Yuki no taiyô

A Miyazaki's early animated short, this is far from the level of his later achievements. However, by watching it we may have some clues about his style. Animation is competent but not brilliant as in his feature films. Story is not special and its narrated text is even less. It worth watching just as a curiosity about one of the most fantastic animation creators ever.

"Yuki" is abandoned as a baby and left with only a wooden cross to call her own. Luckily, she is taken in by a kindly family and raised as a tomboy of a child who sets about trying to track down her mother. Using just about every form of ground transport available, we follow her quickly paced adventures as she races wild horses, takes a train - you get the drift. There's nothing really special about this at all - it reminded me of a sort of adequately animated Japanese equivalent of one of the "Heidi" stories. Indeed were it not for the fact that it was directed by Hayao Miyazaki, I doubt it would feature on many watchlists as all. That said, it does signal a little of what's to come, and is watchable enough for that.

I feel like this is one of the most interesting non-feature film Miyazaki oddities I've found since getting through all his feature films. It's basically a short film that seems to have functioned as a super short pilot (more a proof of concept) for what could have been a series called Yuki's Sun.

I hate to be against Miyazaki, but I can kind of see why it wasn't picked up as a series. Even judging it as something that's supposed to condense episodes of story into one five-minute trailer or summary, it's weak, relying entirely on narration. Surely there could have been a more interesting way to do this, and even with just five minutes, the "and then x happened and then y happened and then...." feels noticeably cheap.

But... it is also a proof of concept, and I have to imagine it would've flown a little better had it become a proper series. I don't think it's good for a few reasons, but I can't entirely hate on Yuki's Sun. The animation still looks nice, at least, and it's not like it's entirely lacking when it comes to things that could have happened in the series. But at the end of it all, slight promise and good animation can only get you so far, because watching this today, it feels like a weak pilot in a fair few regards.

"Yuki no Taiyou", also called "Yuki's Sun", is a 2-minute short animated pilot by Hayao Miyazaki year 1972. This pilot was based on a popular girls' comic by Tetsuya Chiba which was serialized around 1962-63.

Basic plot: As in the comic, this short pilot centers around Yuki, a 10-year old orphan who's being adopted into a family.

In my opinion, this short pilot has nice 70s animation and wonderful drawings. The story has some dramatic moment, but is told in a way so children should manage to follow.

This short film is to be remembered for at least one thing, because this one marks the first time the great Hayao Miyazaki has directed something alone. This one was made as a pilot for a television series which for some reasons was never realized.

Ever since this pilot, Miyazaki went on to make lots of amazing animated movies like "My Neighbor Totoro" (1988), "Spirited Away" (2001) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004), until his retirement after his last film "The Wind Rises" (2013). Because his movies went very popular around the world, I believe this director will be remembered by many fans of his films.

As a pilot for a never-realized anime series, I think this highly deserves an attention, and should be something to look at. In my opinion, I give this one a full rating of 10/10.