A girl alone in a house finds two pandas, and that's it, no conflict, no stakes, just a kid and two animals being kind to each other for thirty minutes. Miyazaki drew this when he was figuring out how to make people feel safe instead of amazed. The backgrounds breathe, the pandas move like actual pandas, and watching it feels like being wrapped in something warm that doesn't need to prove itself.

Mimiko, a little girl, is left on her own while her grandmother is away. The film is a short Japanese movie from 1972, about half an hour long, mixing adventure, comedy and fantasy with everyday slice-of-life moments. Takahata directed it, and Miyazaki came up with the original idea, wrote the script, drew the layouts and handled key animation. A sequel followed in 1973, made by the same team.