A Chef Demonstrates the Emotional Steps of How To Make Sushi

“How to Make Sushi” outlines all the necessary tasks to assemble maki: slice your fish, spread the rice, bleed from avocado hand, sweat all over your workspace, spend years agonizing over perfection, and finally, slice your roll into bite-sized pieces. Enjoy?

Made by London-based director and 3D designer Jonathan Lindgren, the humorous animation provides a quirky look at mastering a craft. It’s complete with the basic kitchen skills like cleaning a knife and gathering ingredients, in addition to more emotional labor like ending a romantic relationship and rising early each day.

Lindgren said the instructional project began in 2018 when he created a few frames based on the lives of sushi chefs. After consulting with Luke Brown from The Soundery on a score and actor Yoshi Amao, the director created the short film. “Always being inspired by Japanese animation, this turned into an emulation of many years of reading manga and watching anime. Also seeing how the amazing craftsmanship and graphic design was used in Isle of Dogs definitely influenced me a lot while making this,” he said.

Find more of Lindgren’s amusing animations on Vimeo, and check out his other creative work on Behance and Instagram. You might also want to watch this time-lapse of the making of Isle of Dogs’s sushi scene. (via Uncrate)