Inch-High Samurai (一寸法師, 1993)

This version of the traditional Japanese folk tale Issun Boushi (Inch-High Samurai) was broadcast on the 12th of February 1993 on TBS. It is episode 921 of the long-running Manga Nihon Mukashi Banashi (まんが日本昔ばなし) series, which was digitally re-mastered in 2005 for rebroadcast due to popular demand.Issun Boushi was directed by Teruhito Ueguchi (上口照人), the chief animator for the Manga Nihon Mukashi...

Sumiko 2 ( あなたの態度が気に入らない, 2008)

In Uruma Delvi’s follow up to Sumiko Forever, Sumiko shows another aspect of her personality. The first short film had a melancholic feel to it and Sumiko’s voice was sentimental and nostalgic. In I Don’t Like Your Attitude (Anata no Taido ga Ki ni iranai/あなたの態度が気に入らない), Sumiko takes on a rather petulant tone as she rattles off five things that really annoy her.Her first complaint is about the fact...

Sumiko Forever (2008)

I take longer than the average person to warm to CG animation. My favourite animations are those that are entirely made by hand, or involve some kind of an avant-garde process. This is not to say that I am against the use of computers in animation – they have become an indispensable tool in the editing process of even traditionally made cel animation. It is only when the use of computer technology...

La maison en petits cubes (つみきのいえ, 2008)

After much anticipation, my copy of Kunio Katō's latest film La maison en petits cubes (Tsumiki no ie) finally arrived in the post this week. It won the Annecy Cristal, the top prize at the prestigious Annecy International Animated Film Festival in June as well as taking two prizes at the Hiroshima International Festival in the summer. In contrast, the film seemed to controversially make no impression...

Bloomed Words おはなしの花

おはなしの花（BloomedWords）This cute little Flash animation by young animators Amica Kubo (久保亜美香 aka アミカ) and Seita Inoue (井上太) rose to acclaim in 2006 when it won the Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival. The film has since appeared at international festivals around the world and in 2007 was one of the 7 winners (out of over 200 entries) of Studio 4°C's Next Genius competition.The short animation...

UrumaDelvi Paint

Uruma Delvi ( うるまでるび) are a husband and wife team known for their distintive CG animation style. They have done a lot of educational shorts for the NHK including Kabuseru Samurai (The Capsule Samurai), a series which ran over the space of four years from 2003-2006. They have also tried their hand at more independently minded projects such as their 2003 contribution to Kihachiro Kawamoto's collective...

Takashi Ishida

Artist, poet, and filmmaker Takashi Ishida will be promoting his work overseas this autumn. I first encountered his films when watching the collection Thinking and Drawing, and was quite taken by his experimentation with the relationship between time and space in animation. His training as a painter has had a big impact on his work and he belongs to the tradition of experimental art animation. ...

Memories of Matsuko (嫌われ松子の一生, 2006)

Tetsuya Nakashima's Memories of Matsuko (Kiraware Matsuko no Isshou, 2006) bursts onto the screen like a modern day Busby Berkeley spectacular. However, unlike a Berkeley musical, which usually has a superficial plot with a dash or two of light romance, Memories of Matsuko tells the tragic life story of a woman who has been brutally murdered in a field near her squalid apartment. While most musicals...

Kashiko Kawakita at the NFC

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Kashiko Kawakita (川喜多かしこ, 1908-1993). Kawakita and her husband, Nagamasa Kawakita (川喜多長政, 1903-1981), dedicated their lives to the promotion of Japanese films overseas and foreign films in Japan. Her achievements include sitting on the Cannes Film Festival jury in 1963, founding the Kawakita Film Institute (formerly the Japan Film Library Council) in...

Tomoyasu Murata Summer Animation Course

Tomoyasu Murata (村田朋泰) taught short courses in cel animation and puppet animation this summer at TMC Nishi-Nippori Atelier. He has posted a 9 second clip of the work done by the puppet animation class on youtube. While this may seem like a very short film, it would have involved a lot of work on the part of the students. First constructing the puppets, then learning how to position them in order...

Watashi no Kimochi (わたしのきもち, 2004-present)

This short animation produced for the NHK by Aiga areba daijobu is one of my kids' most favourite Japanese television shows (along with Anpanman, Pokemon, and Ichi-jo-man). The Watashi no Kimochi (My Feelings) stop motion animation shorts (usually 2-3 minutes in length) aim to encourage children to openly talk about their emotions. The shorts feature an animated paper cup character who goes by...

The Diary of Tortov Roddle (或る旅人の日記, 2003-4)

This year Kunio Katō (加藤 久仁生 b.1977) won the Annecy Cristal at the Annecy International Animation Festival for his latest film La maison en petits cubes (Tsumiki no Ie) as well as both the Hiroshima Prize and the Audience Prize at the Hiroshima International Animation Festival. In so doing he is following in the footsteps of Kōji Yamamura who won the Annecy Cristal (in 2003 for Atama Yama) . Yamamura...