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Sunrise Reveals Mori no Ongakudan Series of Online Anime Shorts

Sunrise and Pony Canyon began streaming the first episode in a series of anime shorts titled Mori no Ongaku-dan (Musicians of the Forest) on Wednesday.

The short features three vignettes. In the first vignette, "Let's Start a Band," Mouse and Squirrel approach Raccoon as he's washing vegetables in the river, and they suggest that they all start a rock band together. Raccoon is reluctant at first, but he eventually says he's in, but on one condition: they prove to him that they're prepared to be rockers by taking an orange out of an animal trap. Squirrel's attempt at taking the orange fails, and Raccoon and Mouse think of other animals they can recruit as band members.

In the second vignette, "I Made A Flyer," Mouse and Raccoon are playing video games, and Raccoon suggests that shouldn't they be doing band-related activities, but Mouse says it's fine because he made a flyer to advertise their concert. Raccoon realizes the flyer says the concert is today, and complains that they're definitely not ready yet and that it's impossible to perform a concert today. Raccoon suggests they practice, but Mouse isn't really interested. Suddenly, their guitars are stolen, and the audience is right on their doorstep. Just as Squirrel comes in to save the day, he is again snatched away by a bird of prey.

In the third vignette, "I Made A Song," after Raccoon and Squirrel distribute flyers for another concert, Mouse says he's written a song, to Raccoon's surprise. But when Mouse plays the song, he is just humming several different tunes that aren't rock at all, including a Balinese kecak chant. Raccoon suddenly finds himself participating in the kecak chant, but snaps out of it and says that the "worldview" of the song is just too hard to understand. Mouse says he has another song that he composed, but it just turns out to be more kecak.

The anime stars:

• Yū Serizawa (Actually, I Am…'s Yōko) as Squirrel
• comedian Shintarō Morimoto as Mouse
• Kenta Miyake (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders' Abdul) as Raccoon
• Hiroshi Shirokuma (Log Horizon's Woodstock W) as Wild Boar

Yōichi Fujita (Gintama anime franchise, Osomatsu-san, ClassicaLoid) is directing the anime at Sunrise. Shū Matsubara (Gintama, Osomatsu-san) is writing the scripts, and Christophe Ferreira (key animation for Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine) is serving as character designer and art designer. Shinsuke Tanba is serving as visual designer, and Takeomi Matsuura is composing the music.

Source: animeanime.jp