This is less of a research, but more of an inspiration. I like how minimal the animation is, however you get the story of what the animation is about and it has your typical anime music that has been altered a bit by giving it a modern touch of the beat-box. Some might have simple dialog or just serene music. here are few clips and screen grabs of the animation. The animation or the images do belong to big studios like Studio Ghibli.

In this clip you can see the characters are wafting the smoke into the air and you can see the smoke rise up. If you look closely the animation of the smoke is a capture of the same 2 or 3 images on a loop to give you the illusion of the smoke rising.

Again in this clip the animation is as simple as the clouds, swing, trees, etc are moving back and forth and with the aid of the music it gives you a sense of completion for the animation.

Kuang, R., 2016. Ronald Kuang. [online] YouTube. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWPoFKsUrn5iCnHB1B9GeaA&gt; [Accessed 11 May 2020].