“Sayonara” by Eric Bates

Canadian artist Eric Bates made Sayonara while studying animation in Japan at the Kyoto University of Art and Design. “This story was inspired by my life in Japan and having to say goodbye myself,” he wrote on his site. “Every part of this animation abstractly relates to my experiences, friends, foods, things I saw, and things I felt over this time.”

I love the mix of minimally rendered CG, detailed puppet modelmaking, and hand-drawn animation It’s fun to watch how he put it all together in this video:

(Thanks, Tim McCourt)