Cofounder Toshio Suzuki, animation director of The Boy and the Heron create cozy anime short for a company that’s all about making cozy textiles.

The company Marushin was founded in Nagoya in 1966, and they’ve been quietly making towels ever since. I say “quietly” because even though they’ve been in business for almost 60 years, until now Marushin has never had a commercial.

So you might expect that for their very first foray into the field, Marushin would go with something simple and low-key, and yes, that’s very much the tone of their commercial. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even produced by an advertising agency, although that probably has less to do with Marushin’s lack of experience working with ad execs, and more to do with the fact that none other than Studio Ghibli animated the commercial for them.

Set to a tender piece of piano music, the video starts with an adorable dog taking a nap atop a folded towel. Another piece of terrycloth comes drifting by in the breeze, and as it catches a stronger gust of wind, it transforms into a series of animals and vehicles, each animated with simple lines but the distinct expressiveness and attention to detail that Ghibli’s anime artists always put into depictions of both the natural and mechanical worlds. The pup gives chase, and when he finally catches up to the towel, the narrator, rakugo performer and radio personality Hakuzan Kanda, intones “The dog looks to the west and his tail points to the east. Make your towels Marushin.”

▼ An especially charming touch is that instead of a plain white background, the animation is layered over a towel texture.

Producing the video wasn’t a task that Studio Ghibli project that Studio Ghibli shuffled off onto some third-string staff members, either. The video’s concept comes from veteran producer Toshio Suzuki, one of Ghibli’s original cofounders, and serving as animation director was Takeshi Honda, character designer for Ghibli’s most recent theatrical anime, The Boy and the Heron, as well as the Hayao Miyazaki-directed anime short Boro the Caterpillar. Honda’s resume also includes animation direction for two of the Rebuild of Evangelion movies and key animation credits for multiple Ghibli films, plus classic anime franchises such as Bubblegum Crisis and Fatal Fury. The video’s music, meanwhile, comes courtesy of award-winning pianist Hayato Sumino.

▼ A shorter version of the video

But how did Marushin convince Japan’s most prestigious anime studio to make a commercial for them? Because the two already have a working relationship. Those beautiful towels they have at Ghibli specialty store Donguri Kyowakoku, like the ones of Totoro gazing up at the moon or featuring Princess Mononoke’s Forest Spirit? They’re made by Marushin, who’s been producing Ghibli artwork towels since 1994, and whose Nagoya head office isn’t far from the Ghibli Park theme park in Aichi Prefecture.

So after years of Marushin making soft and fluffy towels for Ghibli, it makes sense that Ghibli would be the ones to make such a cozy commercial for Marushin.

Source, images: Marushin
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