Producer
A man is walking along the beach. Then a demon, the man’s pain, appears and chases him. The pain is unbearable, coursing through his entire body. He somehow manages to get away, but eventually, he returns to the ocean even though he knows that the demon will appear again if he goes there.
Producer
Even though I feel like I'm living in the now, here, I think I just end up being in nowhere all the time. And in the nowhere, I find the now and the here.
Producer
Things are kind of crappy right now. In Japanese, we say "hanakuso (nose snot)" instead of crap, though. Here's a dose of hope and giggles.
Ojitan
Things are kind of crappy right now. In Japanese, we say "hanakuso (nose snot)" instead of crap, though. Here's a dose of hope and giggles.
Producer
Kaibun are palidromes in which words sound the same when read backwards and forwards. Sometimes the meaning changes, and sometimes not. I brought this playful and poetic world to life.
Producer
When I touched the sack of cod roe for the first time, it felt exactly like my thighs. It was light pink and so soft. Maybe my whole world is made of squishy fish eggs.
Producer
The mouse finds a prism and it reveals to him a magnificent rainbow like he's never seen before. He tries to show his friends but for some reason it won't reappear. It seems beauty has a mind of its own.
Producer
When I was a kid, my big brother became obsessed with the 90s Japanese subculture of teenage guys who were known as "Gyaru-o." His odd appearance totally mystified me so I started to sneak into his room to look for his secrets.
Producer
TV shows, manga, music, movies, plays, pop stars and cartoon characters. I watch videos on my phone with the TV blaring and music in the background. I’m swimming in media... Is this the other side of the screen?! Awesome!
Boy band A / Energetic Boy (voice)
TV shows, manga, music, movies, plays, pop stars and cartoon characters. I watch videos on my phone with the TV blaring and music in the background. I’m swimming in media... Is this the other side of the screen?! Awesome!
Producer
How to make this mysterious cake? The ingredients include blue eggs, cookie flowers, pillow stuffing and much more.
Producer
I conveyed my love and gratitude to a certain deceased physician amidst the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, while a personal shopper expressed the same emotions from yet a different place.
Producer
Everyone has a sense of justice. The protagonist thinks her ideas are right and voices her opinions through protests for social justice. One day the demonstration turns violent. Maybe we could live in peace if self-righteousness were to disappear.
Producer
That moment of refreshing sensation when drinking a soda in the hot summer.
Producer
Far away from her hometown, the little fox studies in a foreign country. The monotonous days and bare relationships make her increasingly homesick. But one day, she finds the curiosity that she had once lost and takes a new step.
Producer
No doubt negative enery is going to accumulate in my body today, tomorrow and the day after. When that happens, I'll have my own way of release.
Producer
This work is a missive to the life form we call viruses in the hope that we can coexist. The relationship between humans and viruses is poetically expressed from a different perspective.
Producer
This work is based on 15 years of entries in the diary that I’ve kept since age eight. Through creating this work I was searching for freedom from my preconceptions about animation and myself.
Producer
My older brother and I became separated on a mountain crawling with eerie insects. I was taught that family should stay together no matter what, so I climbed deep into the mountain in search of my brother.
Producer
A small family-owned iron factory was closed down. What will remain of it?
Producer
Right there in that little gap between fantasy and reality, me and you, movies and videos, concrete and abstract, is that nice cozy space.
Producer
My deceased great-grandmother had been a part of my life as a portrait on the wall. I searched for ways to substantiate her life inside me and decided to photograph and develop pictures of her at two different ages.
Producer
There are three "Motifs". The complete differences between them make themselves self-doubt. The melody begins, and the music motif could not resist the impulse to dance, but the others also catching up ... Am "I" also a "Motif"? This film uses a Fugue from Bach, tries to unify similar concepts that exist in different forms, including music, visual arts, and narrative.
Producer
A mix of life tales in modern Japan where fate is predicted by your name and a fingerplay song. Are the members of this society playing into the hands of some higher being or are they living the life of impermanence?
Producer
The little girl has a complex because she doesn’t look like her mom, and the mom wants her daughter to look more ladylike. Their faces don’t look alike, but their hands do. The girl treasures this resemblance, which also enables the mom to treat her daughter with tenderness.
Producer
Deep down the alley the black cat has entered is a town where nonhuman beings live in peace. The cat returns to his home to rest when suddenly he hears a strange sound coming from next door.
Producer
Yasu is a cat over 20 years old. He's still alive and kicking in the house he was left behind.
Producer
A boy gets pregnant. Through the pains of morning sickness and a variety of prejudice, he finally gives birth.
Producer
Why do you want acceptance? If it's not going to happen, then forget about what it was you wanted acknowledged and just have some soup, like always.
Producer
Here, everyone is an outlander. But something's not right. Everyone else has a place to sit at the table, a home to return to at will. Not him. Lonely as it may be, he will look ahead and find his place here.
Producer
Two brothers are drawing pictures in art class, but they see completely different things. The younger one is confused by the behavior of his brother, who is lost in his own world. But then, his big brother shares his beautiful world of gentle sea creatures.
Producer
One day, while the main character is dozing off, he is abandoned by the owner of the shadow that he lives in. This creature who has lost his home wanders through the night city in search of his shadow.
Producer
On days I don't want to leave the house, I enjoy watching TV and videos on my smartphone. I'm supposed to be at home but the screen keeps taking me elsewhere and I lose my grip on my whereabouts and reality.
Producer
One day a boy encounters a street vendor who sells chicks.Even the boy knows these birds will die very soon. To his eyes, the man is selling none other than death itself.
Producer
This house rattling spirit has lived in this old house for generations. But the old woman who lives there as the final resident can no longer hear the noises it makes, which leaves the house rattler filled with a sense of longing.
Producer
One day a girl notices a distortion in her surrounding environment, which prompts her to start searching for her own connection with the world. But, the distortions become even more extreme. She wonders if the deviation is happening within her, or in the outside world.
Producer
It's summer vacation and all the kids in the neighborhood have left to visit relatives. But there in the relentless glare of the sun, is a boy looking up at the sky.
Producer
Heartbroken, I bought a bottle of wine and drank it walking home. A tipsy journey reconstructed using the Japanese traditional storytelling method "rakugo."
Producer
The girl wished to transcend her own body and become a jellyfish. She was drawn to the figure of the jellyfish floating freely in the sea.
Producer
Summer is coming to an end. A little girl on the beach remembers the days spent giggling and dancing with her friend. The goodbyes and memories intertwine in a mesh of sorrow and joy.
Producer
A girl made of unmelted snow has fallen in love with the dragon who brings spring. A story of changing seasons and thawing hearts.
Producer
In a land where there are no enemies or allies is a lone soldier. He spends his days sculpting wood with his bayonet. And then one day, out of the blue, an enemy stands before him.
Producer
"You're right. There was a bug–I killed it." Late at night, only one voice wafts around the room. What lies on the other end of the telephone line is anyone's guess...
Producer
Now a grown woman, I sit on the train recollecting my childhood. That morning field baking in the sun. Making one bamboo-leaf boat after the other. The smoke from the fireworks spreading like a thick fog. And to those memories I say, "Welcome back."
Producer
The main character wrapped in a white cocoon rides on a train with no particular destination in mind. This character travels somewhere far away with the Face entrusted by another passenger, along with the Shadow that vaguely appears in the window.
Producer
Mizuki Kiyama's short animation utilizes a paint on glass technique to render a young girl's visit to a neighborhood sento (bath house) with her mother with dazzling sensuous wonder. Evoking childish fascination at daily rituals, this quotidian act amidst feminine intimacy becomes a space of otherworldly fantasy.
Producer
How long has it been since she lost control of her body? She is completely tapped out and finds herself wishing that she could just shed her body.
Producer
We have limited control over our bodies, and we can't change ourselves at will. While I yearn for complete freedom, I also want to make peace with my frustration.
Producer
An alternative take on the birth of our moon and what one woman lost in the process of creating it.
Producer
This story is about a place long ago, before birth and before death, that everyone knows and no one knows.
Producer
A visitor shows up in the middle of the night at the countryside house that Miyako shares with her father. Miyako goes to wake up her father, but the creature enters the house. Miyako stands frozen.
Producer
Lion Nanny rides the train and embarks on a life journey while interacting with those around her.
Producer
The borderland between sleeping and waking is the moment when the daughter melds into her father.
Producer
A dog we like to pet on the way home from school, an eccentric guy, and ringing doorbells as a prank. That's our life in this town.
Producer
Inorganic and disconnected substances are infected with consciousness. They wander between points and surfaces believing they are complete individuals.
Producer
Brothers eating dinner, a girl watering the plants, a boy awakening in the night… The daily scenery from the house where they all lived at one point or another.
Producer
Reminiscing the days I spent with an old friend, facing up to the narrow but deep gap that lies between us.
Producer
Okinawa is ominous right before the arrival of a typhoon. At first, Anri is excited by the unusual turn of events, but gradually she becomes fearful of the threatening typhoon. Then, her big sister tells her that typhoons have an eye...
Producer
Mimi is fed up with her pathetic self. One day she walks along looking at the ground like usual when she notices a suspicious flyer.
Producer
A mother goat rescues her kids from the belly of a wolf, but where is her eldest son Toruku?
Producer
A woman traces her memories through a pearl ring, and comes upon her mother gazing at the same ring. But her memories soon lose their outline and become enclosed within the pearl.
Producer
We go to sleep in hopes for a better tomorrow. The moment of truth nears as our eyes slowly open to the new day…
Producer
A girl heading home from school is met with a bigger version of herself who poses arbitrary challenges with unspeakable consequences. The little girl tries to keep up but suddenly the stakes are raised.
Producer
For her, dance is life. And life is dance. Every tingle in her heart gets her swinging to the beat.
Producer
Bloopers in sports are different from the blunders we make in everyday life but they tend to share similar physical movements. The title comes from an old Japanese saying about recovering from bad happenings.
Producer
Two sisters stay at home alone. They spend their time in their own worlds, at times in synch with each other and other times disconnected.
Producer
Microorganisms propagate, gather, and transform into an A4 sheet of paper. You can feel signs of life within the page.
Producer
This video installation is an experiment that imagines the canvas as a box and animates images within that space.
Producer
A white lump appears at a landfill site with an ocean view and slowly heads for the sea. It is anxious to find a place to return.
Producer
The adventure of a lost little rabbit wandering through the woods. As night draws near, wonder-working plants and flowers show the way.
Producer
Fluffy turtles, fluffy monkeys, fluffy lizards. Discover the world populated by these mysteriously charming imaginary creatures. They have adorably fluffy bodies and are becoming an ever more common sight in daily life.
Producer
There's a pet caterpillar named Larva in my class. I don't like bugs but Larva is sweet and we become friends. But one day, I am faced with a horrible choice.
Producer
Shiroinu writes down the day’s events before he goes to sleep. One day, he opens a drawer buried in the snow and finds old diary entries. He realizes that he’s forgotten the sensations and emotions from that time to the extent that he feels like he’s reading about someone else’s life.
Producer
The angel of wind exhales, sending fluffy dandelion seeds into a slow dance. Wind and light guide the downy seeds into the magical world of botany.
Producer
In the moments before death, one of the Battling Gods recalls his defeat in a magnificent fight. That battle transcended meta worlds, time and parallel universes as the Battling God faced off with another of his kind. All living creatures celebrated their fight with cries of joy.
Producer
A speeding car leaps onto the highway of Time and hurtles forward -- its velocity is limitless.
Producer
Everyone crosses the Red Bridge and yet no one likes him. One day, he falls into the deep valley.
Producer
A day in a seaside town.
Producer
Aoko is confident about the documents she creates at work, but doesn't get any positive feedback. Then, she witnesses her colleague secretly changing the documents she created. Aoko is turned into a piece of candy to keep her quiet…
Producer
One night as I was walking through the forest, a robber steals my bookmark. I chase him only to end up in an endless void of darkness.
Producer
At night, a man holds out his own leash into the void. He has to explode in order to escape.
Producer
These girls live by the law of heels. As painful as the codes may be, they're also the source of so many of their secret pleasures.
Producer
From that day an anxiety started to root in the man's room. He just keeps walking not to sink in listlessness. This is a document to reflect my own anxiety arisen after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
Producer
In the pitch darkness a man cannot see anything. Only light source is a light lit with a match by someone else. The light is lit and put out. This repeats sometime and eventually the man makes up his mind.
Producer
You can hear three stories, and see one story. That makes four different stories happening at the same time.
Producer
It happens at a half-demolished shopping street. After a brief rain, there comes a moment of another landscape.
Producer
The fear to be ruined calmly without any conscience. Everybody is getting distorted soundly and gently.
Producer
"Someday, this will end. I hate it. I wanna live forever," murmurs a girl over and over again. Does she repeat the same moments, or does she move forward? It looks and sounds either way. A wordplay animation.
Producer
Only separated heart grows big without knowing it. Eventually self swelled something almost swallowed himself to disappear. Chaff failed to make a good rice crop.
Producer
A record of sensation and signs of watching tumbling, moving and then floating
Producer
There is a huge fish that swallows boys. A boy tries to fish using himself as bait. He sails a boat to eat this huge fish.
Producer
The everyday life of an elephant and a woman, his wife in a lakeside house. Their life together with a certain distance repeats itself. The traces of the passing time cover the familiar landscape. One day an accident happens to the couple living together with contradictions and secrets
Producer
The devices not used for a story are fed and then destroyed. This is a reproduction of reminiscence when a heroine runs about a neuron in a moment of waiting for the world that didn’t happen.
Producer
‘Mrs. KABAGodZILLA had a daughter whose feet and arms looked just like her own.’ Mother and child were always together, but the mother's hospitalization makes the daughter remember the past, and think a little about what lies ahead.
Producer
This story takes place in future earth, where people are restricted to go outside because of radioactive pollution. In the dark room, the boy is dying to play outside, and his elder sister is full of anxiety. ‘Gray’ is one of the unit to measure radiation.
Producer
Mimoptera has a nature to assimilate with its surroundings. It assimilates its own form into the environment to avoid the attention. What would imitation bring on? Will mimoptera keep imitating. . . life?
Producer
I want to leave home,” a pet fish told a boy one day. The boy reluctantly takes the fish out to the sea to ‘keep his promise,’ as it says. Their recollections on the way became slightly discrepant.
Producer
A donkey has grown old and weak after having worked for [a] human being for a long time. Realizing his prime time has passed, the donkey decides to go to Bremen to join the town musicians. On the way there, he meets a dog, a cat, and a rooster, and they find the robbers’ house. Four animals scare the robbers away from the house. They make their new lives with their new home.
Producer
The theme comes from unique Japanese folklore, Red Uncleanness or defilement with blood. A girl, whose thought pattern jumps at a leap. . . confines her various thoughts on the other side of the mirror and inside the sliding doors to go outside.
Producer
He’ has kept moving forward through his life. Nothing else bothered him. But, one day by chance he realized that he has definitely grown old. And eventually he makes a complete stop.
Director
Animations inspired by the art of Jim Woodring.
