled book volume in the same year. The manga won an award in the 18th Annual Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize in March 2014.

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