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
I'm the only one who can't live without an oxygen tank in the underwater world. No matter how suffocated I feel, I preserve peace and harmony by pretending the selfish girl and my friends with complicated family backgrounds don’t bother me.
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.
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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
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
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.
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How to make this mysterious cake? The ingredients include blue eggs, cookie flowers, pillow stuffing and much more.
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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.
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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.
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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 installation work is inspired by dreams experienced during a fever. The two-minute looping animation visualizes incoherent nightmares seen intermittently when having a hallucinatory fever.
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!
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
That moment of refreshing sensation when drinking a soda in the hot summer.
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I was heading to junior high school one day when my maternal instincts suddenly kicked in. After being held hostage to those urges for a decade, I started to wonder if this feeling was really about motherliness. Virgin birth, genes, pregnancy... I journey through 10 years in search of the maternal.
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A small family-owned iron factory was closed down. What will remain of it?
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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
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.
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Yasu is a cat over 20 years old. He's still alive and kicking in the house he was left behind.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Heartbroken, I bought a bottle of wine and drank it walking home. A tipsy journey reconstructed using the Japanese traditional storytelling method "rakugo."
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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.
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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.
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A girl made of unmelted snow has fallen in love with the dragon who brings spring. A story of changing seasons and thawing hearts.
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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.
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"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...
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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 protagonist hates the Japanese hiragana letter "hee." Just the sight of it bothers her. But one day, she finds herself in a parallel world where the same syllabary lives a spectacular life.
Producer
Communication is complicated. He tries to talk to her, but she seems unreachable. It’s unimaginable: she’s right on the other side of the table. When she tries to talk, it’s the same. At a time when “communication” is one of the great leitmotifs!
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.
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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.
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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
This story is about a place long ago, before birth and before death, that everyone knows and no one knows.
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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.
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Lion Nanny rides the train and embarks on a life journey while interacting with those around her.
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The borderland between sleeping and waking is the moment when the daughter melds into her father.
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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
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.
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Reminiscing the days I spent with an old friend, facing up to the narrow but deep gap that lies between us.
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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...
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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.
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A mother goat rescues her kids from the belly of a wolf, but where is her eldest son Toruku?
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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.
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A tired woman missed her last train home. She has to wander the city all night long, but she discovers that she's not the only soul waiting for the sun to rise.
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We go to sleep in hopes for a better tomorrow. The moment of truth nears as our eyes slowly open to the new day…
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Microorganisms propagate, gather, and transform into an A4 sheet of paper. You can feel signs of life within the page.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A speeding car leaps onto the highway of Time and hurtles forward -- its velocity is limitless.
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Everyone crosses the Red Bridge and yet no one likes him. One day, he falls into the deep valley.
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This is an introduction to a long-term and world-wide power outage's consequences.
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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
Yuki-jinja Shrine is located in Kurama, Kyoto. Every year, a unique fire festival is held at the shrine. This film mixes documentary and fantasy to depict the people, deities, and spirits who create the festival together.
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Her mother was hospitalized that summer. This day from Aki-chan's summer is tinged with sadness in the company of her trusted Ryukyu dog named Goyapochi.
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A poodle named Coco is put out of its misery but wants to return to its beloved owner.
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Little Tim reveals how he understands his little universe through his unique ways of expressing feelings and emotions.
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Provided the world ends tomorrow, what would we want in the last day of grace? A beam of light embraces a woman and a man then, the world gently closes its eyes.
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This is the first letter addressed to you. A voyage to trace the vague images of memories.
Producer
The film is a journal of a woman who travels in time, in peoples and in mind.
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Kosaku Sarutahiko is a miniscule manager of a mysterious café. He tries many ways to treat his customer with the coffee he brewed but…
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A girl braids her classmate's long hair. She remembers the moments with her friend... Did all these actually happen?
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The Rakugo story of PARROT is told by a Rakugo-ka, or a lone storyteller formed of Japanese characters.
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One day when I came home, I found my mother become a cat. Unfamiliar appearance of the parents confuses the child. Yet, the time of the parents and child passes quietly like a spring breeze.
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This is a story of a little girl who believes she can hatch an egg one day if she keeps it warm.
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In a dimly lit kitchen as a chunk of meat is sliced, bugs creep out from the cut. Ordinary action like cooking transforms to the weird and creepy.
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An ensemble play with men full of distorted energy.
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The scutes glisten in the corner of her mind and she starts to dig her memories up. What was like the museum director she encountered when she was lost?
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One doesn't know where to go but has to move forward. He has to go to his goal.Always transforming himself, his heart and mind drift and run towards the goal when he finds it.
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Men's muscle, lust for battle, conflict, and the game.
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The catfish can't get back to the sea. A big catfish is stuck on a riverbank, where he lives quietly with a little catfish in a boat packed with memories from back home.
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A middle school boy, who likes to snap photos of things he fancies, and then draws pictures of them. On his usual route home, he spots the girl he likes with another boy. The balance between his delusions and reality is in constant flux.
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Naoko had a fight with her brother over a trivial thing and pushed him away. She knew she was childish but she ran away from home.
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Signs such as circles, points, and lines get together to make the shape of a ‘bear’. ‘The bear’ starts to walk to find the concrete places and comes across animals in the forest. We tend to find a story in the relationship between ‘The bear’ and other animals.
Producer
A man wanted to escape. He wanted to stay unaware but he found them all.
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‘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.
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One day is presented by shiritori, a word game of last and first. A chain of images in one line evolves the story of this game.
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Deep down in the forest there lived flower fairies in flower gardens, waking up with the sunrise, eating sweets, and chatting with each other. One day they had a visit from his and then. . .
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Some by walking, some by car or trains, or in the relay of vehicles, foxes get together for an annual assembly.
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Blood is circulated around, calmly replacing itself, making us alive. It throbs ceaselessly without any attention. It carries on
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Marie has lost the precious memories of her mother and her magic spell. One day she meets a mysterious nutcracker in her dream and strays off into an extraordinary world.
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A rat happens to find a small theater and falls in love with a small wind-up doll girl there.
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A story of two boys told through a dragonfly specimen. Is the story told from the boy’s side? Or is this a dragonfly’s dream?
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Dwarfs in red, blue and green colours have been working in each dark cabinet in a factory called television. They have kept working without questioning their own identities. Midori, a green dwarf, becomes aware of himself. . .
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Mom and Dad imagine their little baby in Mom’s tummy, which is just like a universe filled with amniotic fluid and the baby is having an adventure there.
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School, home, always lonely hero. It was just always seen in a long distance friendship. One day, the luck I think I'll make a "town" own in a vacant lot that I found on the way home of the school, and begin to draw a blueprint on the wall. At that time, a boy was approaching. The boy started the hero of Manet, gradually developed into a quarrel. Is it a heck does that mean and friendship.
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Tobacco has. . . fascinated people for centuries and does not allow them to stop smoking even when they want to. Even though you want to finish with smoking, the spirits of tobacco are just behind you. Let’s enjoy a trip to the world of tobacco.
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There is a strange museum somewhere in the world. The museum is called HARAPEKO MUSEUM, or Hungry Museum. There are many kinds of colourful foods exhibited. At night they wake up in their frames and start to move freely. .
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The film is about the water cycle. Each of the rain drops transform. . . as they follow the cycle of nature, uniting with each other, parting, or being absorbed in the course of their journey
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Visualization of the phenomenon one has when one seeks some inspiration. A female protagonist. . . goes on an imaginary trip to generate some ideas. She creates some new ideas with the elements found on that trip.
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The film is based on Ukiyodoko, a rakugo storytelling piece. Hanzo, the hero, brags to his friends to make a party go. Human nature remains unchanged. . . We love meaningless converstaions among boon companions. Different communication methods are visually tangled in. . . Edo and today. The theme is an ‘interchange between the transient and the immutable.
Producer
A high school girl goes to an amusement park in the afternoon. . . and loses her bear key-holder when she changed key-holders. Believing himself to have been abandoned, the bear tries to follow her. Can he really gain her love?
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Story of Qs. Three Qs and more make QQQ. QQQ spin and roll. And QQQ transform themselves, spinning. QQQ transform, spinning, rolling, swinging, turning, and traveling.
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I tried to symbolize the emotion of loneliness with the motif of the poet, Taneda Santoka, who has broken the haiku form. Cutout method depicts subtle face expressions of the man who is slightly drunk in the mountain[
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A mother making a traditional New Year’s vegetable dish for the family, and a child watching. The ingredients are anthropomorphic peas, carrots, burdock root and konjak. Enjoy the dish!
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There are creatures like this. In the sky. An ‘ant’ lost on earth and a man left behind. Hey, listen to the request! The man’s ‘ant gathering’ begins.
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Depiction of an incident that happened one night. . . as everyone returns to their hometown for the holidays, told from a child’s point of view.
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Bonnie is something like the wind, and she was hoping that everything would get blown away.
Producer
The blue evolves. The blue rises toward the upper world. The blue becomes green and then yellow, which makes things unstable. So red circle appears to bring into balance between blue and yellow. These three colours unite into one, [rising] until the summit, over the boundary line, and becomes a white circle to a full stop. And then it returns to the first state.
Producer
The Yotsuya Alphabet story tells of a girl caught in a surreal world with the use of Japanese characters. The story is about the girl who lives in the town called Yotsuya and wanders around the surreal world. Eventually she melts down and becomes a part of the Yotsuya town. Is the town real or only her imagination?
Producer
There is a stone pillar that continues long and long. Climbers are climbing it. Each climber keeps climbing the stone pillar spending time. They are the symbols of accumulation.
