Chage&Aska’s “ON YOUR MARK” Animated Music Video (Ghibli Experimental Theater) by Studio Ghibli (1995)

WHAT-IS: ”Ghibli Experimental Theater On Your Mark (ジブリ実験劇場 On Your Mark?, Jiburi Jikkengekijō On Yua Māku) is an animated music video created by Studio Ghibli for the song "On Your Mark" by the Japanese rock duo Chage & Aska. The song was released in 1994 as part of the single "Heart". In 1995, Hayao Miyazaki wrote and directed the short film for the song as a side-project after having writer's block with Princess Mononoke. The anime music video is non-linear, providing multiple reiterations and alternate scenes to depict the events. The music video added sound effects to the audio track, but contains no dialogue. Miyazaki purposely misinterpreted the lyrics to present his vision of a world where the surface becomes inhospitable and humans live in an underground city. He made the video cryptic to evoke creative interpretations among viewers.

The music video was well-received and praised for its animation and attention to detail. It premiered as a short before Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart and has since been released on Laserdisc and DVD as part of All Things Ghibli Special Short Short." (Wiki).

Featured in the video below is clean with translated English text (for the lyrics - which I cannot authenticate if they are accurate or not LOL).


CHAGE and ASKA - On Your Mark Music Video... by Progamer2014z

STORY: "The music video follows two policemen who raid a religious cult and find an angelic being only to have her taken away and confined to a laboratory. Haunted by the fate of the "angel", the two men formulate a plan and break into the laboratory. Fleeing in an armored truck the three plummet into an abyss after trying to force past a police aircraft along a narrow suspended roadway. After a montage of the previous scenes, the armored truck suddenly rockets into an apartment complex, allowing their escape. The three escape to the surface, ignoring the radiation and danger signs, emerging near an encased nuclear reactor. The two men set the "angel" free and she flies off into the sky."




For a period of time in the past, I had actually been confused with this video, and doubt if it had ever existed. Being a fan of Chage&Aska (more likely for their “Say Yes” circa 1991, for the TV show “101 Proposal”), and subsequently “finding out” about Studio Ghibli doing an animated MV for this song, I had actually come across what-I-had-thought was the MV for the song, although I had a sniff of misgivings and felt the visuals a tad dodgy (perfectly synced tho lol), but did not think much of it, until a few years later recognising the animation in said “MV” was actually from the 1987 animated film “The Wings of Honnêamise”! Heng deducing the MV I saw was “fake”, and that there actually DID NOT EXIST an animated MV for “On Your Mark” hahahah … until literal DECADES later, seeing it in full - ALONG with text/description on the MV itself!

I would understand folks wanting to keep a copyright on their works, totally understand! But would “information” be lost along the way? Or misinterpreted? Or I am just an idiot-post-teen who could not quite grasp the media-reality then? Although I doubt anything like this would ever happen in THIS age though LOL :p

Nevertheless, this is the MV of CHAGE and ASKA performing the song:



(First featured on I Not Otaku! circa June 12, 2017)