Eye candy: Little Kaiju
Little Kaiju lives in a vending machine in Japan, reminds drunks of the lights on their bicycles, and may or may not be imaginary. Plus, he’s absolutely adorable.
This sweet photorealistic short, directed by TWiN (Jonathan and Josh Baker) and animated by the team at Rabbit, picks up the character from an unused commercial pitch (the name means ‘strange beast’ or ‘little monster’ in English) and lets him loose in modern Tokyo.
There’s little in the way of action: the charm of the film lies in the juxtaposition of the ultra-kawaii character with the grime of a modern city – trash, urine-soaked alleys, rats and all.
The film’s Facebook page has a nice post about the evolution of the character, and TWiN’s on-the-fly shooting style (the dialogue was recorded into an iPhone).
But really, you don’t need to know any of that for the short to work its magic. As TWiN put it: “This film will repeatedly smash your face with the cute stick, and then kiss it all better”.