Matcha Mountain: A Surreal, Whimsical Animated Short Full of Matcha and Balloon Animals

Matcha Mountain is ever so slightly bonkers.  My suggestion is don’t try and use logic (Boolean or otherwise) in an attempt to explain this, just sit back and enjoy the experience.  Anything else may well result in the (hopefully) temporary loss of your liberty as nice men in white coats take you away for some special treatment.  Back to the animation – and it’s great to see an elderly protagonist for once!  Granny lives alone on Matcha Mountain, which is, as it suggests, a mountain made out of matcha (that’s “a finely ground, bright green powder made from specially grown and processed green tea leaves” according to Wikipedia).

Well, one day as luck would have it, she rescues an injured dog made out of balloons – and the dog is overjoyed as it is addicted to matcha desserts.  They’re happy together, but danger looms – as do lots more balloon animals.  And there you have it – deliciously and weirdly bonkers mad.  The film was made by a group of students at Gobelins - Seiya Carpentier, Zijin Chen, Pauline Gisèle Gautschi, Jiamin Li, Yuanxin Ling, and Alexane Pierrot-Zago and is receiving a lot of attention online – maybe because this is the natural successor to The Magic Roundabout that so many people have been searching for over the decades or perhaps because it’s just a lovely watch.