When a young boy named Tooichi stumbles upon an old lamp in his grandfather's shed, he mistakes it for a toy and takes it outside to play. When his grandfather discovers this, he reprimands the boy and begins recounting the story behind the artifact—of how a small, traditional Japanese town became Westernized.
In his youth, Tooichi's grandfather, Minosuke, made a living by doing errands and chores for the townspeople. After one errand takes him to a nearby town, he witnesses Western lamps—a technology unfamiliar to him—light up the streets, igniting a spark in the young boy. From that moment on, lamps became Minosuke's passion and profession, changing his and the townspeople's lives forever.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Comentários
neonoen
Due to the lack of free time which is supposed to be allotted for my daily serving of anime, I resorted to watching short anime films and such. Of course, I was hoping to find something as magnificent yet light as Tsumiki no Ie. Then I stumbled upon the 4 short anime shows that comprised the 2010 Young Animators' Training Project. As the name of the said endeavor implies, its an on-the-job-training project funded by the Japanese Animation Creators Association to train fresh aspiring animators. Although I found it not as touching, unique and outstanding as Tsumiki no Ie, this anime collection was still worththe watch as each story brought me back to those shows and stories I used to love when I was still a child.
Second of the four anime shorts from this great collection i've watched is Ojisan no Lamp, produced by Telecom Animation Film, the same guys who brought us Mujin Wakusei SURVIVE and the unique bacteria-comedy, Moyashimon. An old-timer, after seeing again his long-lost old floor lamp, tells his grandson a story about a certain lamp peddler who beginning from his childhood, through hard work and perseverance slowly built his business of assembling and selling oil lamps from the city to folks living in the countryside. Simply put, he was greatly inspired at the advancement of technology after seeing wonderful lights of oil lamps in the city when he was still a child and wanted the same for his village by the countryside. Also, he is bothered by having to bear with old technology (e.g. flint), despite the availability of new technology (e.g. matches) that undeniably makes things a lot easier. Although westernization and the advancement of technology in lamps became a reliable friend to him throughout the years, from his childhood until he became a family man, life seemed to have taken a sudden turn and he was thrown off as technology taught him a lesson he learned the hard way.
STORY: 9
This story in particular really makes me wish I still had my grandparents around to tell me such amazing stories taken from their real life experiences. The show totally has great storytelling, the plot and storyline was consistent, despite the timeskips, albeit brief, and the emotions were well portrayed through the characters giving it perfect points for being a touching show in the drama genre. The story's message was also clear and delivered very well and being set in historical Japan, the evident elements of history were pretty accurate also giving the viewers a good show of Japan's cultural history.
ART/ANIMATION: 9
Among the four anime, this show, to me, has the best artwork. Although the backgrounds were quite simple and drawn with just enough detail, the portrayal of the countryside, the city, nature and other sceneries were good and the animation and amount of lighting used on scenes perfectly fits, improves and sets the right mood on each, particularly on the most climactic parts. Character movement was also pretty smooth and particularly, I love how the characters were drawn in this one.
MUSIC: 9
Like what I've mentioned earlier, the music for this anime is certainly spot on, suiting, even improving every scene it plays along to, especially the dramatic ones. Whether it be planting on rice fields, a cultural festival, plodding along a natural road on a summer day, losing heart on disappointments or feelings of desperation, the music certainly gives a perfect feel of the moment. Also, the OP and ED theme that plays along with the story itself are something you can't just ignore.
ENJOYMENT: 9
This one, in my opinion, is definitely the best among the four anime shows in the 2010 YATP. Perfectly lighthearted, yet the ensuing drama is totally spot on. Consistent storyline, Great art and animation, Soothing and absolutely dramatic music, heck, I daresay, it's like watching a Ghibli movie!
literaturenerd
Overview: My quest to review the entries of the 2011 Future Animator Contest continues with the one shot anime that won the contest and was widely considered the best. That anime is Grandfather’s Lamp. The story starts in 1930s Japan when a young boy comes across an old oil lamp and is quick to discard it. This displeases the boy’s grandfather, who proceeds to tell the young boy the importance that the lamp played in his life. When he was his grandson’s age, the grandpa worked in a rice field rather than attend school and had to use flint and tinder to start fires. When theWestern technology of the oil lamp was introduced to his rural farming village, he was enthralled with this revolutionary technology and decided to become a lamp salesman. His grandmother saw the oil lamps as demonic and frightening at first, but gradually grew to accept them. For the first 20 years, the Grandpa’s business did very well and he married a beautiful wife and had 2 children. Then to his utter horror, his business was rendered obsolete overnight when electricity was introduced to the town. He tried to scare the other villagers and told them that electricity was evil magic and basically reacted the same way his grandmother had to the oil lamp. Although he was initially furious and emotionally crushed, he realized that he couldn't be left behind and had to change his livelihood. He was then able to move on with a new dream.
The theme of this anime is the passage of time and how we can’t stop change. We must learn to accept that things change and adapt along with them. This particular example uses the astonishingly rapid modernization of Japan in the late 1800s and its transformation from a technologically backwards agrarian nation to a modern industrial nation in just a single lifetime. History has seen a number of great jumps like this, but Japan’s post Meiji Revolution jump is often viewed as one of the most dramatic and definitive examples. The anime wisely avoids the pitfalls of nostalgia and saying one time period is better than another. It instead looks passively and objectively at the fast flow of time and just how much the world can change in a single human lifetime. This anime is well animated, artful, and fairly thought provoking. Compared to the other entries in this contest, I can certainly see why this won.
The only real flaw I could see as a critic was that it could be accused of getting a tad sentimental at times. I find it amusing that this entry was clearly trying SO hard to win the contest, while the other entries are just playful and goofy. This was competing against a folktale parody about a spider-demon loli! Imagine a film contest in which “Boyhood” was up against “Freddy Got Fingered”. It doesn't even seem fair, but rather like bringing a grenade launcher to a fist fight! Was Grandfather's Lamp guilty of being "award bait"?
The answer to that last question is difficult to answer because what constitutes “award bait” actually depends entirely on the specific contest and what its judges are like. For example, “Oscar Bait” is NOT the same as “Cannes bait”. What do I mean by that? A good example of something that would be great for Cannes, but have no prayer at the Oscars is Mushishi. The major American film critics all called the live action version of Mushishi “boring, pretentious, garbage!” In the world of cinema, American film critics are notorious for being what anime snobs on MAL and 4chan call “filthy casuals”. The most respected film critics in the world are people like Sights and Sound Magazine in the UK. If you look at their top 100 films of all time, you will notice that the vast majority weren’t even nominated for the academy awards. Mushishi is an attempt to create an anime version of a very specific style of Euro art film in which plot and characters don’t really matter and it is ALL about surrealist imagery and existential artsyness. An example of the type of film that Mushishi clearly wanted to be like is “Stalker” from 1979. European film critics went NUTS over it and proclaimed it a masterpiece while American critics called it boring and pretentious and snubbed it in every category of the 1979 Oscars. Instead the Americans nominated several mediocre films like “Unmarried Woman”, “Coming Home”, and “Midnight Express”. Of course the French and British laughed their asses off at how profoundly stupid and uncultured the Oscar judges were and said that Stalker should have easily won: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Camera Editing hands down! My point is that I don’t know what the 2011 Future Animator judges were like and if this was indeed guilty of being award bait. It does kind of seem like it though.
kekekeKaj
Times are constantly changing; old technologies are continuously being replaced by new. Sometimes though, it's not easy to let go of something outdated, especially if it has played a central part in one's life. In essence, this is what happens in "Grandfather's Lamp", when an aged protagonist Minosuke tells his grandson about the role lamps played in his life. Being one of the 2010 Young Animators' Training Project, the artwork has a simplistic beauty about it and seems to have been done with great care. The shading of the eyes is a little weird - they have these dull colourings that are often used in otheranime to indicate a lack of consciousness or control. The background music is also very good, gently supporting the quieter moments and weighing in and enhancing the key ones. Judging technical aspects of an anime really isn't my forte though, so I'm gonna quickly move onto the other stuff. :P
The first part of "Grandfather's Lamp" is about how Minosuke, as a boy, came across lamps being sold at a shop in a time when such things are a rarity in Japan. Fascinated by this new technology, Minosuke decided to start selling them in his village, eventually growing up and expanding his enterprises into the city. For a long time, life was great; his business thrived and he started a family with his childhood crush. So far so good. This part of "Grandfather's Lamp" is mostly calm and peaceful, a part that highlights Minosuke's delightful enthusiasm for the lamp, and how it was the foundation to all that was good in his life.
The second part of the tale shows Minosuke's lamp business becoming obsolete; electric lighting started to appear as Japan continued to modernise. Even though Minosuke embraced the technology that was the lamp, he was reluctant to show the same attitude towards electric lights, and did not want to abandon the lamp business his life was built upon. On paper, this had superb potential. It could have been a great story about Japan's modernisation and Minosuke clinging on to the past. Instead, "Grandfather's Lamp" fell on its face in this second part, as it went for impact and drama with a subject that should have been treated slowly and with subtlety. After all, it's not like the adoption of new technology happens over night, and the point where it was treated as such, when Minosuke somehow only discovered electric lights when he was surrounded by them, is the point where the story started to fall apart.
It gets worse. Minosuke's resentment eventually drives him to ridiculous actions that were made more ridiculous by the "Higurashi"-esq dramatisation, and his eventual enlightenment was delivered with all the finesse of an elephant burglar. It seems almost surreal when compared with the quiet, slice of life nature of the first half. Towards the end, as Minosuke finally came to terms with the inevitable and went about preparing for it, there was one breathtaking moment when the gorgeous visuals combined with the swelling music to form a beautiful, poetic scene, but even that was quickly marred by more silliness.
In the end, with its vast potential and solid technical aspects, "Grandfather's Lamp" turned out to be only decent. With better screen writing and direction, it could have been so much more. It just feels like the effort that's obviously been put into the animation is lacking elsewhere.
5camp
Young Animator Training Project/Anime Mirai short reviews: Part 1/12 The first, and many people argue the best, of the young animator training projects. It has the highest ranking on MAL anyway. It tells the very human story of a guy who followed his dream and started up a lamp business, only to see it crumble in the face of new technology. The tone is perhaps a touch on the maudlin side, with a lot of “oh gosh aint this sad”, but it does an excellent job of humanising the story. The man’s transition from childlike wonder at the lamps to a successful business family man iswell paced and does a good job at making us empathise with the character, which is why I don’t feel too down on it getting all maudlin towards the end. They earned that through good storytelling. Ojisan himself perhaps isn’t the most memorable character, but the story is built around him having the standard reactions to these events, so we feel the same pain he does as we’d do the exact same things in those positions.
Verdict: Watch
Dr_Spade
From time to time, there are anime which make us think hard and others which convey their message effortlessly. Ojii-san no Lamp falls in the latter category. It is about passion and attachment to the things we love and how at some point of time we are required to look beyond them and move ahead. It is about modernization and the pangs of sorrow which it brings to some people. The story told by the grandfather here to his grandson has a soothing tone. The emotions are conveyed effortlessly. A linear progression of storyline makes it easier to grasp the emotions felt by Minosuke, thelead character.
The story is about an old man who one day finds his grandson playing with a decades-old floor lamp. He had completely forgotten that he still had it. That evening, he tells his grandson a story about himself, Minosuke, from when he was a child. He then takes us on a relaxing ride through his life, right from his childhood to when he became an adult. He narrates how he first came to see the wonderous device called a 'Lamp' in a far-off town and fell in love with its glowing beauty at first sight. With his high spirits and optimistic nature, he decides to light up his own town with the lamps. In time, he grows up to be a successful lamp merchant. He starts a family and continues his happy life until a new technology, electricity, arrives in the neighboring town threatening lamps to become useless and thereby endangering his business as a whole.
How he copes with the drastic modernization is what constitutes the rest of the film. Letting go of the things we love most is always difficult but sometimes it is neccessary to do so to progress. Embracing new things and ways of life is the way to move forward in life and that is precisely what Minosuke tries to say. It is painful but once accomplised, it brings a sense of peace.
The animation is of good quality and complements the village scenes to bring about their true beauty. The voice actors did a fine job and at certain moments like in the ending scene, they manage to make you really feel the words being spoken.
These days, I don't usually have enough time to watch an anime series so I decided to watch the anime movies. And this is one decision I do not regret after watching this. Of course, it is not as good as Harmonie or Kotonoha no Niwa or some other movies you may have watched but it does almost perfectly everyhing that it was supposed to which makes it a very good and satisfying watch :)
ktulu007
Ojii-san no Lamp is a short film about a boy who finds an antique lamp. His grandfather takes the opportunity to tell him the story about how he used to be a lamp seller. It goes from when he started as a child to when electricity made lamps obsolete. The story is really a drama about technological advancement and, while it is shown in a positive light overall, there's also a degree of tragedy involved for those who are left behind by those advances. It's an interesting look at history and you do feel for the lamp seller's plight. My only issue with it isthat the framing device of an old man telling a story to his grandson contributes very little. They could've started with a date and had it be almost as effective.
The characters in this have a great deal of verisimilitude. They feel and act like real people. They don't get a great deal of development, since the whole thing isn't even a half hour, but they are sympathetic and fairly realistic.
The art is the least impressive part of the film,. I'm not saying that it's bad, it's good, it's just not as strong as the other attributes. The backgrounds are nicely detailed but the characters look pretty plain.
The voice acting is well done. The cast is pretty small and they all do well. Particularly Kamiya Hiroshi and Shimizu Risa. The music is very much under-stated, but it works magnificently.
The yuri factor is a 1/10. This doesn't have yuri.
My final rating is an 8/10. This is a really good short. The premise is simple but the execution is interesting and the characters are realistically done. If you have any interest in historical pieces, check it out.
SereneLin
Wow, I can't believe no one wrote anything for this yet. Allow me to then :) I've just completed the series, and I must say; this is simply stunning! A must-see if you haven't yet! STORY: 10 Shouldn't be much to explain here. The story follows the life of Ojii-san from when he was a kid to present-day. It shows how the new generation is always looking forward to new technologies and the "up-and-coming" inventions, but as they get older, they grow stubborn and wishes to stay with what they grew up with. ART: 9 A simple, yet elegant art-style is used here, which fits in well with the characters.Soft colors work nice too. If you're planning to watch this, make sure you don't miss the scenes with the lighted lamps. They are stunning!
SOUND: 7
The BGM is the kind that really fades into the story so that you barely notice it. As there is very little action in Ojii-san no Lamp, do not expect anything particularly upbeat. There's nothing worth downloading to your MP3 player, but the music plays very well with the emotions of the scene.
CHARACTER: 10
Loved the character designs. As the story is about a Ojii-san's life as he grows up and have kids, it was an added bonus that you could connect the young Ojii-san to the older image of him. The style of the design follows the traditional Japanese dress, which is nice to see as well.
ENJOYMENT: 9
Loved it! If I was forced to critique, I would say that the emotional scene (I don't want to give too much away here) could have been turned up a notch or two. The story is beautiful, and I thought it was worth more tears than what was given in the animation.
OVERALL: 9
If you haven't watched it yet, you're missing out!
Rojo
Ojisan no Lamp is a short movie, only at 24 minutes long but is a real simplistic story that can leave you with a bittersweet feeling at the end. The story follows a young boy who comes across a lamp, which turns out to be his Grandfathers. His Grandfather then sits his Grandson down to tell him a story about when he, himself, came across an oil lamp for the very first time. The Grandfather then takes the center point in the movie, as it depicts his life. Where he has good fortune as a young boy, and struggles as a grown man, while coping with acultural shift that affects the whole of Japan.
The grandfather is really the only character you'll get to know throughout this movie, there are a few others but they are really there just to help the plot move along rather than be of any importance on their own.
The art style of the characters, and in general, is simplistic. Yet this gives the whole movie a pleasant clean feeling. Making it all the more natural with no obscene colouring, or bright-haired cast.
The soundtrack, or lack of with it being so short, does the movie justice. Each piece adds to the scene and helps lay out the setting and fits in with the environment.
Overall I found this a really enjoyable movie to watch. I really would recommend it to anyone and everyone. With it being so short I don't see why you wouldn't want to watch this. By the end of the movie, it will leave you thinking about small businesses, and how these big corporations, that seem to be best for us, will be hurting people down the line, mainly family run businesses.
Another thing to think about is how we are with technology. These days at most and for many of us, the biggest changes we face with technology is a new iPhone every year, or a new layout on MAL to deal with. Yet for them back then, and in many rural counties, there are many little changes, such as a lamp, that can have a drastic impact on one persons life.
dnpromi
Before going into this review, first i would like to dig into something. When someone says "Only mature people can see this ... i recommend only to mature people only ... blah blah". So what is maturity or who are mature people? People above 18 or 21? Well It is not your age which makes you mature , it is the mind! The way you think, the way you perceive things which come across your life decides if you are mature or not. This short movie anime is one of those special ones which portrays how the life of a hard working villager, the kindof life in a typical Japanese village, the impact of scientific changes in the society (not only in Japan, but in most of the parts of the world .. even India) and "Old technologies never work when you need them". You will know what I mean when you see it. To understand this movie better, you should try to feel by taking place of the main protagonist "Oji-san".
The story is more realistic and gives a little subdued feeling with a lot of peace and the last revelation by the "oji-san"'s son makes it altogether a happy ending, It hides a lot of beautiful morals and teaches us about how pragmatic the real life is. And sometimes you have to take some really harsh decisions in order to do something right.
Hydra_no_Mago
The main story is about Minosuke, who tells his grandchild of the days when he was younger and how he made a living. Minosuke was an orphan and he stayed in the barn of the chief of his village. He did odd jobs for everyone in the village as means of income, but the money was always barely enough. All that changed when he helped a trishaw carrier and was able to visit the nearest city. He saw strange yet beautiful glowing things hung up in on the ceilings, known as lamps. In the end, he bought one at a wholesale price and made aliving out of selling lamps. His perfect way of life was crushed when Japan underwent westernization and began to have electricity. Lamps were no longer needed.
The story is simple yet heartwarming. The tale of Minosuke who worked so hard to earn a living only to have the rug under his feet pulled away is something that one may see usually. The winning point of this movie is how Minosuke picked himself back up and found new ways to feed himself and his family. "I forgot the most important thing. Unforgivable." This line clearly states that even though Minosuke was frustrated and angry, he realised his error and proceeded to fix it.
Minosuke's wife, Secchan, is a great character in her own way. Although not strong enough physically to do much, she supports Minosuke really well. She is the pillar of their family when Minosuke undergoes trouble. A silent guardian.
Overall score: 8/10
Zeemod155
This is very cheesy and mellow-dramatic. People have been dealing with new tech out-dating old tech for centuries it's not something that's particularly unique to electricity or oil. Not to say there's nothing particularly interesting about the history of electric technology itself but based on the dramatic implications that this short film's narrative, which it definitely does not earn implies, it's very bare-bones surface-level take is supposed to suffice. As a result of the shallow narrative that doesn't get explored any more than some broad strokes emotional levels (of which we have about 10 minutes of screen time to soak in) the story feels woefullyunderwhelming.
It doesn't feel particularly like movie about love, ancestry, devotion, the passage of time, the real, the supernatural, anything really. Rather it feels like an outline that could have one day been turned into something more cohesive. Even when I've seen these ideas explored better in movies with x4 times the budget, length, and aesthetic sense it still takes quite a lot for me to meaningfully distinguish them in my mind.
Will probably forget about this one after a few days.
Svvindler
“Lampu!” The cry rings out over rice paddies and wheat fields, echoed by a the retainer of children smiling in his wake. Once a homeless orphan, dependent upon the town chief’s kindness for the roof of a barn over his head at night and forced to run errands and perform odd tasks about the village he called home in order to eke out a living, Minosuke, now a young man, is a lamp salesman. One of the first in his part of the country, he travels with his cart and family, selling oil lamps in a westernizing Japan eager for the ease of a lifeenhanced by the latest technologies coming from across the sea. But technological advancement, once indulged, cannot help but continue at a breakneck pace. Some day, even the prescient and savvy will wake to find their trades no more.
The beauty and terror of technology and the blessings and curses of westernization are both central to Teiichi Takiguchi’s “Ojisan no Lamp,” a stunning 25-minute amateur animated film. The piece was released in 2010 as part of the inaugural round of the Young Animators Training Project, an annual program launched by the Japanese Animation Creators Association and supported by the Japanese government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs dedicated to encouraging the training of budding animators.
“Ojisan no Lamp” may be the work of an amateur rather than professional animator, but it’s nearly impossible to tell. The scenes are gorgeously animated, with a stunning focus on the colors and depths of light produced by varied sources—the sun on bright days and gloomy days, through slats of wood and at twilight; oil lamps large and small, in the home and out of doors; and, finally, electric light—and a patience that somehow seems to extend the film’s short runtime. The story is simply but powerfully told, a meditation on accepting the passing of time and the ease with which one’s trade becomes irrelevant in a rapidly changing society—a lesson much needed during a time of working class anger and knee-jerk attempts to save dying industries, many of which, like coal and oil, actively destroy the planet they’ve so long powered along.
Minosuke shows anger, too—and doubt, and resentment, and a furious need to stop the passing of time and the changing of the world, the only way he can think of saving his business, his family, himself. He lies to his fellows about the benefits of electricity. He goes near mad with fear of the future. He rages against the dying of the oil lamp’s light—until, finally, he is the one who must snuff it out in a tragically symbolic rejection of the past. And yet, years later, he is a grandfather with a standing oil lamp buried in the back of his home, a relic he must explain to his grandson, who has never seen one before. Wistful for the past but having found a way to adapt to the present, Minosuke endures. In a review on The Nihon Review, one blogger writes:
We relate to his reluctance to give up everything he’s loved and accept his own irrelevance. Yet, we implore him to do so, lest he be left behind by the ruthless progress of society. Though everything ultimately ends well for him, we’re still left with a tinge of sadness at the end of it all — unwilling to accept, like Minosuke, than object as beautiful as an oil lamp can be so casually replaced by something as harsh and uninviting as a light bulb, yet knowing, as he does, that such is life — that one must either keep up with the times, or be left behind in the dark.
It’s stunning stuff. And, as modern technology continues its sprint toward the future, with teleportation and genetic editing both now real possibilities, “Ojisan no Lamp” may just serve the purpose intended of its namesake: providing a steady warmth to light the way through an ever-coming dark.
