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About

Sanpomichi is a Japanese word meaning "A path walked regularly ."


The story is deeply inspired by Mari's grandmother and aunt who live together in Tokyo. The animation introduces two main characters, mice Hiroko and Yumi, and one charming episode of their unobserved everydayness.

Hiroko

 

Yumi's mother 

Capricorn

 

 lives on her own time, easy going, always calm and cool, loves shopping

 

Favorite Music: Ichiro Fujiyama, Glenn Miller

Favorite foods: Ramen, Chagayu 

 

 

 

Yumi

 

Hiroko's second daughter 

Taurus

 

Frantic, fast paced, worrysome but warm hearted, doesn't like birds.

 

favorite Music: Yuzo Kayama, The monkees,The animals, PPM,

favotite food: Kazunoko, french buguette, Beer, chagayu

 

Characters

Concept

 

 

Everything changes constantly, nothing remains forever.

 

Living abroad for the past few years after moving from Japan, Mari sees how everything constantly changes over time whenever she goes back home. With every passing year, her melancholy and nostalgia grow for the place that she has left. Returning home, not all things are the way she left them, but there is one place that felt like never would: her grandmother Hiroko and her aunt Yumi’s  Tokyo apartment.

 

This mid-century retro apartment where they have lived for decades is located in the middle of Tokyo, one of the most modern and rapid cities in the world. Upon entering their home, the atmosphere is enlivened . The scent of Senkou incense and Chagayu (rice cooked with hoji tea) are very inviting. Objects are unchanged but well taken care of, residing where they have been for decades, containing many family stories and accumulating more to come.

 

In the apartment, Yumi keeps herself busy with the house tasks and caring for her elderly mother Hiroko. Hiroko, on the other hand, is a calm and elegant woman and lives by her own rhythm as she performs  her daily activities.  Everything they do is methodical and at their own pace. No matter what they encounter in their days, with a lively steady rhythm, they keep on walking their own path; their own Sanpomichi.

The unchanging reliability of their existence was an oasis to return to. Mari discovered a beauty in their ordinary life. Soon it became her mission to make their lives into an animated art piece. Telling this story is an attempt to pick a cherished memory from the flow of time, re-record it and let it shine once again with a drop of fantasy.

 

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