Studio Ghibli’s Little Nemo

Go check out the full test for Studio Ghibli director Yoshifumi Kondo’s take on an animated Little Nemo in Slumberland. It’s amazing:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3342755205038857742

And if you want to see a higher quality video (that mysteriously has about a minute of footage cut out of it…) check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnL-6yLzgWA

It’s pretty darned cool.

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Edit: I decided to do a little more digging about this film clip, and found out something interesting. According to Nausicaa.net, one of the best fan-sites around (and devoted entirely to Studio Ghibli):

“Little Nemo” was an American/Japanese joint project, and [Hayao] Miyazaki and [Isao] Takahata were involved in the pre-production stage during 1982 and 1983. However, due to creative differences with the American producers, both quit the project. It was finally made into a movie with different staff members and released in 1989…

The film is currently out of print though it was apparently released on DVD in 2005… It was originally released on laser disc, and as a bonus, the laser disc includes two early animation tests for the film…

So it seems likely that this clip is from the Japanese LD release… I wonder if the test by Osamu Dezaki is available online as well? I’ve done a cursory search, but no luck.

Anyhow, all of this information and more can be found over at CartoonBrew, the apparent originator in this round of discussion about the work.

– Chris