Tokyo Olympics Anime Short Tomorrow’s Leaves Shared

An official anime short created in honor of the Tokyo Summer Olympics is now available online. The Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage shared Studio Ponoc’s Tomorrow’s Leaves. The eight minute video clip, which tells its story without words, looks at a group of children from around the world gathering to compete against one another.

Here’s Studio Ponoc’s Tomorrow’s Leaves. The studio originally created this anime for ahead of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but due to COVID-19 pandemic related delays, it didn’t air until now.

While Studio Ponoc is a fairly new studio that’s only been around since 2015, many of its staff came from Studio Ghibli. They also worked on this short. The producer was Yoshiaki Nishimura, who worked on Howl’s Moving Castle, the Tale of Princess Kaguya, and When Marnie Was There. The director is Yoshiyuki Momose, who worked on Spirited Away, Grave of the Fireflies, and Ni no Kuni.

This is one of multiple forms of media shared as the Tokyo 2021 Summer Olympics kicked off. For example, the opening ceremony featured a number of songs from iconic video games. Tracks from Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter, Kingdom Hearts, and NieR were used.

The 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics will run until August 8, 2021.