This is a two-minute exhale, the kind of thing you put on when the seasonal lineup has beaten you up and you want something that asks nothing of you. Mari Iijima sings it, yes, the voice behind Minmay, and hearing her carry a Minna no Uta slot instead of a Macross stage hits different once you know. Kouji Nanke animates, which means the apple forest and its kittens move with that soft, hand-drawn NHK warmth that no modern pipeline bothers to replicate anymore. The catch collectors love: this is not the Spoon Obaasan ending you remember, Nanke redrew it for Minna no Uta, so the version you grew up with and the version here are two different artifacts of the same song. It exists to be gentle. That is the whole job, and it lands.

Ringo no Mori no Koneko-tachi is a single-episode music video for the song of the same name, sung by Mari Iijima and aired on NHK's Minna no Uta program. The song also served as the ending theme for Spoon Oba-san. Kouji Nanke animated both that ending and this video, but the Minna no Uta version features newly produced animation rather than reusing the earlier footage.