Ga-nime

The term "Ga-nime"(画ニメ) is an amalgam of Japanese words "ga" ('画', picture, drawing) and "anime"('アニメ', animation).
It's the name of the project initiated by a publisher called Gentosha (幻冬舎) and Toei Animation in 2006.

Here's the project's official website (in Japanese only).

It focuses on the quality of (still) "pictures".
Many of them have very limited movements, often just a series of still images, which gives a feel of slide show or picture book with sound.

Some criticize this style is nothing new. Maybe. But I think it's pointless. New or not, this is a different approach to animation from the mainstream style, and I appreciate the variety of styles.

Some (many?) may find them boring, too artistic in a self-indulgent and pretentious way.
I agree with that to some extent, but I find some of them fascinating.

I posted some of the web trailers on YouTube, with English subtitles to promote ga-nime to raise international recognition, hoping some foreign company pick them up for initernational release.

One of the reasons I did this is those DVDs of ga-nime are so expensive even by Japanese standards. And most of them are only 20-30 minutes long.

(Some time ago Toei Animation had them on their streaming website with very reasonable price, but it was restricted to Japanese residents.)

And of course, they don't have English subtitles.

Here are said trailers. I hope you enjoy.

(Please read the descriptions of the videos.for the details of each title.)

• "H.P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror and Other Stories" 『H・P・ラヴクラフトの ダニッチ・ホラー その他の物語』
• "Fantascope - tylostoma"
• "Gendai Kibunroku: Kaii Monogatari" 『現代畸聞録 怪異物語』
• "La Grenadière" 『ざくろ屋敷』

Links to these 4 titles:

For more Ga-nime titles, please visit my Amazon associate store