As I said in anoher thread, saw Combustible and Tsukumo last year. Great pieces of work.
OP, it's worth noticing Takashi Hashimoto (Toei's Mononoke anime serie) as animator for Combustibe. He was on board to take care of the complex fire animations as he's considered the best in this field (especially for the exlosion animations), according to Otomo who wanted the fire to look more like its representation in traditional japanase drawings (emakimono). It seems Hashimoto had an hard time working on these scenes (Otomo: laughs).
Combustible is a mix of 2D and 3D, the second half of the short featuring most of the complex 3D animation, always accordng to Otomo. I'd add that the mix works, 2D and 3D are really well merged/integrated.
Short Peace is an idea from a Sunrise producer who was with Otomo at the 2009 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, after seeing so much animated shorts. It was first a project with one short from Otomo, adapting one if his manga stuff. In the process it became an omnibus film, with other shorts/directors involved and with "Japan" as the only thema, so not restricted to Otomo's works. One of the reasons of this move to a larger project was for production purpose: it was easier to produce (commercial interest) in the context of the Japanese industry.
In respect to Otomo's attitude regarding 3D, maybe this quote from him responding to my questions can help:
Could have you made it in full 3D?
Yes. If I choosed traditional animation over full 3D it's because in Japan the later isn't yet able to well represent facial human animation. Otherwise...
As for Tsukumo it's a full 3D animated short with great cell/toon shading, especially for facial animations. Morita stressed about his approach which consisted to use Japanese 2D animation strenghts (as opposed to try to emulate the Pixar way) as a base (consistent with his early works as well as representative of a trend with part of the jp anime guys, see RE Cyborg 009). Staff was 5 people for a 10 mn short.
