Tea Break 'Toons 20th April

Welcome back to Tea Break ‘Toons. This week’s edition is a little different to usual as I thought I would try to broaden the horizons past mainstream animation. And so instead of picking a toon I thought I would pick a playlist.

This week’s playlist is: Mari Miyazawa’s Bento Theatre.

Recommended biscuit: Hello Panda.

To celebrate Japan, I’ve chosen the strawberry variety of Hello Panda. These are small bitesized biscuits that you can find in most Asian supermarkets. They each have a little panda on them, very kawaii (that’s Japanese for cute).

Biscuit rating: 6/10

I was lucky enough to volunteer at a local children’s film festival towards the end of last year and one of the shorts that was shown was Mari Miyazawa’s Twins in Bakery. Unfortunately the whole short isn't available online, however you can watch the trailer below.

Having researched more about Mari I discovered she has a Youtube channel that is filled with animations and recipes. If you were ever told as a child not to play with your food, Mari has proved your parents wrong. She creates stop-motion animation using a plethora of different foods and also creates various bento recipes.

Here is an example of one of her Bento Theatre shorts (remember to click the CC button on the video to watch with subtitles if you are not fluent in Japanese).

Mari has uploaded several playlists to her channel demonstrating her ability you can find them on her channel page here. I recommend watching her Bento Theatre playlist.

Until the next time!

#teabreaktoons #twinsinbakery #MariMiyazawa #filmfestival #Shortfilms #animation