The Young Animator Training Program is an initiative to create four standalone OVAs with the purpose of training new animators. Each short would be handled by a different studio, and each would get a certain budget for it. An excellent idea. Ojii-san no Lamp is Telecom Animation Film’s result. You know, the people from Secret of the Cerulean Sand, Uninhabited Planet Survive and Moyashimon.
For this OVA I was expecting this short slice of life story of Japan around 100 years ago, in which we would see a young boy and his grandfather’s lamp. You know, the kind of children’s slice of life that you see more often. As it turns out, I totally wrong about this. Instead, it paints a picture of the life of an oil lamp salesman. Only the first half of this OVA is about his childhood, the meat of this OVA is about him as an adult.
It turned out to be a poignant story, about the use of light in pre-world war Japan and the technological advancements. It’s not something you usually see, and this OVA actually has this great balance between its focus on lamps and the titular grandfather, with a strongly written ending. It may be a bit too dramatic at times, but this is nothing major.
As for the animation, we can expect nice things from the people who animated this in the future: the inbetween animation here is quite good and life-like. It’s perhaps nothing special for a seasoned veteran, but this definitely was a great start for inexperienced animators.
OVA Episode Rating: 8/10
Ojii-San no Lamp is my favorite thus far. Really touching story. Everything I expected from a short OVA.
Finally got around to watching this and I really liked it. I’m always fascinated by the conflict between moving forward/technological advancement and a past tradition.
This is really good, I have been expected it to be a normal slice of life but this turns to be a very touching story which makes me tear-shedding a bit in the end. The theme is great, love it.