This is animation as pure visual music, fifteen minutes where every frame exists to be looked at. Tamagawa doesn't waste a second on plot or dialogue, the caterpillar's transformation becomes a hypnotic meditation on metamorphosis, growth, and things you can't name but immediately feel. The soundtrack doesn't accompany the image; it breathes with it. You'll rewatch it just to catch what you missed the first time, because the detail is so dense and deliberate that standing still is the only way to actually move through it.

PUPARIA is an independent animated short by Shingo Tamagawa, released online in 2020 as a single episode. Its genres are fantasy and psychological.