A creature living in the dark water falls for someone who belongs to the light above it, and spends every night knowing the distance between them is absolute. Ghibli takes a premise that could be sentimental garbage and makes it devastatingly real by refusing to look away from the loneliness. The short exists only in a museum, which means you have to choose to find it, which means when you do, it hits like it was made just for you.

A tiny water spider named Mon Mon spends his days in the swamp swimming up and down to the surface to gather bubbles of air. His routine never changes until the day he meets a female water strider gliding freely across the surface. Something shifts in him. He falls in love. On lonely nights in the swamp, Mon Mon can think of nothing but her. She is frightened of him at first, but she soon grows used to having the spider around. Mon Mon is left wondering whether his feelings will ever be returned. This short fantasy romance was made to screen only at the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, where it premiered in 2006.