is a 2006 Japanese animated short film directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki

is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...

. It was produced by Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli

is a Japanese animation and film studio founded in June 1985. The company's logo features the character Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro...

 for their exclusive use in the Saturn Theatre at the Ghibli Museum

Ghibli Museum

is a museum featuring the Japanese anime work of Studio Ghibli, and is located in Inokashira Park in Mitaka, a western suburb of Tokyo, Japan.The museum is a fine arts museum, but does not take the concept of a usual fine arts museum. With many features that are child-oriented and a sprawling and...

 in Mitaka, Tokyo. The film is based on a story by Naohisa Inoue

Naohisa Inoue

is a fantasy artist influenced by both the Surrealism and Impressionism movements. Most of his paintings are set in the fantastical land of . He created reference and background art for the Studio Ghibli film Whisper of the Heart and also provided a cameo appearance as the voice of Minami...

.

Plot

The short film is of a boy who lives and works on a farm. When going to sell vegetables at a market, his cart breaks down. Two strangers, a frog and a mole, offer him a strange seed in exchange for the vegetables. The boy accepts and finds the seed grows into a miniature planet. It continues growing as he tends to it, forming an atmosphere, weather systems and life. After being taken back to the city, he meets the strangers who sold the seed to him. They release the planet into a galaxy of similar planets where it will grow for years until becoming a true planet.

External links