Kuni Kawachi

The Acorns and the Wildcat is a unique short film in picture-book format from the creator of Night on the Galactic Railroad and Gauche the Cellist. Unusually for an anime, a narrator reads Kenji's story aloud while the action is played out on the screen by a succession of warm and evocative illustrations brought to life by subtle touches of animation. If the film feels somehow familiar yet you can't put your finger on the reason why, it's probably the sumptuously minimalist animation by Yasuhiro Nagura, who was the animation director of Mamoru Oshii's artsy 1986 feature Angel's Egg. That, and Kenji's wildcat is said to have been the inspiration for Miyazaki's Panda/Totoro creature. The idea of reading Kenji's story aloud instead of playing it out as a drama is quite refreshing, and Kenji's magical language and narrative style are entirely sufficient to sustain interest. Combined with the spacey music and breathtaking art, the result is a pleasantly unassuming little gem of a film.

A story about an albino brown bear and his woodland friends as they encounter various human artifacts in the woods and interact with them.

Things couldn't have seemed better for Shiga Yuzuru, your average teenage high-schooler. The captain of the school archery team, he's going steady with teammate and classmate Satomi. He had almost forgotten that he had been betrothed to his cousin, Shiga Azusa, when he was only 6... but all this changes when his aunt dies a peculiar and unnatural death. Now arriving to claim what she feels is rightfully hers, only Satomi stands in Azusa's way... and with the mysterious and frightening powers that Azusa brings, Satomi won't stand in her way for long!

"Kin No Tori" is an adaptation of the homonymous fairy tale "The Golden Bird" by Brothers Grimm. A golden apple is stolen from the King's garden. The King orders his three sons to guard the apples in turn and to find out who is the thief. When the youngest son, Hansu, presents a feather that he got from the golden bird that stole the apple the king sends his three sons to bring this bird to him and so Hansu journey begins.

Up in Heaven, Yuki’s grandparents decide that, having turned thirteen years old, she must go down to Earth to a village that is torn by bandits and intervene to save its people. However if she does not succeed within one year she will become as insubstantial as the wind. Down in the village, Yuki is befriended by a group of orphans whose parents have all been killed by the bandits and who now subsist by begging. Yuki amazes them by taming the wild horse Blizzard. She is instrumental in getting the orphans and farmers to stand up to first the warring bandits and then Goemon, the greedy lord that owns the region. But Yuki must face her greatest challenge yet when the displeased Demon God that lives in the volcano emerges to destroy those who live beneath.

Conditions have been better for the nameless protagonist: his grandmother is a shoplifter and his war criminal father and sister have an unhealthy, intimate relationship with the family rabbit.