Feature: D’ART Shtajio’s Shojo no Piero (The Doll)

D’ART Shtajio – an American animation studio based in Tokyo, Japan had been making a round of surprises since it was founded in 2016 by Arthell and Darnell Isom. It has been their utmost mission to reinvent the anime industry and include the Western elements to its work to empower the anime industry and create an atmosphere of unity in diversity when it comes to Japanese animation.

Among their first project which I have also feature in our blog is the Indigo Ignited – an amazing short anime which is quite rare to see from a newly founded animation studio.

The studio and its key people also worked with several giant anime series this past few years including Overlord Season II & III, Tokyo Ghoul: re, The Seven Deadly Sins Season 2, Gintama Season 4, and Attack on Titan.

Going back to its roots, I still believe that one of D’Art Shtajio’s most fascinating work is this short anime called Shojo no Piero which is translated in English as The Doll. It runs for a total of 2 minute and 28 seconds and tells a gloomy story of a foreign expat who worked in Japan as an electronic engineer throughout his life and realized that he spent most of his life creating dolls/toys until he gets old without any achievements outside his job. He has no family, and only have his created dolls in his house and time had come that he even throw away those dolls. I will not explain what happened in the story but you may check it in the video provided below.

This short yet sincere animation from D’Art Shtajio is so genuine and honest. The animation quality is truly amazing and beautiful, this anime simply proves that the story of so much emotion and deep could be put together in a short duration of work but filled with so much attention to details. What’s even more surprising is that in the end, The Doll (which is the title of this short anime) is indeed the logo of D’Art Shtajio which I really find even more surprising and beautiful. The story is both direct and mysterious, and that’s what makes the whole duration of watching it a captivating experience.

D’Art Shtajio’s The Doll is the first part of a short story and features the voice of Dante Carver as the protagonist – Ijiro.

Synopsis

The anime project is created with Toon Boom’s Harmony and StoryBoard Pro software as seen in the production video below.

D’Art Shtajio first owned original project Indigo Ignited is a combined effort of Samuel Dalton and David Pinter from the studio, together with YouTube artists Nathan Sharp, Amanda Lee, and Sean Chiplock providing voices for the characters in the anime.

Aside from The Doll and Indigo Ignited, the studio also worked for several projects including the following:

Alright, to be honest, I am eagerly waiting for possible big projects from the studio to finally come into fruition soon and it really feels great to see diverse project in the anime community and having D’Art Shtajio entering the front stage of this revolution is truly reassuring that the anime industry is heading towards a brighter future.