Ever heard of Domo? He's an adorable little creature with fuzzy brown fur and a giant toothy mouth that never closes.
And this strange little Japanese mascot has become so popular (both in Japan and the US) that he even got his own TV show -- a series of stop-motion shorts chronicling his adventures with his woodland friends. These stories are a little strange at times (Americans may not know what a shapeshifting tanuki is), but they have an innocently odd charm that never ceases.
In these stories, Domo roams around photographing the world, tries to climb the highest tree, chases a smiling balloon that has escaped him, uses headphones to hear the "music" of the world, plays with a bunch of melodious mushrooms, chases a robot dog, gets chased by a hungry bear, and plays in a rock band that is struck by lightning.
Some of his adventures involve his friends as well -- he goes ice-skating and pursues a giant fish, encounters a shapeshifting tanuki that pretends to be him, tries to understand sibling dynamics, plays at "going to work," and attempts to have a secret hide-out... until people find out about it.
Each of the "Domo" episodes is only about a minute and a half long, but the animators manage to make each a self-contained story. This is partly because the stories are so simple -- usually it involves Domo stumbling across something strange and new to him, or trying to accomplish something despite the odds. There's not a lot of dialogue (Domo only says "DO-MO!"), and a few don't really have dialogue at all.
Perhaps this simplicity is what makes the Domo shorts as charming as they are. Domo acts like a little kid, dancing to musical mushrooms, ice-skating after fish, pretending to make business calls, and photographing all sorts of things (including ghosts). The only problem is that a few things about it might not immediately make sense to Americans -- one episode is about a shapeshifting tanuki, but it never appears as itself.
Domo himself is an adorable character, sort of like a little kid -- curious, eager, and sometimes oblivious to how other people feel. The other characters are "normal" counterparts to Domo (an elderly rabbit, a flighty weasel and a family of stoned foxes) but none of them have the charm and weirdness of the titular character. Oh, and there are kissing snakes and a pair of talking bats.
"Domo" is very brief, but it's also quite charming, cute, and strangely childlike. And it has Domo. What more could you possibly ask for?
