Soshiki Hakase's Summer Time (2017)

NOTE: This Monday short was originally posted on May 27, 2019. We are re-uploading some of Peter Hemminger's amazing Monday Shorts until further notice.

Soshiki Hakase's music videos are pure joy. Each of the clips he's made as  part of Japanese production duo furifurisoshiki mix of whimsy, surrealism and nostalgia to delightful effect, and none more so than the video for TogoKiyomaru's Summer Time. From the opening shot of a crudely rendered surfer to the final mishmash of birthday cakes, cocktail glasses, dancing bears and fidget spinners, it's a burst of absolute glee.

His other videos are equally worthwhile, especially "Taxi Driver" by Mom, which uses Commodore 64-era graphics to create a dreamlike collection of childhood images, and the stunning "The Love Letter" by Felt, which uses digital distortion and glitched-out 3D spaces to create a wonderfully wistful feel.

Like the otherworldly appropriations of the Hauntology movement in UK, Hakase's videos feel like emanations from a past that never quite existed. But where those works repurpose the unsettling elements of children's shows and educational films, Hakase is more upbeat, imagining a timeline where Parappa the Rapper and old Sierra adventures took over the popular imagination—a nostalgically lo-fi look tailor-made to accompany breezy summer soundtracks.

And why not, here are two more: