Ranked #2444

Hairy Tale

A tale of forbidden love, betrayal, jealousy, anger, death, and... shampoo.

Hairy Tale is an advertisement made by Production I.G., by those responsible for creating the very famous anime segment in Kill Bill Vol. 1. These producers decided to take their creativity to another level. A hairier level.

The story is mostly left up to interpretation as there is no dialogue and the plot is delivered very quickly and rather visually. It gives us a tale of a haggard samurai who climbs up the hair of his Japanese Rapunzel. Their love is forbidden, and she faces the wrath of the feudal lord who treats her as a possession. Eventually, knife in hand, she has to choose--her master, her samurai, or herself? It's actually a rather decent story of the dangers of being in love. Oh, and shampoo, of course.

Now here's the great thing about Hairy Tale: the art. It's absolutely amazing. The animation was top-notch, the art for backgrounds look like old Japanese paintings with the animated characters superimposed on them, and the character design was beautiful. The characters had that signature sketchy, dark, rough illustrations that the team behind it are noted for. The hair in particular was wonderfully drawn. But then, it's a shampoo ad.

The sound was pretty good as well. It invoked the sombre, tragic mood and atmosphere and also had the traditional woodwind instruments that are generally associated with feudal Japan.

However, it cannot be said that this anime short had great characters. With no dialogue, it was difficult to get inside the characters' minds and motives, and a lot was dependent on the visual aspect. Their facial expressions, their movements, their bodies--these gave us their personalities. The length of this short, sadly, does not allow us to go into these characters. We do get to see the shampoo though.

I am not exactly sure who to recommend this to. If you're a fan of violent samurai anime, then this commercial should appeal to you. But if you're a fan of great-smelling hair, then this ad should also appeal to you. Such is the predicament. I think I can safely say that if you want to see an anime ad, then by all means, watch this one. It is absolutely gorgeous and it is also succinct. If you're a fan of the Kill Bill Vol. 1 short, then perhaps you should also check this one out just for the technical aspects.

Hairy Tale is a minute-long animated shampoo commercial that very artistically does its job--I really want to check out that shampoo now. read more

Amaazing! This is the best shampoo commercial which was ever made.
At first glance, this animation reminded me of: xxxholic, ghost in the shell: innocence, and studio 4 work.
Fortunately, i was right O.O
animation director is Kazuto Nakazawa, he is famous for his animation in Kill bill.
character design was made by Shuichi Hirata ( who worked on ghost in the shell innocence and xxxholic movie).
if you want to watch this commercial, simply go to youtube and write: Hairy Tale