A folk song doesn't need a story, but this one gets one anyway, a single animated frame tells you everything about longing before the chorus even arrives. Yoji Kuri animates what the Dark Ducks sing: movement so minimal it becomes meditative, color so restrained it forces you to listen instead of watch. The Mexican melody becomes Japanese because the emotion was always universal.

Youki ni Utaeba is a one-episode music video built around the Japanese version of Las Chiapanecas, a Mexican folk song generally credited to composer Bulmaro López Fernández, with lyrics later written by Juan Arozamena. The vocals come from Dark Ducks, a Japanese male chorus group, and the animation is the work of Yoji Kuri. Viewers who respond to music as pure emotional experience, or who appreciate animation that breathes with its soundtrack, may find something to enjoy in this short pairing of song and image.