AUG 17-21

Guidebookhttps://animation.hiroshimafest.org/
Drawing：shunshun

Guidebook
Timetable

All Films

Pan-Pacific& AsiaCompetition

World
Competition

Timetable ･･････････････････････････････････････････････････ 04

SpecialPrograms

List of All Films ････････････････････････････････････････････ 06
Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition ･････････････････････････ 08

AcademyWorld Competition
Allegories Nowadays ････････････････････････････････････････ 10
A Slice of Society ･･･････････････････････････････････････････ 12
Adventure in Storytelling ････････････････････････････････････ 14

H-AIR
Hiroshima
Artist-inResidence

Credits

Visual Poetry ･･･････････････････････････････････････････････ 16
Sparks: Films For Children ･･･････････････････････････････････ 18

Special Programs
Water Koji Yamamura ･･･････････････････････････････････････ 20
Gender Identity and Sexuality／Women in Anima Honami Yano ････････ 22Contemporary Japan Mirai Mizue ････････････････････････････ 24
Visual Music Hiromichi Hosoma ･･･････････････････････････････ 26
Exhibition Jung-Yeon Ma ･････････････････････････････････････ 28
Lecture Shunji Gondo ････････････････････････････････････････ 30

AcademyJapanese Language Education x Animation･･･････････････････ 31
Ars Electronica x Hiroshima Animation Season
International Exchange Program for High School Students ･････ 34
Hiroshima Animation Salon 1"Making the City More Interesting though Culture" ････････････ 36
Pre-event A Day to Create, A Day to Think ････････････････････ 38
Pre-event Fumiyo Kouno Lecture

Pre-event "Stories That Make You Want to Draw Manga" ･･････ 40

H-AIR Hiroshima Artist-in-Residence
Outline and Program ････････････････････････････････････････ 42
AREA-1 Tsurumi area Nata Metlukh ･･････････････････････････ 44
AREA-2 Yokogawa area Mahboobeh Kalaee ･･･････････････････ 46
AREA-3 Minaga area Sakura Koretsune ･･･････････････････････ 48

Credits ･･････････････････････････････････････････････････････ 50

03

Timetable
10:00

AUG

JMS
JMS

11:00

12:00
11:25

Grand

17

アステール
ASTER
プラザ
PLAZA Hall

WED

Hiroshima City
Cinematographic
and Audio-Visual
Library

13:00

14:00

15:00

16:00

17:00

13:50

Admission Free

HAS Classics
Inspirace／Invention for Destruction

16:25

Opening Ceremony／
Golden Carpstar Award Ceremony

Animation and Hiroshima
GOTHICMADE

10:30

14:00

Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation
Legend of the White Serpent
13:30

18
THU

JMS
ASTER
PLAZA

Admission Free

HAS Classics
Nezha Conquers the Dragon King／The Cowboy s Flute

MediumHall

10:15

Community
Gallery

10:00 Admission Free

12:40

15:10

12:30

Golden Carpstar:
Yoriko Mizushiri

11:40 Admission Free

Talk: Pan-Pacific andAsia Competition

Animation and Hiroshima:
Nozomu Sasaki

10:30

14:20 Admission Free

JMS
ASTER
PLAZA

Medium
Hall

12:35

10:00

16:00

12:15 Admission Free

Community
Gallery

Talk: Documentary andExperimental Film Center

Hiroshima City
Cinematographic
and Audio-Visual
Library

20
SAT

JMS
ASTER
PLAZA

MediumHall

10:00

Community
Gallery

10:00 Admission Free

21
SUN

JMS
ASTER
PLAZA

11:15

Community
Gallery

10:00 Admission Free

04

Golden Carpstar: Feinaki Beijing
Animation Week: Feinaki's Torchbearers
Talk: World Competition:Adventure in Storytelling／Visual Poetry／Sparks: Films for Children

12:00

Talk: Feinaki Beijing
Animation Week

18:00

World Competition:
Adventure in Storytelling

20:45

International Animation Boidsound Special
The Secret of Kells

22:30

International Animation Boidsound Special
The Boy and the World

19:35

World Competition:
Visual Poetry

18:00

Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation
Momotaro: Sacred Sailors
15:00

13:00

symposium
for Academy Division

Admission Free

International Animation Boidsound Special
Ethel & Ernest

Talk:
Florence Miailhe

14:00

Sparks: Films for Children(Japanese dubbed version)

18:00

15:30 Admission Free

Talk: Miyu Distribution
by Luce Grosjean

Admission Free

Pan-Pacific and Asia
Competition (1)Animationa and Hiroshima
Kattobase! Dreamers Carp Tanjou Monogatar

16:06

Pan-Pacific and Asia
Competition (2)15:10

Golden Carpstar: Science SARUThe Heike Story

11:30 Admission Free

On WarGrave of the Fireflies

14:00 Admission Free

12:30

Admission Free

Golden Carpstar: Kristine Belson
How to Train Your Dragon

10:30

International Animation Boidsound Special
The Breadwinner

Joe Hsieh,
Horror, Suspense

Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation
The Book of the Dead

10:00

Yokogawa
Cinema

15:10

16:00

10:30

7th
Floor

GoldenCarpstar

Talk: Queer Cinema
and "Me"

Golden Carpstar: Science SARU
INU-OHSpecial Talk:
Min Tanaka and Koji Yamamura

JMS
ASTER
PLAZA

World Competition:
A Slice of Society (2)17:00 Admission Free

15:10

12:45 Admission Free

Admission Free

Symposium:
Anti-harassment

Collaboration Program,
Symposium, Exhibition,
Ceremonies

19:35

Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation
Legend of the White Serpent

Charley Bowers

Talk: World Competition:
A Slice of Society

H-AIR
Hiroshima
Artist-in-Residence

Boidsound Film Festival@Salon Cinema
JUNK HEAD

18:00

12:30

MediumHall

Hiroshima City
Cinematographic
and Audio-Visual
Library

Talk: ConnectingQueerwith Animation

On WarNausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Florence Miailhe
The Crossing

Visual Music

10:00

16:00 Admission Free

Talk:
Chris Robinson

12:10

World Competition:
Sparks: Films for Children

Yokogawa
CinemaGrand
Hall

15:00 Admission Free

World Competition:
Sparks: Films for Children
10:00

19:35

For Coexistance

13:30

Grand
Hall

International Animation Boidsound Special
World of Tomorrow／It's Such a Beautiful Day

16:25

14:00

Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation
The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon

Hiroshima City
Cinematographic
and Audio-Visual
Library

AUG

Talk: World Competition:
Allegories Nowadays

10:30

Yokogawa
Cinema

AUG

World Competition:
A Slice of Society (1)Women in Anima

13:30 Admission Free

21:40

Special Screening
ETHEL & ERNEST

18:00

14:05

Gender Identity and Sexuality

Academy

18:20

International Animation Boidsound Special
The Boy and the World

Special Screening
The Unnamable Dance

12:10

Golden Carpstar:
Documentary and Experimental Film Center

World
Competition

Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation
The Book of the Dead

14:50

Special Screening
Dozens of Norths

World Competition:
Allegories Nowadays (2)18:00

On WarGrave of the Fireflies

Boidsound Film Festival@Salon Cinema
MIND GAME
Admission Free

19:45

SpecialPrograms

17:15

HAS Classics
Song of the Sea

Pan-Pacific& AsiaCompetition

Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema
AKIRA

Talk: H-AIR
HiroshimaArtist in ResidenceInternational Animation Boidsound Special
Ville Neuve

10:20

International Animation Boidsound Special
The Breadwinner

16:00 Admission Free

Talk:
Kodansha VR Lab

14:10

Grand
Hall

22:00

Watar in Animation:
Nobuhiro Aihara & Koji Yamamura

14:00

Animation and Hiroshima
Kattobase! Dreamers Carp Tanjou Monogatari

24:00

16:30

Water in Animation:
Fluidity and Discontinuity

13:00 Admission Free

Talk:
Yoriko Mizushiri

23:00

19:45

World Competition:
Allegories Nowadays (1)Salon
CinemaFRIInternational Animation Boidsound Special
Wolfwalkers

18:10

14:15

Lecture: How Japanese AnimationHas Achieved theExpression of the Water (Lecture by Shunji Gondo)

Yokogawa
Cinema19

19:45

International Animation Boidsound Special
The Secret of Kells

No.7 Cherry Lane

Florence Miailhe: Short Films

22:00

Pan-Pacific and Asia
Competition (2)Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema
Ride Your Wave
10:00

21:00

19:30

17:15

Hiroshima City
Cinematographic
and Audio-Visual
Library

AUG

Pan-Pacific and Asia
Competition (1)17:35World Competition:
Visual Poetry

Salon
Cinema

Grand
Hall

18:00

20:00

Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

15:10

World Competition:
Adventure in Storytelling

19:00

18:00

Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation
The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon

Yokogawa
CinemaAUG

18:00

Golden Carpstar: Feinaki Beijing Animation Week
To the Bright Side

13:35

Nihei Sarina, Ryotaro Miyajima,
Honami Yano

13:30 Admission Free

International Animation Boidsound Special
Ville Neuve
18:00

Closing andAward Ceremony

19:55

International Animation Boidsound Special
World of Tomorrow／It's Such a Beautiful Day

22:00

International Animation Boidsound Special
Wolfwalkers

19:15

Award Winning Films

15:55

Japan Animation Association Presents
Dive into the Sea of Japanese Independent Animation!

15:00 Admission Free

Talk:
Joe Hsieh

18:10

Animation and Hiroshima:
Tomotaka Kubo

16:10 Admission Free

Talk: Sony Pictures Animation 20 Years of Innovation

14:00

Water in Animation:
Japanese Short FIlms
15:00

World Competition:
Allegories Nowadays (1)

16:30

World Competition:
Allegories Nowadays (2)18:10World Competition:
A Slice of Society (1)19:40World Competition:
A Slice of Society (2)

05

AUG

17 WED

JMS
ASTER
PLAZA
Grand HallPROGRAM

11:25 HAS Classics
13:50 Animation and Hiroshima
18:00 Pan-Pacific and Asia
Competition (1)19:30 Pan-Pacific and Asia
Competition (2)TITLE

DIRECTORLENGTH（min）

Inspirace
Karel Zeman
Invention for Destruction Karel Zeman
GOTHICMADE
Mamoru Nagano
Ma Ma Hu Hu
Liang-Hsin Huang
Flowing Home
Sandra Desmazieres
Misery Loves Company
Sasha LeeRed Fire
Mona A.Shahi
Wandering With NONO And PUPU See Ek Chang
How I Grew Up
Yufei Liu, Yike Cen, Jiawei Li
Worms Ate My Flesh
Nigel Braddock
Modo De Vida - A Goan Sketchbook Rohit Karandadi
Bird in the Peninsula
Atsushi Wada
BestiaHugo Covarrubias
The Loach
Xi Chen, An Xu
The Visit
Morrie Tan
Patient's Mind
Wang Zhiheng
Charlotte
Zach Dorn
The Fourth Wall
Mahboobeh Kalaee
Los Huesos
Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociñ

12
83
70
03
14
03
11
02
07
04
04
16
15
07
09
06
12
09
14

Yokogawa
Cinema13:30 World Competition: Adventure in Storytelling
15:10 World Competition: Visual Poetry
17:35 International Animation Boidsound Special The Secret of Kells
Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey 75
19:45 International Animation Boidsound Special Wolfwalkers
Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart 103
94
22:00 International Animation Boidsound Special The Breadwinner
Nora Twomey
Hiroshima City79
10:30 Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation Legend of the White Serpent Taiji Yabushita
Cinematographic
86
and Audio-Visual 14:00 Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon Yugo Serikawa
Library
116
18:00 Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation Nausicaa of the valley of the wind Hayao Miyazaki
96
Salon
17:15 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema Ride Your Wave
Masaaki Yuasa
Cinema124
19:45 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema AKIRA
Katsuhiro Otomo

AUG

18 THU

Nezha Conquers the Dragon King Wang Shuchen, Yan Dingxian, Xu Jingda 59
20
The Cowboy s FluteTe Wei09
12:40 Florence Miailhe:
HammamFlorence Miailhe
Short Films
16
Scheherazade
Florence Miailhe
11
A Summer Night Rendez-vous Florence Miailhe
15
Conte de Quartier
Florence Miailhe06
Texture of Dreams
Florence Miailhe
23
Meanders
Florence Miailhe
125
15:10 Joe Hsieh
No.7 Cherry Lane
Yonfan12
18:10 World Competition:
Tiger is Strolling Around Anastasiia Falileieva
Allegories Nowadays (1)11Reduction
Réka Anna Szakály
09
HelferAnna Szöllősi
05
In the Mountains
Wally Chung
16
Prince in a Pastry Shop
Katarzyna Agopsowicz
05
Confessions of an English Ant-Eater Alex Crumbie
05
A Story for 2 Trumpets
Amandine Meyer
15
SkinnedJoachim Hérissé
72
19:45 World Competition: Allegories Nowadays (2) When You Get To The Forest Eric Power04
JMS
10:15 Golden Carpstar:
Kappo
Yoriko Mizushiri
YorikoMizushiri
06
FUTON
Yoriko Mizushiri
ASTER
PLAZA
05
Kamakura
Yoriko Mizushiri
Medium Hall
06
Maku
Yoriko Mizushiri
05
airflow
Yoriko Mizushiri
02
My Luxury Night
Yoriko Mizushiri
05
Anxious Body
Yoriko Mizushiri
05
14:15 Water in Animation:
Aquatic
Koji Yamamura
Fluidity and Discontinuity
06
Dragonfly
Nobuhiro Aihara
06
Datum Point
Ryo Orikasa
07
Man On The Chair
Jeong Dahee04
Baths
Tomek Ducki
16
Once There Was a Sea...
Joanna Kozuch
05
16:30 Watar in Animation:
Rhabdophis Tigrinus
Nobuhiro Aihara
Nobuhiro Aihara &05
Short Distance Runner
Nobuhiro Aihara
Koji Yamamura
05
Red DiamantNobuhiro Aihara
05
Cloud Thread
Nobuhiro Aihara
03
Wind Erosion
Nobuhiro Aihara
04
Rain―Memory of Cloud.1 Nobuhiro Aihara
04
Water Ring Karma 2
Nobuhiro Aihara
10
Mt. Head
Koji Yamamura
13
The Old Crocodile
Koji Yamamura
05
Fig
Koji Yamamura
11
Water Dream
Koji Yamamura
10Dreams into Drawing
Koji Yamamura
76
Yokogawa
14:10 International Animation Boidsound Special Ville Neuve
Felix Dufour-Laperriere
Cinema80
16:00 International Animation Boidsound Special The Boy and the World
Alê Abreu
135
18:20 Special Screening
ETHEL & ERNEST
Roger Mainwood
80
21:00 International Animation Boidsound Special World of Tomorrow / It's Such a Beautiful Day Don Hertzfeldt
Hiroshima City87
10:30 Animation and Hiroshima
Kattobase! Dreamers Carp Tanjou Monogatari Yoshinori Kanemori
Cinematographic
88
Grave of the Fireflies
Isao Takahata
and Audio-Visual 14:00 On War
Library70
18:00 Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation The Book of the Dead
Kihachiro Kawamoto
103
Salon
17:15 Boidsound Film Festival@Salon Cinema MIND GAME
Masaaki Yuasa
Cinema99
19:35 Boidsound Film Festival@Salon Cinema JUNK HEAD
Takahide Hori
JMS
ASTER
PLAZA
Grand Hall

10:00 HAS Classics

In the Flowgallery AUG 11:00-19:0016-28
G（Closed: （-16:00
AUG 22） On theLast Day）

H for Humidity
Ho Tzu Nyen
Difference Between
Takao Minami
Evolved Virtual Creatures
Karl Sims
A Night with a Pink Dolphin Ji Hye Yeom

Hiroshima Animation Season 2022:
06

List of All Films

00
06
04
21

AUG

19 FRIPROGRAMTITLE

DIRECTORLENGTH（min）

93
Song of the Sea
Tomm Moore
64
Dozens of Norths
Koji Yamamura
114
The Unnamable Dance
Isshin Inudo
07
Salvia at Nine
Jang Nari13
All Those Sensations in My Belly Marko Dješka
07
Mom, what s up with the dog? Lola Lefevre
14
PreciousPaul Mas
10
I'm Late
Sawako Kabuki
Holy Holocaust
Osi wald, Noa Berman-Herzberg 17
10
The House of Loss
Jinkyu Jeon
108
19:35 World Competition: A Slice of Society (2) Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish Lei Lei
07
JMS
10:00 Golden Carpstar:
The past
Hamid Mohammadi
Documentary and
12
０１６
Faeze Dadgarazad
ASTER
Experimental
Film
Center
PLAZA
02
The Little Sparrow
Elahe Falahian
Medium Hall
12
Where the winds die
Pejman Alipour
11
Eternity
Farnoosh Abedi
07
HeavenMajidreza Eivazi
08
Once upon a time
Mahin Javaherian
08
The Crow
Ahura Shahbazi
04
Grey Body
Samaneh Shojaei
10Anima
Mahboobeh Mohammadzaki
02
12:10 Gender Identity and Sexuality
To the closet
Vivien Forsans
04
A Short Film About Tegan & Sara Ann Marie Fleming04
For the Best
Youyang Yu
04
Les lèvres gercées
Fabien Corre, Kelsi Phung
03
Shall We Talk?
Ekaterina Mikheeva
05
Oneself Story
Géraldine Charpentier
05
Adorable
Cheng-Hsu Chung05
I Like Girls
Diane Obomsawin
08
Purpleboy
Alexandre Siqueira
10
Are You Still Watching?
Tali Polichtuk, Kitty Chrystal
06
Sometimes I Wish I Was On a Desert Island Eli Jean Tahchi
08
Piteous Liaisons
Chloé Alliez, Violette Delvoye
05
Between Us Two
Tan Wei Keong06
14:05 Women in Anima
PersonaMoon Sujin
04
Beneath the Surface
Yero Timi-Biu
03
Red Flower
Yu Hsuan Liu
05
Silvering
Eilidh Nicoll
04
You Are Overreacting
Karina Paciorkowska
07Girls Talk about Football Paola Sorrentino
03
A little too much
Martina Scarpelli
05
Fourth Period Swimming Class Mayo Kobayasi
01
Air
Clara Fernández
06
Real Boy
Irena Jukić Pranjić
15
Step into the River
Weijia Ma
09
STEAKHOUSEŠpela Čadež
06
Slug Life
Sophie Koko Gate22
16:25 For CoexistanceHarvie Krumpet
Adam Elliot
17
The External WorldDavid OReilly
16
Genius Loci
Adrien Merigeau
05
The Man with the Beautiful Eyes Jonathan Hodgson
06
Conversation
Ana Horvat
12
The Burden
Niki Lindroth von BahrMIGRANTE
Ezequiel Dalinger and Daniel Lezzi 05
Yokogawa
13:30 World Competition: Sparks: Films for Children
Cinema94
15:10 International Animation Boidsound Special The Breadwinner
Nora Twomey
135
18:00 International Animation Boidsound Special Ethel & Ernest
Roger Mainwood
20:45 International Animation Boidsound Special The Secret of Kells
Tomm Moore,Nora Twomey 75
80
22:20 International Animation Boidsound Special The Boy and the World
Alê Abreu
Hiroshima City86
10:30 Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon Yugo Serikawa
Cinematographic
116
Nausicaa of the valley of the wind Hayao Miyazaki
and Audio-Visual 14:00 On War
Library86
18:00 Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation Legend of the White Serpent Taiji Yabushita

JMS
ASTER
PLAZA
Grand Hall

AUG

10:20 HAS Classics
12:35 Special Screening
14:50 Special Screening
18:00 World Competition:
A Slice of Society (1)20 SAT

JMS
ASTER
PLAZA
Grand Hall

10:00 World Competition: Sparks:
Films for Children

12:10 Florence Miailhe
15:10 Golden Carpstar: Science SARU
18:00 World Competition:
Adventure in Storytelling

19:35 World Competition:
Visual Poetry

JMS
ASTER
PLAZA
Medium Hall

10:00 Visual Music

Giuseppe
Isabelle Favez
Spinning
Tzu-Hsin Yang (Cindy Yang)
In Nature
Marcel Barelli
Miranda! - El arte de enamorarte Dante Zaballa
François Couperin. The Alarm Clock Natalia Ryss
A Town Called Panic: The Summer Holidays Vincent Patar, Stéphane Aubier
The Crossing
Florence Miailhe
INU-OH
Masaaki Yuasa
RegularNata Metlukh
Backflip
Nikiita Diakur
3 geNARRATIONSPaulina Ziółkowska
The blind writer
Georges Sifianos
My Father's Damn Camera Milos Tomic
The Primitives
Genadzi ButoIn the Big Yard Inside the Teeny-weeny Pocket Yuki Yoko
Darwin s Notebook
Georges Schwizgebel
Swallow the Universe
Nieto
Intermission
Réka Bucsi
Promised Land
Andrea Pierri
Deforming after Transforming Fukumi Nakazawa
Clockwise
Toni Mitjanit
Zoon
Jonatan Schwenk
ArchipelFelix Dufuour-LaperriereStudie Nr.7
Oskar Fischinger
Polka Graph
Mary Ellen Bute
MandalaJordan Belson
Canon
Norman McLaren
Notes on a Triangle
René Jodoin
Street Musique
Ryan Larkin
TANGO
Zbigniew Rybczynski
Stille Nacht3 Tales From The Vienna Woods Brothes Quay
cNote
Chris Hinton
JEU
Georges SchwizgebelLove & Theft
Andreas Hykade

26
05
05
03
03
26
84
98
05
12
08
10
06
10
06
09
12
04
08
08
03
04
72
02
04
05
09
04
09
08
04
08
03
07

AUG

20 SATJMS
ASTER PLAZA
Medium HallPROGRAM

12:30 Charley Bowers

16:00 Joe Hsieh, Horror, Suspense

TITLE

DIRECTORLENGTH（min）

EGGED ONCharley Bowers
HE DONE HIS BESTCharley Bowers
NOW YOU TELL ONE
Charley Bowers
THERE IT IS
Charley Bowers
AWOL or ALL WORNG OLD LADDIEBUCK Charley Bowers
Meat Days
Joe Hsieh
The Present
Joe HsiehNight BusJoe Hsieh
The Demon
Kihachiro Kawamoto
RabbitRun Wrake
The Night of the Plastic Bags Gabriel HAREL
Stanley
Suzie Templeton
Phantom Limb
Alex Grigg

15:00 Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition (1)16:10 Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition (2)18:10 International Animation Boidsound Special Ville Neuve
Felix Dufour-Laperriere
19:55 International Animation Boidsound Special World of Tomorrow / It's Such a Beautiful Day Don Hertzfeldt
22:00 International Animation Boidsound Special Wolfwalkers
Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart
Hiroshima City
10:30 Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation The Book of the Dead
Kihachiro Kawamoto
Cinematographic
and Audio-Visual 14:00 Water in Animation: Japanese Feature Animation Momotaro: Sacred Sailors Mitsuyo Seo
Library
18:00 Animationa and Hiroshima
Kattobase! Dreamers Carp Tanjou Monogatar Yoshinori Kanemori

23
21
22
06
23
12
15
20
08
09
18
07
05

Yokogawa
CinemaAUG

76
80
Pan-Pacific103& Asia70 Competition
74
86

21 SUN

10:00 Golden Carpstar: Kristine Belson How to Train Your Dragon Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois,
12:30 Golden Carpstar: Science SARU The Heike Story
Naoko Yamada
15:10 Golden Carpstar: Feinaki Beijing Animation Week To the Bright Side
Lan Xiya / Li Nianze / Zhao Yi / Yu Kun / Liu Gaoxiang / Liu Maoning / Chen Chen
JMS
10:00 Golden Carpstar: Feinaki Beijing The Watermelon
Tiantian Qiu
Animation Week: Feinaki's
A Fly in the Restaurant
Xi Chen (co-directed with Xu An)
ASTER PLAZATorchbearers
One Day in Lift
Wei Shilei
Medium Hall
Escape His Stare
Chen Chen
Quiet Willow
Shiyii Xiong
My Milk Cup Cow
Yantong Zhu
Fish Tank
Haoge Liu
For the Best
Youyang Yu
The Winter Solstice
Xi Chen (co-directed with Xu An)
12:00 Sparks: Films for Children
Gieseppe
Isabelle Favez(Japanese dubbed version)
Spinning
Tzu-Hsin Yang (Cindy Yang)
In Nature
Marcel Barelli
A Town Called Panic: The Summer Holidays Vincent Patar, Stéphane Aubier
13:35 Nihei Sarina,
Small People with Hats
Sarina Nihei
Ryotaro Miyajima,
Rabbit's Blood
Sarina Nihei
Honami Yano
Polka-Dot Boy
Sarina Nihei
RADIO WAVE
Miyajima Ryotaro
AEON
Miyajima Ryotaro
CASTLE
Miyajima Ryotaro
Nomino Sukune
Miyajima Ryotaro
ChromosomeSweetheart Honami Yano
A Bite of Bone
Honami Yano
Sunset Train
Honami Yano
Are you here, Ser Brunetto? Honami Yano
15:55 Japan Animation Association Presents CHAI / Let's Love
Mirai Mizue
Dive into the Sea of JapaneseKing Gnu / Prayer X
Ryoji Yamada
Independent Animation!
Rain Man
decovocal
Estrange
Kazuki Sekiguchi
Red Table
Hakhyun Kim
amazarashi / Tarareba
Yutaro Kubo
Kenshi Yonezu / Paprika
Ryu Kato
yorushika / Hawl at Moon Ryu Kato
45R Official Site Animation 2019.9~2020.8 Manabu himeda
WHILE THE CROW WEEPS Makiko Sukikara／Kohei Matsumura
BONZIE / alone
Miyo Sato
A Crow is White / fake!fake! Wataru Uekusa
The Dusk Visitor (The Village with Garappadon) Arisa Wakami
Mr. Children / Himawari (Sunflower) Toshiaki Hanzaki
RourouSakurako Nagano
Kuricorder Quartet / SOUTHPAW Sawako Kabuki
My Exercise
Atsushi Wada
one day
Moe Koyano
Yokogawa
15:00 World Competition: Allegories Nowadays (1)Cinema16:30 World Competition: Allegories Nowadays (2)18:10 World Competition: A Slice of Society (1)19:40 World Competition: A Slice of Society (2)Hiroshima City
10:30 On War
Grave of the Fireflies
Isao Takahata
Cinematographic
Dojoji Temple
Kihachiro Kawamoto
and Audio-Visual 14:00 Water in Animation:
Japanese
Short
FIlms
Library
Kumo to Tulip
Kenzo Masaoka
Two Grilled Fish
Yoji Kuri
Whale
Noburo Ofuji
The Phantom Ship
Noburo Ofuji
Chisana itsutsuno ohanashi Tadanari Okamoto
Mizu no Tane
Tadanari Okamoto
JMS
ASTER PLAZAGrand Hall

Salon
Cinema

AUG

12

AUG

13

AUG

14

AUG

15

AUG

16

AUG
5-DaysChildren's 13-14
Museum

98
69
80
03
06
12
03
06
11
06
03
11
26
05
05
26
06
04
07
03
03
05
01
04
09
03
04
03
03
02
06
07
06
03
04
04
08
03
03
04
06
04
02
02
05

World
Competition

SpecialPrograms

AcademyH-AIR
Hiroshima
Artist-inResidence

88
19
16
13
09
11
20
19

96
17:15 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema Ride Your Wave
Masaaki Yuasa
124
19:15 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema AKIRA
Katsuhiro Otomo
17:15 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Bob Persichetti,Peter Ramsey,Rodney Rothman 103
132
19:35 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema PROMARE
Hiroyuki Imaishi
113
17:15 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema Lu over the wall
Masaaki Yuasa
103
19:35 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema MIND GAME
Masaaki Yuasa
99
17:15 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema JUNK HEAD
Takahide Hori
99
19:35 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema PROMARE
Hiroyuki Imaishi
113
17:15 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema Lu over the wall
Masaaki Yuasa
19:35 Boidsound Film Festival @ Salon Cinema Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Bob Persichetti,Peter Ramsey,Rodney Rothman 103

13:00 Sparks: Films for Children (Japanese dubbed version)
14:40 Koji Yamamura's Selection Hedgehog in the fog
Amafuri Kumanoko
Polar Bear Bears Boredom
BoriyaYury Norshteyn
Koji Yamamura
Koji Yamamura
Min Sung Ah

10
3
3
17

07

Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition
Selection

Program details for "Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition 1" "Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition 2"

1: 9 films / total screen time of 66 minutes. 2: 7 film / total screen time of 72 minutes

1- ①

1- ⑤

1- ⑨

2- ④

Ma Ma Hu Hu

Wandering With NONO And PUPU

Bird in the Peninsula

Patient s Mind

Atsushi Wada

Zhiheng Wang

Liang-Hsin Huang

Milton See

Taiwan／3min
These days, Taiwanese films come in high quality, andthey are now on the rise to gaining a strong presencein the international film festival industry. The gentle
movements the characters show in Ma Ma Hu Hu areheartwarming and charming in a way that is different
from conventional European values. One could saythat the film is an embodiment of what the Pan-PacificKoji Yamamura
and Asia Competition stands for.

Malaysia／2min
This film made me feel like I was traveling to theworld of the dead. It somehow felt nostalgic although
Honami Yano
I ve never been dead before.

1- ⑥

How I Grew Up

France, Japan／16min
The characters may seem calm and collected at first, but
wait until you witness their mental and physical state go
through a drastic change, resonating with a festival ritual.
The ambient soundtrack serves as a strong foundation in
Ryotaro Miyajima
creating the film s unique style.

An I am you and you are me, type of thriller film.
When the five windows on the screen intertwine totell a single story from different perspectives, theHonami Yanotruth is uncovered.

2- ⑤

2- ①

Charlotte

Hugo Covarrubias

United States／12min

Chile／15min

The film portrays the story of a family trying tointeract through music. The dog patient dog patient
dog patient dog! chant sticks to the mind and won t
Honami Yanogo away.

Bestia1- ②

China／6min

Flowing Home
©2021 Les
Films del Arlequin
et l Officenational
du film duCanadaSandra Desmazieres
France, Canada／14min
A co-production film by France and Canada based ona story by a Vietnamese-French director. The plot has
links to the Desmazieres s upbringing and touches upon
historical and social elements, such as Vietnam during
its colonial days, and immigration. The film deserves a
special place in the Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition
for its regional story. The use of colors in the film isstunningly beautiful and eye-captivating. Koji Yamamura

Yufei Liu
China／7min
The graphic development, control, and usage oftime were done in ways like no other. The director saims are clear, giving the film a sharp impression.
Meanwhile, the subtle movements the characters
Koji Yamamurashow gives the film depth.

1- ⑦

Worms Ate My Flesh

Zach Dorn

A masterpiece that makes you discover something new eachtime you watch it. It goes without saying that the plot set in
Chile during the days of the military dictatorship is brilliant,but I was amazed by how Covarrubias managed to convey
the texture of the dolls through the screen. The texture of
the porcelain dolls symbolizes the irreversibility of time while
also creating expressions like a Japanese Noh mask, making
it difficult to tell whether they are happy or sad. Honami Yano

2- ②

1- ③

Mahboobeh Kalaee
Iran／9minNigel Braddock
New Zealand／5min

Korea／3min
It s tempting to casually wish for the world to end
tomorrow. There s a kind of salvation there because
it s such a casual wish. But this film helps ease thaturge to really hope that the world will end. Perhaps
one could say that the strengths of Asian cinema lie
in how they provide some kind of comfort to those
Honami Yano
who watch them.

The submission of abstract films is not as common as
its other counterparts. Braddock s film can be traced
back to Len Lye, also from New Zealand. This filmtranscends time. It is undoubtedly an important work
Koji Yamamura
in looking at the history of animation.

1- ⑧Modo De Vida
- A Goan Sketchbook

08

The main characters of this film are a bird and amountain. The film is based on the idea that themountain, being on the side of nature and the world,
is more sincere than the bird, a living animal. Shahi
elegantly shows her skills as a creator by portraying
how difficult dialogue with the world, nature, andHonami Yanoliving things can be.

Chen has made works about the 24 solar terms of theChinese calendar in the past, but The Loach is on acompletely another level. Like his previous works, The
Loach is an allegorical film that uses traditional Chinese
art styles and contexts, while also incorporating somepolitical criticism. However, the plot for this silent
drama film is unrivaled. The grotesqueness of the
Koji Yamamura
animation is also captivating.

The Visit

Red Fire

Iran／11min

Xi ChenChina／7min

In this film, Kalaee replaces the family structurewith furniture and objects, creating a household ina space surrounded by only four walls. She explores
the relationships between family members throughthe narration of a child. Kalaee s skills at using mixed
media, her visual ideas, and the narration are all
Honami Yano
outstanding.

2- ⑦

Los Huesos

2- ③

1- ④

Mona A.Shahi

The Fourth Wall

The Loach

Misery Loves Company

LEE Sasha

2- ⑥

Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociñ

Rohit Karandadi

Chile／14min

India／4min

León and Cociña are one of the most well-known
artistic duos from Chile. Their unique animation styletends to attract attention, but their skills to include
political satires as subtexts are brilliant, too. Not only
that, in Los Huesos , they pay homage to the historyof animation, and it s fascinating how they do this.

With his film, Karandadi portrays the happy lives ofpeople in Goa and their sense of values. Meanwhile,
he also portrays the past Goa carries, embracing
the city s history of war as something not to be
Shizuka Miyazaki
overlooked.

Morrie Tan
Singapore／9min
While The Visit is a story about the protagonist
reconciling with her incarcerated father through her visits
to prison, it is also a story about her questioning herself.
The prison monitor was in a way like a mirror, reminding
me of the mirror in Wim Wenders s Paris,Texas , andit caught me by surprise. People must always question
Honami Yanothemselves when confronting others.

This program is designed to cover two years worth ofworks by renowned directors from the Pan-Pacific and Asian
regions. It is also designed to show how far modern shortanimated films have come. Over the years, animation haschanged and evolved in its own ways in different countries,
and the Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition is setting a new
set of values for animation films. I hope this film festival
will become an opportunity for all of us to pause and takeKoji Yamamura
a look at where we currently stand.
About the competision
One of the goals for the Hiroshima Animation
Season 2022 is to explore values that are
different from conventional European-stylefilm festivals, and the Pan-Pacific and Asia
Competition embodies that goal the best. The
general belief is that the most important eventat film festivals is the international competition,
open to submissions from every region of theworld. But the Hiroshima Animation Season
2022 s Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition has
submissions that are just as good, if not better.
In fact, many of the films in this program arealready internationally highly acclaimed. Bestia
has been nominated for the Best Animated
Short Film at the 94th Academy Awards (2022),
alongside other prestigious ceremonies, such as
the Annecy International Animated Film Festival(2021) and the Ottawa International Animation
Festival (2021). The Fourth Wall has won
the Grand Prize for the Animation Division at
the Japan Media Arts Festival (2022), and the
New Talent Award at the New Chitose Airport
International Animation Festival (2021). Birdin the Peninsula was given a Special Mention
by the International Short Film Jury at the 72nd
Berlin International Film Festival (2022). The list
could go on and on.
Meanwhile, there are some outstanding works
inspired by regional aspects that could only havebeen made by directors from non-European
countries, too. The Loach mesmerizingly shows
traditional Chinese culture using the digital
cut-out method. Red Fire paints the world ofanima with phenomenal artistic skills. Modo
De Vida - A Goan Sketchbook goes fromdepicting an ordinary day in Goa to portraying
the city s political landscape. Works that sketch
the Japanese lifestyle from the viewpoint ofother Asian countries like Ma Ma Hu Hu andWandering with Nono and Pupu are includedin this program, too.
Flowing Home is about two sisters exchanging
letters after getting separated during theCambodian-Vietnamese War. While the film
takes place during a specific time and event,
the slow rhythm of the animation portrays
the sisters living their lives like ghosts,
making us want to question whether or notthey might already be dead. Los Huesos isa fictitious account of the world s first stopmotion animation film. It s about a young girlperforming a strange ritual, using the bonesof two real-life politicians that were central
figures in the construction of authoritarian andoligarchic Chile. The film pays homage to thehistory of animation while also criticizing Chile s
politics.
Historically, independent animation works
have been considered suitable for portraying aperson s inner thoughts. Some excellent works
follow this tradition in the Pan-Pacific and Asia
Competition, too. How I grew up tells the storyof a boy who is obsessed with what people
think of him. The film is about how he looks
into his past to figure out why he is the way
he is. The constant shift in perspectives makes
possible a narrative that goes back and forthin time. Misery Loves Company is a musicalanimation film about a girl in high school who,
in her melancholy mood, starts wishing for theworld to end. The Flash animated film depicts
the bittersweetness of adolescent youth using
vibrant colors so well to the extent it almost
hurts. The Visit is about a daughter interactingwith her incarcerated father through her visits
to prison. The highlight of the film is how
brilliantly it portrays the daughter as she wavers
between her love and hatred for her father in aworld where people are not as understanding as
she would want them to be. Another highlightis how the prison s glass partition separating
the two is shown as a symbol of their distantrelationship. Charlotte is about a cover of an
old folksong becoming a hit, and how thatstarts changing the family of the original singer.
Not all families live together, and it s not always
easy to fully understand one another, either.
It s heartwarming to watch as a single songencourages the family to reach out to eachother.
The Pan-Pacific and Asia Competition also
includes experimental films like Worms Ate My
Flesh , a work that uses bright, abstract images
to portray things from body cells to the universe,
and Patient s Mind , a thriller film telling a story
from different perspectives.
Takaaki Nomura

Jury Members

Koji Yamamura

Florence
Miailhe

Chris
Robinson

Joe
Hsieh

09

World Competition Allegories Nowadays
Selection

1- ①

Tiger is Strolling Around

Program details for "Allegories Nowadays 1" "Allegories Nowadays 2"

Jury Members

1: 8 films / total screen time of 78 minutes. 2: 1 film / total screen time of 72 minutes

1- ④In the Mountains

1- ⑦

A Story for 2 Trumpets

Arthur Binard

Hiroko Sebu

Shizuka Miyazaki

Winners

Wally Chung

Ukraine／12min

United States／5min

France／5min

1- ②

1- ⑤

1- ⑧

Skinned

Reduction

PRINCE IN A PASTRY SHOP

SkinnedRéka Anna Szakály

Katarzyna Agopsowicz

Joachim Hérissé

Hungary／11min

Poland／16min

France／15min

1- ③

1- ⑥

2- ①

HelferConfessions of an English
Ant-Eater

Hungary／9min

When You Get To The Forest

Eric Power

Szöll si Anna
Alex Crumbie

United States／72min

United Kingdom／5min

Because animation is full of high allegory and affinity, many outstanding films were
submitted, making this a very difficult category to choose from. By adapting uniquestyles, the current state of the world and the lives of the creators have progressed into a
new-type of fiction. A theme that was prominent among the submitted films was death,
Koji Yamamura
which provided a glimpse into the deep psyche of the COVID pandemic.

About the category
Allegories Nowadays is a collection ofoutstanding fictional films. We use the word
allegory in the title because animation uses
artificial visuals such as drawings, dolls, andcomputer graphics, historically regarded
as suited for illustrating metaphors andallegories.
For example, Confessions of an English AntEater is a surreal story about a young boy who
is absorbed in eating ants, but simultaneously
acts as an allegory and metaphor for severe
drug addiction. When You Get To The Forest
is a colorful cutout animation made frommulticolored paper cutouts. A woman troubled
by her life wanders into the forest and gets
lost. She spends her days in the woods witha talking cat as she looks for a way out. The
film urges the viewer to hold hope for life as it
portrays the protagonist s growth from living
in nature. Set in a fairy tale world that reminds
one of Alice s Adventures in Wonderland ,PRINCE IN A PASTRY SHOP is about a man

10

and woman who talk endlessly about what
happiness means. While the man comprehends
it as a concept, the woman grasps happinessas a metaphor or a broad sense. By depicting
the characters in a contrasting manner,the film offers different perspectives abouthappiness that we often fail to remember.
Allegories Nowadays not only includes films
that convey a strong message, but also films
like A Story for 2 Trumpets that allegorize
an individual's subconscious through rich
metaphors and portray it as a fantasticalalternate world. Helfer is about a woman
who is troubled by nightmares. She dives into
her subconscious to figure out the root of hernightmares, together with the assistance ofthe helper. The movements with a floating
feeling made by rotoscoping and the layout
with plenty of blank space provoke the sensethat you're in a place between dream andreality, making the portrayal of an unconscious
surrealistic world possible.

Category Award

Amandine Meyer

Anastasiia Falileieva

Since the category's theme is allegories, ofcourse films with brilliant stories are also
included in the lineup. In the Mountains has
an unpredictable and intense story; everything
about the film is extraordinary. Reduction isabout a woman living in a post-apocalypse
world. She is possessed by a mysterious
c re a t u re , w h i c h re s u l t s i n h e r i s o l a t i o nfrom the people around her. The exchange
between the creature and woman seems
like an affectionate one at first. Still, as theirrelationship progresses, a tense atmosphere,
similar to a psycho-thriller, arises gradually.
Skinned is a body horror film about a Siamese
twin woman who kills her counterpart, but iscontinuously threatened by her victim, whom
she thought had killed. With its unexpected
twist at the end, it's a film with plenty towatch, such as the high technique animationand exquisite material selection.
Takaaki Nomura

I was surprised at how a doll made out ofcheap cloth could make me feel as if I wereobserving a live creature, or how a scene
where an animal is skinned and blood boiled
could feel real when it was portrayed bythread and cloth. I felt as if my emotions
were being reconstructed. I could feel thenecessity of having to create this film in thestory and not only with technique itself. I
think the film beholds a genuineness thattranscends fiction. That's why I think leaving
who survived and who was killed out of thetwo a mystery makes it possible for viewers
to expand on the last scene.
Arthur Binard

Trying to explain everything with words orcramming blank space to receive approval
from everyone results in a very dull film.
However, it s true that many films require
all sorts of explanations to be understood inand outside the film. Of course, the target
audience and what the director wants toexpress will have an impact on the outcome.
This film has a simple story that is easily
understood by viewers, but does not feelover-explained. The balance between thetechniques and the story was perfect. The
way felt was used as a supporting medium
was also splendid.
Hiroko Sebu

I appreciated the superb quality of thegrotesqueness, such as the internal organs
a n d t h e n a k e d b o d y, t h a t o n l y p u p p e t
animation could depict. I also thought
the indecency of the skin's memory andrationality and the physiological irritation
when things didn't go as planned were
portrayed efficiently. The storyline wasintriguing, and the contrast between thetwo protagonists in the beginning, when
one wanted to board the ship but the other
did not, metaphorically indicated whether
they would be able to hold onto a loophole.
Leaving the viewers to decide what the ship's
theme is was impressing.
Shizuka Miyazaki

Jury s Personal Pick

Arthur Binard Award

Hiroko Sebu Award

Shizuka Miyazaki Award

Confessions of an English Ant-Eater

In the Mountains

PRINCE IN A PASTRY SHOP

Humorous and exciting words were precisely intime with the rhyme and syllables of the fixedverse form, and I thought the narration waspolished. The story itself is like a lesson thatcomes up in folklore or a poem by Timothy
Leary. Still, the interesting thing about thisnarration is that it doesn't guide the viewer
in a dead-serious direction but to a surreal
and fun place that intrigues imagination.
With the works of Thomas De Quincey as a
backdrop, this film is a piece of literature and,at the same time, a fun painting or picture
book, as well as a film that does things that
only animation can make possible. This isa film packed with charm distinctive of an
independent film, where the music, voice, andstory are joined effectively.
Arthur Binard

This film is like the quintessence of how
exciting independent animation can be; it's
like a major accident. I imagine having a solid
film that makes the viewer think, I don t
know what it is, but I love it! is an energythat any creator would want to have. Plus,
indie films tend to enhance the creator's
characteristics, and the creator's magma is
projected attractively. If movies that havethe same instantaneous force as the latest
mobile content trends like TikTok travel freely
between movie theaters, mobile phones, andpersonal computers, I am hoping that future
movies will always be loved by people forever,too.
Hiroko Sebu

During the screening panel for each film,
we covered topics like, "Did the artist create
the film with a movie theater in mind, ora museum in mind?" "What are the pros
and cons of the theme, and what was thenecessity of a certain method or cut?" When
we focus on the content of such discussions,
it's odd that a film about sixteen minutes of
inane blabbering about what happiness iswould win an award. However, I chose thisfilm because I thought the waste of carefully
creating a farce is what makes it the best typeof entertainment.
Shizuka Miyazaki11World Competition A Slice of Society
Selection

1- ①

Salvia at Nine

Program details for "A Slice of Society1" "A Slice of Society2"

Jury Members

1: 7 films / total screen time of 78 minutes. 2: 1 film / total screen time of 108 minutes

1- ④

Precious

1- ⑦

The House of Loss

Kiki Sugino

Asako Fujioka

Honami Yano

Winners

Jang NariPaul Mas

Jinkyu Jeon

Korea／7min

France／14min

Japan, Korea／10min

1- ②

1- ⑤

2- ①

All Those Sensations in My Belly

I'm Late

Category Award

Marko Dješka

Sawako Kabuki

Lei Lei

Croatia／13min

France, Japan／10min

United States, Netherlands／108min

1- ③

1- ⑥

Mom, What s up with the Dog?

Salvia at Nine

Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish

Holy Holocaust

Lola Lefevre

Osi wald, Noa Berman-Herzberg

France／7min

Israel／17min

These films focus on the world s hottest topic today, social contact. Animation canappeal to a broad audience because it has the power to convey complex content
through an uncomplicated approach. With the power of animation s plasticity andfantasy, familiar problems can reach deep into the viewer s heart. This year we
Koji Yamamura
especially had many films about women s issues.

A film that links a young girl's inconsolablee m o t i o n s a n d l o n e l i n e s s s i n c e re l y. T h eartistry was seasoned, and the metaphoricalexpressions, such as the mirror, the way thegirl fell like a domino, and the cube, were
ambiguous and used effectively. The backshot in the last scene where the young girlgently gives her hidden candy to a friend felt
like I was watching a live picture; it felt so
real, and her emotions touched my heart. I
was also astonished by the animation; things
like dust were drawn meticulously. Kiki Sugino

I appreciated how this was not a film createdin preestablished harmony and how the young
girl's changing emotions and the techniqueportraying it coincided. Animation can switch
between realistic shoplifting scenes andabstract expressions with cubes and megasized renditions in outer space. This shifting
perspective magnificently expressed the rangeof how the young girl's emotions swayed.
Such seamless visual styles can give the girl
freedom, and it naturally makes the audience
feel surprised at the end.
Asako Fujioka

It was interesting how the viewer could
sense, from expressions like dice anddominos, that the young female protagonist
feels suppressed by her fate of having tolive with sexual abuse. There was salvationin the scene where the young girl succeeds
in stealing candy. The fact that she rebelled
and was able to have her way and then sharethat win with a friend hit home for me. The
metaphors and definitions aren't on a one-toone basis but are connected in a complicatedway, giving depth to the film.
Honami Yano

Jury s Personal Pickkiki sugino Award

Asako Fujioka Award

Honami Yano Award

The House of Loss

All Those Sensations in My Belly

Mom, What s up with the Dog?

I watched the film as my experiences
overlapped with those of the protagonist. I
also used to treat the Korean war as a simple
historical event. Still, after I became an adult,
my Korean grandmother told me about thewar, which made me realize that there areindividual episodes even in a massive battle.
I also have experienced seeing faces whentalking about war. That's why I felt great
empathy in this film and the delicate process
of forming faces for the faceless elderly
people in the nursing home. The scene where
the sound of fireworks triggers a trauma
portrayed the cruel truth that something
p re s u m e d b e a u t i f u l b y m a n y c a n b e aviolent act to some people. It left a powerfulimpression on me.
Kiki Sugino

This film is very playful, both in terms ofmusic and visuals. The story is centeredaround the theme of gender identity and is aself-narrative of the protagonist's turbulent
life. I believe it also included the universal
theme of how to come to terms with one's
past. There was broad freedom of technique,such as the line drawing and colors changing
with each scene, and the colors reversedin the nightclub scene. The stage control
impossible in live films was wonderful. I think
it's because animation can include various
techniques without restriction, humor of thislevel can be included in a self-documentaryeven when dealing with serious problems.

I liked how the protagonist faced theirsexual awakening without an insinuating
attitude. The articulation is outstanding;the protagonist Gwen's sexual awakening
starts with a sex scene between women,
and she imitates a dog after seeing it haveintercourse with a cauliflower. I think the film
has a very liberal relationship with sexuality.
When the dog faces castration, Gwen runs
away from the house with the dog. However,when Gwen leaves the dog behind and runs
away proudly, that's when we sense Gwen's
presence in the deserted dog.
Honami Yano

About the category
A Slice of Society is a category that focuseson animation documentaries, a genre thatis now considered a classic, and films that
directly cover social issues.
Holy Holocaust is a story about two womenwhose friendship collapses because thedark back story about her friend being the
grandchild of a Nazi commander comes tolight. The main focus is on how the two
w o m e n ' s re l a t i o n s h i p c h a n g e s , b u t t h ehistorical issue about the holocaust lies there
as well. The House of Loss portrays an old
man who is trapped in a war that ended 60
years ago. Should people living in the present
take on the past historical problems of acountry? And if they must, how should theyhandle it? Each of these films raises suchchallenging questions.
We have also selected films that pressure the12society by focusing on the lives of an individualin this category. Silver Bird and Rainbow
Fish portrays a simple personal family history
story, but with various techniques and abstract
visuals feeds the audience a side of social
criticism as well. Salvia at Nine focuses on ayoung girl while simultaneously depicting theseverity of the society surrounding her. Having
said that, the film does not criticize society
or try to conform the young girl to society.
It raises the universal question surrounding
maturity by focusing on the shame she feels
about the social crime she commits. Precious
carefully portrays a child's world's uniformity,
slyness, and pureness by setting the view ata low angle, only showing children and neveran adult's face. When the angle widens at
the end, the question this film raises will most
likely spread into the adult world, too.

The lineup not only includes films focusing
on problems about society and history, butfilms that focus on the friction between theindividual and society to deal with problems
surrounding sexuality as well. All ThoseSensations in My Belly and Mom, What s
up with the Dog? are about the gap
between an individual's sexuality and social
norms. It's interesting how the endings are
symmetrical. I'm Late deals with the themeof menstruation and pregnancy. It exposes
the asymmetry between women and men but
overcomes the difference between them inthe end. These films teach us that animation
can scoop up the ambiguity or matters thatare difficult to understand from a particular
position that are unquestionably a reality.
Takaaki Nomura

Asako Fujioka

13World Competition Adventure in Storytelling
Selection①

Regular④

The Blind Writer

Program details for "Adventure in Storytelling"

Jury Members

9 films / total screen time of 78 minutes⑦

In the Big Yard Inside
the Teeny-weeny Pocket

Min Tanaka

Yuki Harada

Sarina Nihei

Winners

Nata Metlukh
United States／5min②

Backflip

Nikiita Diakur
Germany／12min③

3 geNARRATIONS

Georges Sifianos
Greece／10min⑤

Japan／6min

Darwin s Notebook

Milos Tomic

Georges Schwizgebel⑥

The Primitives

Switzerland／9min⑨

Swallow the Universe

Nieto

Paulina Ziółkowska

France／12min

Poland／8min

Genadzi Buto
Belarus／10min

In this category, we can enjoy various experimental storytelling methods that pursue
the future potential of animation, such as animation for animation, metafiction, andexperiments with concepts and visuals. Both new animation creators and experienced
creators, who have been creating animation for a long time, show us the pinnacle ofKoji Yamamura
their continued pursuit of what animation is.
About the category

14

Adventure in Storytelling is a category of films
with unique storytelling methods made possible
because of the articulation medium being
animation.
For example, The Primitives is a film that tells
a story without any conversation or characters,
but with only simple visuals and sound. People
do not appear on the screen; the lead roles are
simple shapes. The sight of them sometimes
cooperating, sometimes ousting each other,and sometimes getting lost in desire can beperceived as a caricature of modern society. 3
geNARRATIONS portrays the conflict that three
generations of women experience from beingbound to a household. Instead of drawing thewomen with detailed facial expressions, theirfaces are smeared with color and have a flexible
outline. This portrayal allows the predeterminedroles forced upon them by a patriarchal system
to stand out, not their individuality. Darwin s
Notebook is about three women who wereabducted from a colony and brought to the UK.
They tell Charles Darwin about their life in the
UK on a ship ride back to their hometown. By
portraying Darwin, who granted a theoreticalbase to colonialism, the film also shows thefailure of colonialism. It's safe to say that thefilm maintains a sharp critical eye towardmodern western society. The theme is no
doubt important, but the storytelling specific toanimation, using metamorphosis to shift scenes
without many cuts and transitions, is also thehighlight of the film. Swallow the Universe
is based in Manchuria, and motifs like animals
that speak odd Japanese that is clearly not theirmother tongue imply that the film also has
an eye on colony hang-ups. The captivatingstorytelling method using a unique narrativethat uses text-to-speech software and scrolllike animation using a mixture of 2D and 3D
stands out. In the Big Yard Inside the Teenyweeny Pocket is a film based on a picture
diary that the director herself kept. The busymoving animation, the squeezed-out voiceof the narration, and the chaotic music allow
the viewer to enjoy the visual in its own right.
Regular is a story about fonts and what goeson in their lives living in a graphic design world.
The film is portrayed in an omnibus-like methodwith unpredictable events and surprising visuals.
This category not only includes films that tella story with animation, but also metafictionalfilms that are self-referential on animation.
The Blind Writer is a piece created without

Darwin s Notebook⑧

My Father's Damn Camera

Slovenia／6min

Category Award

Yoko Yuki

vision. The film was drawn by touch, usinga grid placed on paper as a clue. Because ofthis method, the shape and size of the samecharacter vary depending on the frame. But
even so, the people who watch this film canrecognize the characters drawn in various forms
as a sequence of the same subject. This film
addresses the fundamental question of how theaudience watching the movie acknowledges
what is shown on the screen.
Metafiction often boasts that it is a "creation,"but Backflip goes over the border of creationand genuineness while remaining a metafictional
work. The film is about an avatar of the writer,
created in 3DCG (3D computer graphics), whopractices doing a backflip. The photorealistic
character and backdrop frequently display their
twists and show rips as if to prove that they area creation. The viewer will earnestly want toroot for the avatar as they watch it practice. The
practice that is nothing but mechanical attempts
and a calculation begins to seem a reality. My
Father's Damn Camera also transcends real-lifeand fiction. The film not only uses actual photoarchives but shows that studying media andfiction leads to a mutual understanding between
parent and child.
Takaaki Nomura

While each era creates a certain speed in people's
movements, this film makes the problem ofsuch actions stand out by drawing homogenizedimages of the locals of a colony. In Japan, forexample, peasants who couldn't form a line at the
beginning of the Meiji era (1868 - 1912) learned
how to fall in somewhere along the line as they
were inducted into the army. I could sense how
the director paid close attention to the motions of
the time, such as the change in movements of thelocals and the actions of the soldiers while they
abducted people. Technique-wise, I was thrilled by
the overlap method used in scene transitions.

While many films took a shot at newtechniques but were toyed with instead, thisfilm was able to sublime unique animation
techniques into artistry. What really caught
my eye was the repetition of the three main
characters' bodies merging and separating
because it emphasized the borderlines ofcharacters A, B, and C ambiguously blending
into each other. This technique made me feelthe lingering presence of people that were
now gone.
Yuki Harada

The best work of Schwizgebel yet. The
compositional design for each screen wasincredible, the metamorphosis pleasing, andthe theme was strong. I think it's wonderfulthat age does not matter when it comes tofurther growth.
Sarina Nihei

Min Tanaka

Jury s Personal Pick

Min Tanaka Award

Yuki Harada Award

Sarina Nihei Award

The Blind Writer

My Father's Damn Camera

In the Big Yard Inside the Teeny-weeny Pocket

Many animations tend to color in human bodies,but when you see such a flawless body, you
can't help but think it's that of a lifeless manga.
However, the bodies in this film seemed genuine
because of the transparent bodies drawn only bylines and the different faces shown by the many
shared lines. A face changes by the minute, andI think people who can't show that naturally are
unfortunate. But the characters in this film show
various expressions carelessly, sometimes making
them unrecognizable with drastically different
faces layered on top. Having seen the energetic
bodies itself was worthy of an award. The waythat words couldn't accomplish their purpose in
the dialogue sharply captured the present situationin language. In a modern day where we verbalize
everything about the world that our perception
captures, as if there's nothing that we can't
comprehend, I think there's value in a method that
sends language into an abyss.
Min Tanaka

I chose this film because the balance between
the subject and the technique was pleasing.
The distinctive expression of the three layers
characterizes this film. The top layer is an
animation of the father and son, the middle
layer is the actual world with physical photos,
and the bottom layer reflects the past onto
the images. The feeling that the viewer wastraveling backward in time from the top tobottom layer synchronized with the story's
content.
Yuki Harada

As I myself continue to create animations,
I feel joy, but I also feel pain. This film
showed the artist's superb ability to draw
this animation by hand and how much she
enjoyed the process. I hope for the creator tocontinue creating animations in this manner.
Sarina Nihei

15World Competition Visual Poetry
Selection①③

Program details for "Visual Poetry"⑤

Category AwardIntermission

Deforming after Transforming

Zoon

Jonatan Schwenk

Réka Bucsi

Fukumi Nakazawa

Hungary／4min

Japan／8min②④

Promised Land

Andrea Pierri
Italy／8min

Clockwise

Toni Mitjanit

Winners

6 film / total screen time of 99 minutes

Archipel

Germany／4min⑥

ArchipelFelix Dufuour-Laperriere
Canada／72min

Spain／3min

Films where each visual moment resonates poetically (Light and Shadow). Even if
there are no sequences or developments in the storyline of the films in this selection,
the viewer can experience light and ponder about them, as one does with fireworks.
Koji Yamamura

I appreciated how the film opened up new
possibilities in expression by including both
documentary natures and problems withanimation in an essay film, which is a crossdisciplinary expression between art and film.
For example, explaining the film by saying,"A true animated film," raises the questionof what to animate means. Or the phrase"makes it true" questions where truth should
be required. The flow of the film starting andending with a sigh is very poetic, and I thinkit embodies both category titles, 光の詩(Poetryof Light) and Visual Poetry.
Jung-Yeon Ma

The mixture of animation and live video canoften be seen in music videos and movies. But
the method in this film differed from anythingthat I've seen that uses the same techniques,and I thought it was distinctive. For example,
I haven't seen many styles where the footage
was mixed up in the same way that music
would sample other tracks. Plus, although it
was a long presentation, I appreciated thatthe film was coherent while having a poetic
touch.
Daito ManabeFirst of all, the film uses animation and live
video as footage, and this new approach tocreating visuals caught my eye. Secondly,
although the film has a political idea in thebasis, the way it was able to raise the theme
to a poetical dimension is quite remarkable.
To sum it up, the film is well worth thevoluminous screen time of 72 minutes.
Koji Yamamura

About the category
Visual Poetry is a program containing films
attempting poetry in animation. The selection
includes films that weave a poem by ananimation s visual; not by the story or speech.
For example, Clockwise and Intermission
are films where geometrical graphics movealong at a nice tempo and the pleasant visuals
and rhythm mesmerize the audience without
telling a story. Both films break down specificpatterns and create visuals by multiplying
them. The contrast between Clockwise using
iconography generated from programmingand Intermission using hand-written distortedlines is fascinating. Zoon is a film about aparticular night in the woods centered arounda school of radiant axolotl and woodsmen.

The unexpected storyline allows the viewer tofocus on the beauty of each scene rather thanthe unilinear storyline.
While there are films that weave a poem withthe beauty of the drawings, Deforming after
Transforming creates a poem with its blankspaces. This film portrays human beings who
have transformed into tools in an omnibus
style. The humans that became tools are
drawn in simple ink paint, allowing space
for things that resemble specific tools like asewing machine or undergarments to appear
as something completely different. The ink
paint pictures are drawn on thin Japanesewashi paper and animated by layering eachpiece like stop motion. Because the linesof the previous drawing can be seen in themargins of the graphic shown, it gives aunique poetic sentiment to the film.
Promised Land and Archipel are also films
that utilize the blank space of abstract visuals
and poetic narration to document specificlocations and events. Especially Archipel's
technique of mixing live archival footage withanimation proves that what is believed to be
an unshaken reality is actually fiction shapedby political and historical forces. The film
teaches us that there is space for a different
perspective and even room for revolution
because it is, in fact, fiction.

16

Daito Manabe

Jung-Yeon Ma Award

Daito Manabe Award

Koji Yamamura AwardIntermission

Clockwise

Zoon

Watching this film made me recall the time
I learned about Mondrian's cold abstract
compared to Kandinsky's hot abstract, and
how I was moved by the imperfect andhuman-like lines Mondrian drew when I
actually saw a piece by him. Of course, we
can create a simulation of imperfectness andhuman elements with modern technology.
Even so, the handwritten and improvised
uncalculated beauty of the lines in this film
were very impressive. The synesthetic side wasalso interesting with the animations' visualelements and auditory elements of music. I
even sensed a haptic texture when the screen
expanded in the end.
Jung-Yeon Ma

A high-quality film crafted carefully from the
beginning to end. Depending on the program,the film uses a technique to synchronize avariation of procedurally generated graphics
with the music. I thought the rich variation
was outstanding compared to other films
that use the same type of technique. Artists
that work with visual jockey-like art andgenerative art don't usually submit their films
to film festivals, so I'm glad I could appreciatesuch art properly on this occasion.

The unique technique of mixing the threedimensional puppets' physical and liveaction maneuvering and the two-dimensional
drawings' stop motion maneuvering
make the entire film appealing. The way
the introduction, development, turn, andconclusion described the life cycle of aparticular ecosystem was nicely done. Thisfilm is abstract and has a story, so I thought
it was an odd presence in this category. But
watching it during the selection made me
think, maybe we can only grasp life abstractly.
The last scene made me recall Novalis's
words, "a striving of matter to become
light," and I thought the film was poetic andbeautiful in that way.
Koji Yamamura

Takaaki Nomura

Jury Members

Jung-Yeon Ma

Jury s Personal Pick

Koji Yamamura

Daito Manabe

17World Competition Sparks: Films For Children
Selection①

Giuseppe③

In Nature

Isabelle Favez

Marcel Barelli

Switzerland／26min

Switzerland／5 min②④

Spinning

Miranda!
- El arte de enamorarte⑤

François Couperin.
The Alarm Clock

Category Award

A Town Called Panic: The Summer Holidays

Natalia Ryss
Russia／3min⑥

A Town Called Panic:
The Summer Holidays

Dante Zaballa
Argentina／3 min

Winners

6 film / total screen time of 68 minutes

Tzu-Hsin Yang（Cindy Yang）
Taiwan／5 min

Program details for "The Spark: Films for Children"

Vincent Patar, Stéphane Aubier
Belgium, France／26 min

This category includes films that allow viewers to have in-depth conversations
across all generations about the content and not only questions like "Which film
Koji Yamamura
did you like?"

Whether the film was entertaining or not
was crucial for me in choosing the winner. I
always had this idea about stop-motion andclay animation that they seem to boast their
quality as if to say, "Look at how smooth
I can make movements." But this film isdone carelessly, and that is what makes it
fascinating. Humor is born from the gaps,
like feet moving while stuck to a plank or theinconsistency of the character's sizes. I felt
like a new world opened up for me. I m surethat children who watch this film will thrive.
Shiriagari Kotobuki

About the category
For The Spark: Films for Children, we selectedfilms that we wanted children to see. The
lineup includes films that are a joy to watch
but, at the same time, have space for theviewer to think, and it is a program perfect for
any age. Giuseppe is by Isabelle Favez, who
was a regular at the International Animation
Festival Hiroshima. The story is about theadventures of a hedgehog, who wakes up
mid-hibernation to enjoy the winter with its
rabbit friend, without its parents knowing. Of
course, the story is fascinating, but the manyadorable details are also a must-see. A Town
Called Panic: The Summer Holidays is thenewest addition to the popular series that has

also been released in Japan. It's a slapstick
comedy where totally unexpected events
happen in rapid succession and is guaranteed
for children and adults alike to split their sides
laughing. Spinning tells a heartwarming story
about the connection and cycle between
generations by singing. It portrays thatchildren becoming old and passing the baton
to a new generation doesn t have to be sadin a bright and cheerful manner. Miranda! El arte de enamorarte is a music video that
illustrates the artist's unique perspective of
the world in an adorable method with simple
pictures.
The category includes educational benefit

films as well. In Nature is a film focusing
on homosexuality and presents the diversity
in sexuality among animals in nature in a
comical way. An unprecedented film forchildren, it most definitely will be one of thefilms to garner attention. François Couperin.
The Alarm Clock is about geometrical shapesthat take on various forms in rhythm withclassical music. It has a musical educationside to it and is both impressive as animation
and a modern art piece. I believe it s thebest teaching material for a child's artistic
education.
Takaaki Nomura

A film with an absolutely high level ofnonsense. I felt my sense of value being torn
off by the large and small sizes and the nonexistent hierarchy between humans and farmanimals. It's interesting how the unbalancefrom mixing various textures can create abalance. I m positive that children will enjoy
this film. The only concern I had was that thewinner is already a recognized artist with along career, but I decided to choose a filmthat agrees with the film festival's theme:
a film that everyone can enjoy. Especiallybecause I think Films for Children should be acategory open to the public. I ignored artists'
careers and chose the award based simply on
how entertaining it was.
Yukiko Hiromatsu

I worry that long movies will bore me, but
this film had me hooked to its flavor fromstart till end. There were many things thatsurprised me as I watched it from a creator's
point of view. For example, the scene where a
big piano enters a small room. It s only shown
for a split second, but the piano shrinks just alittle bit to fit the size of the entrance, and it s
all neatly shot using stop-motion. The cow s
body can be seen twisting in the scene where
it speeds up, and although it seems careless,it s amazing how everything is made withoutc o m p ro m i s e . T h e a t m o s p h e re w a s a l s operfect. I often come across 3D animation
where, for example, the dusty environmentof a studio appears in the base flavor, whichthen determines the film's overall taste.
But this film meticulously structured theatmosphere in each scene, making the flavor
crystal clear. The excitement at the lakesidewas clearly depicted in the lake scene, and I
could feel the mountain cabin s atmospherefrom everything in it.
Ryutaro Miyajima

Jury s Personal Pick

Shiriagari Kotobuki Award

Yukiko Hiromatsu Award

Ryutaro Miyajima Award

Spinning

Miranda! - El arte de enamorarte

In Nature

I liked that it was a young person's genuine
point of view and not an old person's
intrusive perspective of how wonderful it
is for a family to stay together. Everything,including negative factors like clumsy
technique and obscure images, makes you
appreciate family and hope it will last. I think
there s value in the fact that this type of
expression was created by a young person.

This film is a music video singing about love,
but I was intrigued by how the rough andfriendly drawings and the storyline developedin sync with the rhythm. The film uses a boldcolor scheme not fixated on inherent color, andthe metamorphosis of the color surface withouta borderline was a pleasure to watch. The
story is centered around the male and female
protagonists, but the supporting animals andthe moon, stars, clouds, and trees moving lively
in the background made it feel as if the whole
screen were alive. I believe that this kind of
excitement can only be found in animation.

I believe a film festival should be in sync withthe times, so I chose the film that I thoughtshined the brightest in our current day.
Should we believe the ecology of each animal
submitted to us without checking the facts?
I kept thinking that maybe something thatapplies in nature cannot immediately backup what justice is in the human world. But I
think this is a wonderful film that allows us
to enjoy the confusion of questioning theprocess of common sense.
Ryutaro Miyajima

Jury Members

Shiriagari Kotobuki

Yukiko Hiromatsu

Ryutaro Miyajima

Shiriagari Kotobuki

18

Yukiko Hiromatsu

19Special Feature: Water

Issui Shiken and Some Thoughts on Water
Koji Yamamura
We s e t Wa t e r a s t h e m a i ntheme of the first Hiroshima
Animation Season event whichtakes place in Hiroshima, a city
built along many rivers. Water,
with its fluidity and flexibility,
makes a great expression tool inanimation; but its transparent
and reflective properties make ita challenging object to illustrate.
Water is rich in potential asa subject, with a variety ofqualities. Issui Shiken (Onewater, four perspectives) is a
Buddhist view which Dogen andother Buddhist priests taught. It
explains that what we view aswater can be a crystal floor tothe celestial beings, a residence
to the fish, and a stream of fireto the hungry ghosts. Wateris, therefore, in the eye of thebeholder.
Water is essential for all life
including humans, as 60-70%
of the human body is water andit bridges the inside and theoutside of our body. In the late
18th-century Western Literature,
we saw the emergence ofmeteorological self whichmeant that the fluidity of waterand uncertainty or changes
in self-identity have a mutual
influence on each other. Rainsymbolizes something fleetingor unstable, and many of theJapanese ukiyo-e painters such
as Hiroshige and Hokusai often
added it in their works.
In the cinema that was invented
in the late 19th-century, we
see rains, fog, ocean, and rivers
always being a strong indicationof the characters feelings. The
emotional ups and downs wereexpressed in the form of water;
for example, violent rain andwaves suggested the intense
feelings, and quiet rain andgentle waves accompanied apeaceful emotion. In animation
classics, the story and emotions
coincide with the different
phases of rain in Kumo to Tulip(The Spider and the Tulip)
by Kenzo Masaoka, and theburning obsession is expressedas the swelling of the river waves
in Dojoji Temple by Kihachiro
Kawamoto.
The ancestors of the life on land
once lived in the water. One
supporting evidence of that idea
is the similarity in the chemicalcompositions of living organisms
a n d t h e s e a w a t e r. We c a m efrom the ocean and evolved;t h u s , w e a re t h e e m b r y o n sdesséchés (desiccated embryos),as Erik Satie would put it. The
ocean is maternal, as its water
has a similar composition
to the amniotic fluid of thewomb. The edge of the shore iscommonly seen in films as theline separating the past from thefuture.
In the Kojiki which tells of theJapanese mythology, the god
Izanagi performs a purification
ritual at Awakihara to purge
the pollution after retur ningf ro m t h e l a n d o f t h e d e a d .
In Christianity, holy water isused in baptism and to cleanse
individuals. It is also believed
to provide protection against
evil. The idea of water being
the sacred object exists in bothWestern and Eastern cultures.
Water purifies our hearts
a n d n u r t u re s l i f e . S u c h l i f e nurturing water has taken manydifferent shapes in the world ofanimation.
Having safe drinking water isvery crucial to our healthy life.
Contaminated water causes
various troubles and may evenlead to fatal accidents. Water isa blessing and fundamental to
our hygienic environment, but it
can also spread contamination.
In Fukushima, we still see noend to the issues concerning
the radiation and water. All of
us in Japan are fully aware of
the power of the water andthe damages that the tsunamis
c a n b r i n g . We h a v e q u i t e a
few typhoons and earthquakes
in Japan, which leads to anegative perception of water as
a disastrous force. Our view onwater is therefore ambivalent,
as it brings both blessings andcalamities.
Water is described as clear andcolorless. Clear water servesa s a m i r ro r t o s e e o u r o w nreflection, and consequently
links itself with the humanexistence. When water is nolonger a mere material but
becomes a medium, we see ourown thoughts through it. In my
own works Aquatic and Mt.
Head , I used the reflection on
the water as a motif to focus on
our existential uncertainty, whichcame from my concern for selfawareness. The water surface
acts as the boundary between
the worlds and separates thereality from the fantasy. Karel
Zeman attempted to illustrate
clear water in his fascinating
imagination of the underwater
world and in the beauty thatspreads from a single droplet in
Inspiration .
Water is a great medium which
fosters various beliefs, fantasies,
and dreams.
Water also changes its form by
the temperature, from liquidand solid to gas, and each form
has different names. Water isjust one of the forms it takes.

W h e n i t c o m e s t o N o b u h i ro
Aihara s animation, the water
also resembles flames, and it isin the endless cycle of birth anddemise.
Wa t e r c a n t a k e y e t a n o t h e rform, a colloid, where it is mixed
with other microscopic particles
and become mist or cloud. Manythings around us are colloids,
such as milk, cream, jelly, andcolored glass. Colloids are foundin all living organisms as well. It
is also essential to the novelist
and poet Kenji Miyazawa s
views on physical material andthe universe, as he applied theidea of colloids to the Buddhist
view on physical materials. The
milk that the boy in Maurice
Sendak s In the Night Kitchendives into is a colloid, and sois the fog that appears in Yuri
Norstein s Hedgehog in the
Fog . Through these colloids
we get the feeling of floatingin the mother s womb, a senseof contentment and security,and eroticism. Colloids can bea gentle friend in children sliterature, animation, andchildhood.
Wa t e r c o m b i n e s w i t h o t h e rparticles and becomes a colloid,
and then it flows, transforms,
and exists as something chaotic
and unstable. Just like how
animation essentially is, which isan organic sequence generated
from still frames, water
keeps its cycle of flow anddiscontinuity. Water becomeslife itself and composes anindivisible space of the material
and the spiritual.
At Hiroshima Animation Season
2022, we are sharing various
animation films concerning
water. Issui Shiken , I hope you
will enjoy them all.

Koji Yamamura
Yamamura s short film Mt. Head (2002) was
nominated for an Oscar in 2003 and awarded
six grand prix, while many of his other films also
won numerous awards. He was placed second
among the 25 Best animated short films
directors over the last 25 years. He is the only
director who has been awarded the grand prix inall four major international animation festivals.
He has also received the Kawakita Award, The
Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology's Art Encouragement Prize, andthe Medal with Purple Ribbon.

Dozens of Norths by Koji Yamamura

Left: Datum Poin t by Ryo Orikasa
Bottom left: Inspiration by Karel Zeman
Bottom right: Rain – Memory of Cloud. 1 by Nobuhiro Aihara

Relevant programs

HAS Classics
Inspiration, Invention for Destruction
by Karel Zeman
The Cowboy's Flute by Wei Te
Prince Nezha's Triumph Against Dragon Kingby Shuchen Wang, Dingxian Yan, Jingda Xu
Song of the Sea by Tomm Moore

20

Nobuhiro Aihara
and Koji Yamamura
Rhabdophis Tigrinus, Short Distance Runner,
Red Diamant, Cloud Thread,Wind Erosion, Rain – Memory of Cloud. 1,
Water Ring Karma 2
by Nobuhiro Aihara
Mt. Head, The Old Crocodile, Fig,
Water Dream, Dreams into Drawing
by Koji Yamamura

Special Screening
Dozens of Norths by Koji Yamamura

Water in Animation:
Flow and Discontinuity

Water in Animation:
Japanese Short Animation

Water in Animation:
Japanese Feature Animation

The Unnameable Dance by Isshin Inudo

Aquatic by Koji Yamamura

Dojoji Temple by Kihachiro Kawamoto

Momotaro: Sacred Sailors by Mitsuyo Seo

Dragonfly by Nobuhiro Aihara

Kumo to Tulip by Kenzo Masaoka

Datum Point by Ryo Orihara

Two Grilled Fish by Yoji Kuri

Legend of the White Serpent
by Taiji Yabushita

Man On The Chair by Jeong Dahee

Whale, The Phantom Ship by Noburo Ofuji

Baths by Tomek Ducki

Chisana itsutsuno ohanashi, Mizu no Taneby Tadanari Okamoto

Once there was a sea... by Joanna Kozuch

The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon
by Yugo Serikawa
The Book of the Dead by Kihachiro Kawamoto

21

Special Feature: Gender Identity and Sexuality & Woman in Anima
The Dynamism of Queer Animation

The current use of the word
queer
connotes thequestioning of the existingnormativity and categorizationof gender and sexuality, but

the word was originally used toindicate strange or weird.
It was a derogatory term forhomosexual individuals, a word
to refer to them. In the UnitedStates in the 1980s, the wordq u e e r re s u r f a c e d , b u t t h i stime in the research field due tothe HIV/AIDS epidemic. It wasthen re-adopted as a term torepresent us with the senseof self-affirmation and became
popular among those who
questioned or did not fit into
the heteronormativity or gendernormativity. The word queer
was thus tur ned around andregained as a self-representation
term by those who had once
been hurt by it, and the area
w h e re t h e q u e e r c a n f u l l ymanifest their potentials isfilms (see reference). The New
Queer Cinema coined by B.
Ruby Rich in the 1990s refers
to the movement in filmmaking
that focused on queers. The
emergence of animation
documentary subgenre helped
more queer animation films tobe created by the independent
animators, and today the queer
animation has become a new
stream flowing into the world ofanimation.
I create animation myself, but I
also study the queer animation.
There is a clear increase, both

qualitatively and quantitatively,
in films on queers or genderissues in the recent years; andyet, their viewpoints are notyet connected to those of there s e a rc h e r s a n d c r i t i c s , a n dwhat is represented in thosefilms often go unnoticed. I study
queer animation because I am
eager to, with a mild sense ofcrisis, create an environment for
proper discussions.
The existing and yet-to-beidentified sexual minority groups
as well as the women all over
the world have been forced tolive within certain social values
and standards. The internalized
stigma has oppressed even ourown selves. Not only that, butmany of the representations thatstrayed from the gender binarism
must have been overlooked,
and whose decisions were they?
I feel the pressure that, in theworld so powerfully presented to
us in the animations and films,
there shall be no room for suchoversight.
Upon celebrating the very firstevent of the new animation
film festival in Hiroshima, theHiroshima Animation Season, I
took this curatorial program as
an opportunity to invite in the
dynamism of queer animation
and build a foundation tostart a new history in Japanese

Born on an island in the Seto Inland Sea andcompleted her studies at the Graduate Schoolof Film and Media, Tokyo University of theArts in 2017. Her latest film A Bite of Bonewon the Grand Prize for Short Animation at
the 45th edition of the Ottawa International
Animation Festival and the New Face Award
for Animation Division at the 25th edition of
the Japan Media Arts Festival in 2022. She
has been teaching part-time at the Joshibi
University of Art and Design since 2022.

animation.
Let s go back to the term once
again. The word queer (theory)is not only about questioning the
traditional values about genderand sexual minority groups. It
also entails our resistance toviolence, power, and misogyny,
as well as our attention toward
those who are concealed behind
the word diversity. When thequeer takes the form ofanimation, we witness ourselves,
our world, and their world. Last
but not least, I would like toexpress my deep gratitude to
the Hiroshima Animation Season
for giving me this opportunity,
the participating animators, andthe two guests who will join me
in the talks, Akiko Shimizu andMizuki Kodama.

Les lèvres gercées by Fabien Corre, Kelsi Phung

Between Us Two by Tan Wei Keong

Beneath The Surface by Yero Timi-Biu, Jessica Ashman

Step Into the River by Weijia Ma[References]
Kanno, Y. (2021). Queer Cinema Studies(185). Kyoto: Koyo Shobo.
Moriyama, N. LGBT o Yomitoku: Queer
Studies Nyumon (240). Tokyo: Chikuma
Shobo.

Special Programs

Overview

Films

Gender Identity and Sexuality

In this curatorial program, we will introduce Japanese and overseas animation
films about LGBTQA+, gender, or women, in the aim of sharing the independentand diverse minds and worlds out there. To help the audience understand better
about and reach closer to those films, we will hold talks about gender, sexuality,
and women. (Guests: Akiko Shimizu, Mizuki Kodama/Moderator for bothsessions: Honami Yano)

Gender Identity and Sexuality

Woman in Anima

To the closet (Au Placard)by Vivien Forsans

I Like Girlsby Diane Obomsawin

Personaby Moon Sujin

Fourth Period Swimming Classby Mayo Kobayashi

A Short Film About Tegan & Sara
by Ann Marie Fleming

Purpleboy
by Alexandre Siqueira

Beneath The Surface
by Yero Timi-Biu, Jessica Ashman

Air
by Clara Fernández

For the Bestby Youyang Yu

Are You Still Watching?
by Tali Polichtuk, Kitty Chrystal

Red Flower
by Yu Hsuan Liu

Real Boyby Irena Jukić Pranjić

Les lèvres gercées
by Fabien Corre, Kelsi Phung

Sometimes I Wish I Was On a Desert Island
by Eli Jean Tahchi

Silveringby Eilidh Nicoll

Step into the Riverby Weijia Ma

Shall We Talk?
by Ekaterina Mikheeva

Inglorious Liaisonsby Violette Delvoye, Chloé Alliez

You Are Overreacting
by Karina Paciorkowska

STEAKHOUSEby Špela Čadež

Récit de soi
by Géraldine Charpentier-Basille

Between Us Two
by Tan Wei KeongGirls Talk about Footballby Paola Sorrentino

Slug Lifeby Sophie Koko Gate&
Woman in Anima

Adorableby Cheng-Hsu Chung

22

Gender Identity and Sexuality
Woman in Anima

Honami Yano

Honami Yano
What is queer ? If I wereto put it simply, it is a termc o l l e c t i v e l y re f e r r i n g t o t h esexual minority groups while
keeping the questioning stanceon existing categorization. In thiscuratorial program, I collected
queer animation films without
specifically using that word andselected diverse and independentfilms created by individual
animators.
I hosted a queer animation
screening event for the firsttime in 2017, funded by the
Tokyo University of the Arts
Geidai Friends grant
program. This animation
festival will be the second ofs u c h e v e n t i n J a p a n , w h e remultiple queer animation
films are screened together.
The slogan of this festival is,
Animation holds a mirror to
the world. The films I selected
are about sexuality and genderissues which are the essential
part of human life. They show
us the powerful minds ofindividuals, the inner worlds
which mirror not only the
animators themselves but also
the audience like me (and you).

See the detailsof the program

A little too muchby Martina Scarpelli

23Special Feature: Contemporary Japan

See the details of the program

Japan Animation Association and Its History
Mirai Mizue, the fourth Chairman of the Japan Animation Association
What comes to your mind when
you hear Japanese animation ?
Studio Ghibli s feature films arewidely popular across the globe,
and the director Masaaki Yuasa slatest works have received an
enthusiastic welcome at the
Annecy International Animation
Film Festival every time.
However, there are more to theJapanese animation. Aside fromthe feature animation films or
television series produced by
the major studios, there are
independent films created byindividual animators. Yoji Kuri,
an honorary member of theJapan Animation Association(JAA), founded the Three-People
Animation group in the 1960s
and started screening at the
Sogetsu Kaikan in Tokyo. Their
events had a tremendous impact
and pushed the artists in othergenres such as modern art andillustration to create animation
films, making the Japanese
independent animation more
popular and active.
I myself started making
animation films back in
2000s when I was studying
g r a p h i c d e s i g n a t t h e Ta m a
A r t U n i v e r s i t y. I t w a s w h e n
K o j i Ya m a m u r a b e c a m e t h e
first Japanese animator to
win the Annecy Cristal for a
Short Film with his latest film,
Mt. Head . The film was also
nominated for the Academy
Award for Best Animated Short
F i l m . M r. Ya m a m u r a p ro v e dthat an individual animator s
work could still be appreciatedaround the world, and that s
why the influence he gave tothe younger animators was so
p ro f o u n d . S i n c e t h e n , m o reand more Japanese animators
had their works screened at theinternational film festivals. In
2008, Kunio Kato won both theAnnecy Cristal and the Academy
Award for Best Animated Short
Film with his short film, The
House of Small Cubes .
In the 2010s, CALF, a label forthe independent animation films,
was co-founded by Kei Oyama,
Atsushi Wada, Nobuaki Doi, andmyself. We went around the four
major international animation
festivals and helped to promote
the contemporary Japanese
independent animation films. Mr.
Wada became the first Japanese
to win the Silver Bear for Best
Short Film at the 2012 Berlin
International Film Festival withhis work, The Great Rabbit ,showing that the Japanese
independent animations werestarting to be recognized not
only at the animation festivals
but also at the Big Threefilm festivals in their short film
categories.
Students are doing quite fine,too. In 2010, the Graduate
Department of Animation at
Tokyo University of the Artsh a s b e e n a w a rd e d t h e B e s t
A n i m a t i o n S c h o o l Aw a rd b y
the Animafest Zagreb and the
Ottawa International Animation
Festival. In 2013, it was the
Department of Graphic Design at
Tama Art University that received
the same award in Ottawa. Since
then, the undergraduate andgraduate thesis projects fromboth universities have become

regulars at international film
festivals such as the Annecy.
Now in the 2020s, thecontemporary Japanese
i n d e p e n d e n t a n i m a t i o n s a remore active and vibrant thane v e r. Wa t c h i n g a n i m a t i o n s
online became much easier andcommon, and we discover new
talents every day as they release
their works on social media withshared hashtags. They provide
animations for music videos,
advertisements, or TV programs,
and their names go viral again
on social media. The walls
between individual animatorsand commercial studios graduallycame down, and we now seethem collaborate on televisionseries and feature films.
Looking back on the last decade,we see an incredible increasein the number of Japanese
animators who are awarded or
nominated for major prizes suchas grand prix, and travel overseas
to attend the international
festivals. I hope to see the future
where each of those animators
continue to produce new films.
The Japanese independent
animation is currently in the
middle of dynamism for change.
The creators I selected forthis special program werebor n around 1980, studied
animation at an art university,and began creating films in a
private, digitalized environment.
They made animation theircareer after graduation, kept
telling their stories in their own
individual ways, and now they
are in full swing as experienced
and acclaimed visual artists.

I a l s o t o o k a h i n t f ro m t h i s
festival s theme which is music,
and selected many animatedmusic videos. It is one subgenrethat shows how diverse
the contemporary Japanese
animations can be.
I hope you will enjoy these films
that are strange and strong,
but with a style that colorfully
represents the creators.

45R Official Site
Animation 2019.9-2020.8
by Manabu Himeda

Mirai Mizue
As an animator, he creates nonnarrative images using cells orgeometric graphics. His abstract
animation is riveting and original,
and it can be seen in a wide rangeof works including independent
animation films and music videos. He
is currently working on his first featurefilm Mirai Mizue's Journey to theWest (tentative). He is the fourth
Chairman of the Japan Animation
Association since July 2022.

Top left: Let s Love! (performed by CHAI) by Mirai Mizue
Top right: My Exercise [Short Film] by Atsushi Wada
Left: Howl At The Moon (performed by Yorushika) by Ryu Kato

Special Program

Overview

Films

The New Trend in Contemporary Japan 2

Japan Animation Association (JAA) was established in 1978 to promoteanimation culture, and our members come from different generations.
For this program, we have selected the animators who were born around1980 to show you how deep short animation films can be with theircreators minds strongly echoing in them.

Let s Love! (performed by CHAI)
by Mirai Mizue

Howl At The Moon (performed by Yorushika)
by Ryu Kato

himawari (performed by Mr. Children)by Toshiaki Hanzaki

Prayer X (performed by King Gnu)
by Ryoji Yamada

45R Official Site Animation 2019.9-2020.8
by Manabu Himeda

RouRou by Sakurako Nagano

RainMan (performed by Androp)by Decovocal

While the Crow Weeps
by Makiko Sukikara and Kohei Matsumura

Estrange by Kazuki Sekiguchi

alone (performed by BONZIE) by Miyo Sato

RED TABLE by Hakhyun Kim

Fake! Fake! (performed by A Crow Is White)by Wataru Uekusa

Japan Animation Association Presents
Dive into the Sea ofJapanese Independent Animation!

Tarareba (performed by amazarashi)
by Yutaro Kubo

24

Paprika (performed by Kenshi Yonezu)
by Ryu KatoSouthpaw (performed by Kuricorder Quartet)by Sawako Kabuki
My Exercise [Short Film] by Atsushi Wada
one day by Moe Koyano

Visitor at Dusk (Village with Garappa-don)by Arisa Wakami

25

Special Feature:

Visual Music

Visual Music
Hiromichi Hosoma
Figuring out how music andanimation affect each other is
not an easy task. For instance,
when music and movements
are in perfect synch, we
automatically assume that the
picture is moving to the music.
But is it always the case? Is it
really the picture that s moving
to the music, or is it the musicthat s playing to match the
movements of the picture? And
when we say movements ofthe picture, is it the whole shapeor a person that s moving or is it
just a part of them such as theirlimbs moving? Or, could it be thecamera that s jumping instead?
T h ro u g h o u t t h e h i s t o r y o f
a n i m a t i o n , t h e re h a v e b e e nmany different expressions thatmake us wonder how the music
and the visuals affect each other.
We will call it the visual music
here. It s not visualized but
visual music, because wecannot readily tell whether it s
the music or the visuals thatcomes first.
Let s start with the works ofOskar Fischinger who released
many studies upon theappearance of talkies. His Studie
No. 7 uses Hungarian Dance
No. 5 by Johannes Brahms.
Since the music existed before
he created the animation, theaudience would assume thatit s the picture that s moving to
the music and sensibly conclude
that there must be an offscreen orchestra that s playing
the music. For us living in thismodern era, there is nothing
strange about the music being

26

played by off-screen instruments.
This is because older forms of
performing art such as play,
opera, and ballet have live
musicians separate from theperformers on stage. The cinema
adopted the same system, so,since the time when musicians
played the music to accompany
silent films, the audience havebeen accustomed to separating
what is going on in the film andthe music that s played to it.
Going back to the movementsin the Studie No. 7 . Watching
how Fischinger s abstract shapes
move along with the music, there
seems to be no rule about whichor how many sounds correspondto which shapes. The way hedrew those shapes feels as if
he intended to put every soundour ears catch into animation.
He seems to have enjoyed thecreative freedom given especiallyto the pioneer in the field, andthat s why his animation shows asort of liveliness that is absent inthose that came after him.
＊＊＊

The animators after Fischinger
more or less tried to structuralize
some of the things he did morec l e a r l y. Ta k e a l i s t e n t o t h e
types of instruments and theirsounds, or which one is carrying
the melody in their animation.
When we catch a consistentline of sound in music, we try toguess who is in charge of thatsound, in other words, what ismaking that sound. If we assign
a certain animation character toa particular sound, a change insounds means a change in theappearing characters. Therefore,

when different lines of melody
a p p e a r a n d d i s a p p e a r, t h e
assigned characters also appear
and disappear. Mary Ellen Bute s
Polka Graph is considered to
be following in the footsteps ofOskar Fischinger and his abstract
animation; but Polka Graphis interesting because it shows
how the sound is evoking thecharacters more clearly thanFischinger did.
While Polka Graph primarily
generates characters from thelead melody and countermelody,
Chris Hinton s cNote visualizes
the vibration coming from an
improvised music. The fragmentsof sound generate lines andshapes, and they in turngenerate more lines and shapes.
What these lines and shapes
represent as characters is not agraceful melody but a vibrating
source that s generating thesound. These characters arevisualizing the vibration, just likean oscillograph.
On one hand there is an
animation that keeps switching
the characters to correspondto the music; and on the other
hand, there is one that keeps
the same character but changes
its movement and placement tomatch the music. It is the kindthat makes us wonder, What is
it that s dancing?
N o r m a n M c L a re n s C a n o nshows a kind of dance withmusic and matching movements.
What makes it so superb is theway it gradually reveals how one
movement is linked to anotherto create a single sequence. Thisis exactly the kind of fun that we
experience when we listen to a
canon and slowly discover how
a single melodic line intertwineswith more lines.
I find the movements of the

See the details of the program

dice at the beginning of Canonquite charming. Those dice do
not move in uniform motion, butinstead they move in a rhythm
that resembles human motion:quicker when picking itself
up and slower when putting
itself down. This makes eachof the dice looks like individual
characters.
R e n é J o d o i n s Notes on a
Triangle effectively uses thesimilar human-like motion
and shows us the structure ofa certain shape more clearly.
Staring at the movements ofthe multiple triangles, it starts
to feel as if the 60-, 120, and 240-degree angles arechoreographic cues. This must
be because these triangles are
moving with grace combining
quicker and slower motions
instead of uniform motion, justas the dice in McLaren s Canondo.
In animation, we are used
to seeing a still character ora still picture being animatedwithout changing its identity or
the world it contains. However,in recent years, we are seeing
animations that shake up suchp re m i s e s . A n d re a s H y k a d e s
Love & Theft shows widely
known animation charactersmorphing into one another, andyour initial reaction may be, Uhoh, are we seeing copyright
infringement? Surprisingly
enough, if you check it frame byframe, not a single frame shows
anything resembling thosef a m o u s c h a r a c t e r s . It s e e ms
that, when multiple frames areplayed in a sequence, we see
not only a movement but alsoa known character by mentally
editing the traits we pick up
f ro m t h e s e q u e n c e . L o v e &Theft is revolutionary in a sensethat it proves how we actively
make up and recognize certain
characters within movements.
Recently on social media, we
see fans buzzing about sakuga
houkai in anime, a phenomenon
where characters are drawn sobadly that they look nothing likethemselves. This may actually
be a proof that our character
recognition is not based solely
on a single still image.
Hykade s Love & Theftis characterized by having
no defining moment or aframe. Then there is Georges
Schwizgebel, who has createdfor many years such remarkable
animations that spark the
memories of the audience.
Like his other works, Jeu uses
still images as a starting point;
but instead of just animating
them, it uses the textures anddetails of the still images as yet
another starting point to takeus to a whole different world.
Schwizgebel is completely
opposite from Hykade in terms
of using still images as a starting
point; however, by turning thosestill images into a connection toa different world, Schwizgebel s
Jeu is also showing no defining
moment.
What is making the sound?
and Which one is dancing?
Animation is telling us thatanswers to these questions are
now in the viewer s recognition.
To what kind of movement do
we tend to link a sound? In whatsort of movement are we likely
to see a dancer? Animation is
now shaking the very groundof our recognition, instead ofletting us simply see a pictureof sound-making or dancing
objects. If you go back to
Fischinger s films after having
experienced the visual music inthis special feature program, youwill begin to see that the shapes
in his films are not just dancing
h a p p i l y t o t h e t u n e b u t a reshaking our recognition as theydisperse into different melodies
and shapes. Learning the historyof animation therefore leads to
updating our understanding of
the old works.

Hiromichi Hosoma
A behavioral scientist born in 1960.
C u r re n t l y t e a c h e s a t t h e F a c u l t yof Letters, Arts and Sciences at
Waseda University as a professor. His
publications include: Asakusa Junikai– To n o N a g a m e t o K i n d a i n o
Manazashi (Asakusa Twelve-stories– The view from the tower and themodern perspectives) ; E-hagaki no
Jidai (The Era of Postcards) ; Futatsu
no Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni –Manga , animeshon no koe to dousa(The Two In This Corner of theWorld - The voices and movements
in manga and animation) , Seidosha;
Kyou no Amachan kara (FromTo d a y s A m a c h a n ) , I d a t e n banashi (Idaten Stories) , Kawade
Shobo Shinsha; Mikki wa Naze
Kuchibue o Fukunoka – Animeshon
no Hyougen-shi (Why Does Mickey
Mouse Whistle? – The history of
expressions in animation) , Shincho
Sensho; Uta no Shikumi (The
Structure of Songs) , Pia; Kaigo
suru Karada (Bodies that Care For
Others) , Igaku-Shoin; and more. He
also has many contributing articles on
animation and manga.

© Center for Visual Music

Studie No. 7 by Oskar Fischinger© 2004 National Film Board of Canada. All right reserved

cNote by Chris Hinton© 1964 National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada. All right reserved / tous droits réservés.

Canon by Norman McLaren

Special Programs

Overview

Films

Visual Music

Since the silent film era, many animators have added rhythms and accents toobject movements, thereby building a new visual-audio relationship between
the motion and the sound, which is different from the simpler form of dance
and its accompanying music. In this lecture, we will pick up such visual music
films, dig deeper into their worlds, and rediscover the pleasure of animation.

Studie No. 7
by Oskar Fischinger

Notes on a Triangle
by René Jodoin

cNoteby Chris Hinton

Polka Graph
by Mary Ellen Bute

Street Musique
by Ryan Larkin

Jeu
by Georges Schwizgebel

Mandalaby Jordan Belson

Tango
by Zbigniew Rybczynski

Love & Theftby Andreas Hykade

Canon
by Norman McLaren

Stille Nacht 3 Tales From The Vienna Woods
by Brothers Quay

27

Special Feature:

Exhibition

See the details of the program

In the Flow
Right:
Evolved Virtual Creatures
by Karl Sims, 1994
Image courtesy of the artist

Jung-Yeon Ma
In the Flow is an exhibition
imagining the scenery ofimage culture flowing between
contemporary art and animation,
inspired by water, the essentialcondition for survival. The title isborrowed from Boris Groys s In
the Flow (Verso Books, 2016),
a critique on the changes in therelation between contemporary
art and time fluidity and thefluidity of production, circulation,
appreciation, documentation inworks of art, caused by digitaltechnology.
It is said that life on the earth
first appeared in the sea about
3.8 billion years ago, then moved
up to the land about 400 million
years ago. They are believed tohave evolved on the principle ofsurvival of the fittest ; where
those suited to the conditions
for survival are more likely tostay alive and produce offspring.
Evolved Virtual Creatures(1994) is a computer animation
describing an ecosystem thatappeared in the simulation
developed by Karl Sims (USA,
1962-). Creatures born from the
combination of virtual genetic
information to decide shapes andmovements, swim in the water,
walk and jump on the land
affected by gravity, or competewith one another for the symbolof food. Instead of designingeach creature, Sims created theenvironment and conditions for
it to be born and live in. What28

one can see from the video is nota pre-established harmonious
pseudo-nature, but the variety instrategies of survival beyond theartist s expectation.
Pink dolphin is another nameof amazon river dolphin livingin freshwater, blocked from thesea by crustal movement about
3 million years ago. Ji Hye Yeom
(Korea, 1982-) s A Night with a
Pink Dolphin is a work based on
the artist s personal encounter
with a pink dolphin in Brazil.
Among local people, there is afolklore saying if a virgin swims
in the amazon river, she will bepregnant with a child of a pink
dolphin transformed into a man.
Pink dolphin has been a creature
between reality and myth. The
relationship between nature andhumans, however, has drasticallychanged because of colonialism
and the logic of capitalism andpink dolphins are now classified
as vulnerable species facing
the crisis of extinction. Yeom s
work merging her own footage
taken in Brazil and 3DCG
animation with found footage
purchased or downloaded fromthe Internet, can be understoodas an environment where pink
dolphins as a representation stayalive and survive.
On two screens in mostly whiteand blue, images liberated
from colors and perspectives
are multi-layered, floating andflowing away. In the scenery
where the foreground cannot
be distinguished from thebackground, the sky, the sea
and the land melt into one
another and the border between
nature and humans is blurred.
Combined with sounds, theseinfra-thin images without weight
and thickness oscillate between
abstractness and concreteness.
Difference Between (2014) isa dual channel video installation
composed of sounds and imagesr e c o r d e d b y Ta k a o M i n a m i(Japan, 1976-) in the Malay
Peninsula. Aspects of today s
visual culture are reflected in thisunfamiliar scenery of the work,where one is questioned how toanimate image sources.

The Critical Dictionary ofSoutheast Asia (2017-, https://cdosea.org/) is an ongoing longterm project by Ho Tzu Nyen
(Singapore, 1976-). Throughan online platform with analgorithmic editing systemshowing a new combinationof text, music, photography,
video every time, Ho questions
a single framework referringto this heterogeneous region
consisting of various ethnic
groups, languages, religions
and histories. H for Humidity(2022-), the latest entry in the
dictionary, is originally interactive
VR work in which the audienced r i f t s t o d i ff e re n t t i m e a n dspace following the route ofwater in solid, liquid and gas
form. In this exhibition, thework is introduced as a formof landscape painting based on
multiple scenes of the virtual
travel selected by the artist. In
the era of pandemic, what is
the implication of imagining
the sensation of being a part of
the grand circulation of waterflowing inside and outside of ourbodies?

Center right:
H for Humidity
by Ho Tzu Nyen, 2022-Present
Image courtesy of the artist and Kiang Malingue
Bottom left:
Difference Between
by Takao Minami, 2014
Image courtesy of the artist and Ota Fine Arts
Bottom right:
A Night with a Pink Dolphin
by Ji Hye Yeom, 2015
Image courtesy of the artis

Jung-Yeon Ma
Born in Seoul in 1980. Completed her
PhD. study at the Graduate Schoolof Film and New Media at Tokyo
University of the Arts. Her publications
include A Critical History of MediaArt in Japan (Artes Publishing,2014); Seiko Mikami: A Critical
Reader (NTT Publishing, 2019; coeditor); Exhibition Spaces Emitting
Light and Sound: Contemporary
Art and Image Media (2019); The
Operating Method of a Panoramic
Imagination (2020); Paik-Abe
Correspondence (Nam June Paik
Art Center, 2018: co-translator);
Reflective Notes (Recent Writings)
by Koki Tanaka (Art Sonje Center& Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 2020-21;
c o - t r a n s l a t o r ) ; a n d m o re . S h e i scurrently an associate professor at
the Department of Film and Media
Studies at Kansai University and aguest curator at the National Museumof Art, Osaka.

Special Program

Overview

Exhibits

In the Flow

This is an exhibition to take our imagination to the sceneries thatflow between the contemporary art and animation, from theperspective of water as an essential condition for survival.

Evolved Virtual Creatures
Karl Sims

H for Humidity
Ho Tzu Nyen

Difference Between
Takao Minami

A Night with a Pink Dolphin
Ji Hye Yeom

29

Special Feature:

LectureSee the details of the program

How Animation Has Achieved the Expression of the Water
Shunji Gondo
How has animation beenable to visualize somethingso transparent and unstableas water? In this lecture, I
will show how each of thedifferent techniques to express
water has evolved and clarify
the characteristics of eachapproach.
We will first look at thetraditional cel animation andverify how it used lines (andcolors) to express the waves
which has particularly complex
forms and movements among
all of the water-related natural
phenomena.
W ith the exception of The
Sinking of the Lusitania( 1 9 1 8 ) b y W i n s o r M c C a y,waves were symbolized bysimple lines in the earliest
days of animation; then in the
1930s, waves quickly began
to take on a more realistic
appearance in the Walt DisneyStudio films. Many woulda g re e t h a t D i s n e y s w a v e drawing technique reached
its pinnacle with Pinocchio(1940) and Fantasia (1940).
It was the effects animators
who specialized in naturalp h e n o m e n a ( w a t e r, f i r e ,smoke, etc.) instead of
the characters that madesuch level of perfection
possible, as well as the studiosystem which integrated
outstanding techniques indrawing, coloring, and filming
departments.
In Japan, notable wave
expressions can be found in
the earlier Toei feature films,
which were primarily createdb y t w o a n i m a t o r s , Ya s u o
Otsuka and Yoichi Kotabe. In

Otsuka s Arabian Nights: The
Adventures of Sinbad (1962)
and Kotabe s Little Norse
Prince Valiant (1968), we
can see their effort to express
waves more realisticallyas did the Disney Studio.
Contrastingly, in his otherworks, Little Prince and theEight Headed Dragon (1963)
and Animal Treasure Island(1971), Kotabe established afresh take on the expressionof waves in a more stylizedform.
The tendency towardstylization is one distinction oflimited animation whichbecame huge in the 1950s
and the 60s. Such tendency
was pushed to its limits in The
Substitute (1960) by Dušan
Vukotić, which represents theZagreb School of AnimatedFilm in Croatia.
On the other hand, for stopmotion animation in which
physical objects such as dolls
and clay are manipulated
and captured one frame
at a time, the first concern
is what material to use toexpress water. It is practically
impossible to move waterin small increments, so weneed to come up with asubstitute. Which material touse as a substitute is crucial,
as it directly affects thecontrollability of the object s
movements. This is the majordifference from cel animation
which, however challenging
it may be, can visualize any
images and movements on asheet.
If we look at films created by
the pioneer puppet filmmaker

Władysław Starewicz, JiříTr nka from the golden ageof Czech puppet animation,
Karel Zeman, or other latercreators, we notice that there
is no linear evolution of
expressions which we see in celanimation. Some use viscous
substances such as glycerin to
imitate the water movements,
while others use cellophaneor glass to express thetransparency of the water. The
materials and the expression
techniques vary among thecreators and change between
the films.
In puppet animation,e x p re s s i o n o f w a v e s o f t e n
do not aim for reality, but it
is established in their own
stylized ways. Such stylization
allowed for a sort of makeb e l i e v e w a t e r i n Va d i m
Kurchevskiy s My Green
Crocodile (1966) and abold attempt to borrow thetheatrical expression of waterin Barry JC Purves Screenplay(1992).
In the lecture, I will also touchon some clay animation films
such as The Adventureso f M a r k Tw a i n ( 1 9 8 5 ) b y
Will Vinton and The Wrong
Tr o u s e r s ( 1 9 9 3 ) b y N i c k
Park, as well as films using
cut-out figures such as
The Adventures of Prince
Achmed (1926) by Lotte
Reiniger and The Lady andthe Cellist by Jean-François
Laguionie.
The expression of water inanimation has a history of trial
and error under many difficult
conditions, and that in turnmakes the characteristics ofeach expression technique andcreator s personality so visible.

[References]
Gilland, J. (2018). Elemental Magic,

Volume 2 : The Technique of Special
Effects Animation (Japanese translation
by Sanae Hiraya, et al.). Tokyo: Born
Digital.
Japan Society for Animation Studies,

Workshop

Japanese Language Education ×Animation

In the Hiroshima Animation Season
2022, we attempted to combine
animations and Japanese language
education. Now that the revisionof the new Courses of Study forschools allows the use of images
and videos as teaching materials
on top of literal texts, it is possible
to further enhance students'
language skills in writing reviewsby introducing animated films in
the class.

We took the process of deciding on
course materials, teaching plans,
and worksheet creation throughdiscussions by experts in both fields
of Japanese language education andanimations together with teacherso n t h e f ro n t l i n e . A s a re s u l t ,suitable teaching materials wereready for a deep understanding ofanimations while conforming to the
Courses of Study.
The worksheets focus on theprocess of "how to make languageout of something as non-verbal asimages. By setting four perspectives
for analyzing the images, their
specific design would allow
students to have rich and productive
discussions within the limited classhours. We also prepared example
reviews by experts for each of thefour elements. Compared withthem, the students would be able
to deepen their reading.

Research Committee (2004). Japan

Society for Animation Studies 20034, Volume 2 . Tokyo: Japan Society for
Animation Studies.
Thomas, F. & Johnston, O. (2002). The

Illusion of Life: Disney Animation(Japanese translation by Studio Ghibli).
Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten.

Shunji Gondo
Researcher on animation. He
specializes in the history ofanimation in Europe and theUnited States. Associate Professor,
Department of Animation Studies,
Faculty of Arts, Tokyo Polytechnic
University. His publications include
Euro Animation: Deep Fantasy inLight and Shadow (co-edited, Film
Art, 2002), Of Mice and Magic: A
History of American AnimatedCartoons (Supervising translator,
Raku Kosha, 2010). His academic
papers include "French Animationand the 'French Touch'", (in Cultureof Japanese-French Animation ,Suisei-sha, 2006)

LectureOverview

How Animation Has Achieved
the Expression of the Water

We will look at the expression of water in animation and how it has evolved interms of techniques and materials. Our primary focus will be on how the effectanimation techniques for waves have developed in cel animation, as well as
what materials have been used to express water in puppet and clay animations.

Program〈 Teaching materials 〉

Subject animated film:
The Restaurant of Many Orders(Directed by Tadanari Okamoto, 1991)
Teaching plans and worksheets:
Fukiko Kaneda
Supervisor:
Kaori Okuizumi
Panel members:
Kaori Okuizumi, Fukiko Kaneda, Kazuo Doi,
Nobuaki Doi, Daisuke Tanaka, Takaaki Nomura
With thanks to
Kazuki Tanigashira, REM Japanese Language Group〈 Example reviews by 〉

Daisuke Tanaka, Yutaka Tsukada, Nobuaki Doi,
Takaaki Nomura, Yuko Miyamoto, Koji Yamamura

Worksheet examples used in the class〈 Implementation 〉

Classes were held from the end of June to the beginning of July.
Held at:Hijiyama Girls' Junior High School, 3rd grade,
Sakura and Fuji classes (Teacher: Kazuo Doi)

The Restaurant of Many Orders（1991・19min）ⒸSakura Motion Pictures Co., Ltd., Echo Inc.

Support for watching online:
Nekojarashi Inc.
Supported by:
Masako Kudo (Child Film Co., Ltd.),
Yasushi Yamashita (WOWOW Plus Inc.)

The course took place over four periods.
1st period： View the film and write the first review;
2nd period： Analyze the film and write reviews

in four separate groups:"images," "sound," "characters," and"story (comparison with the original novel)."
3rd period： Read other students' reviews and write another review.
4th period： Finalize the review, and compare itwith professionally written ones. Retrospectives.

30※This program is supported by a research grant from Hijiyama University.

31

Workshop〈Focus on Images①〉Editing and Layout Manipulate the Meaning of the Narrative
Why can we read the story's meaning and the characters'
emotions from images? That is because the filmmakers
put their intentions into every cut; They edit to connect
scenes or arrange the layout of the objects in a scene.
Furthermore, in the case of animation, unlike liveaction video, unexpected objects do not appear in the
background, making it easier to achieve the desired effectin editing and layout. Film director Hideaki Anno has also
pointed out the importance of controlling the amountof information in a scene for animation based on thesecharacteristics※1.
The Restaurant of Many Orders also made various
innovations in its editing and layout. First, at the film's
beginning, we see a performance that explains the story's
setting. A series of scenes in which the gentlemen drive
down an animal trail and then proceed on foot deep into
the mountains will make the audience understand thatthe film is set in a remote mountainous area. The story
slowly begins filled with a strange atmosphere, which ismade clear by a cut to a bird's-eye view of the mountain.
In this scene, the mountain gradually becomes shrouded
in fog, suggesting a series of strange events, such as
the death of the hounds and the strong winds, are now
covering the entire story.
Then, the gentlemen who wander into the Wildcat

Restaurant are at the mercy of the unrealistic space inside
the building. It is clear that multiple vanishing points areplaced in the scene of the room behind the door withthe sign, "Please make your hair tidy and remove mudfrom your shoes here." The scene, which is unnaturally
divided in the center, gives the audience the impressionthat the previous normality has changed completely.
After such a peculiar layout, the attitude of accepting
the story is further complicated by the notice, "Please
do not bring in guns and bullets." The gentlemen haveseen this notice before, but here they go on with theirguns, oblivious to it. It creates an imbalance between thecharacters' knowledge and the audience's, and we nolonger experience the story from the same perspective as
the characters. Still, we watch with tension as we wonder
what will happen to the characters who have done
something contrary to the directions. The editing that
injects cuts with such overtones functions as somethingthat transforms the meaning of the images that follow.
In this way, The Restaurant of Many Orders sustains
suspense※2 as it gives "orders" to the gentlemen one
after another. Toward the film's end, they finally realizethat Wildcat Restaurant is a cannibal restaurant thatcatches and cooks people who wander in. Wildcats,
dressed as a cook and dancers, attack the hunters, who

where the light comes from in any of the scenes. That all
suggests the idea of expressing the story in the space, notin the people's facial expressions.
Let us now look at the changes in the space along thestory. The film begins with a close-up shot of a wheel, andthen an automobile appears in the forest. The first two
cuts show the contrast between the artificial machine andnature. Then the hounds appear, followed by two hunters
climbing up a hill, indicating that they are heading toward
the top of the mountain forest. However, the two men
supposed to have climbed up begin to descend. Then thesigns of weirdness start showing, including the death of
the hounds and the depiction of an eerie wind.
As the men descend further, the forest space opens up
with a clear view, and they finally arrive at the centerof the story, the Wildcat Restaurant. As the men movedeeper and deeper into the Wildcat Restaurant, theirappetite and desire for women grows. A scene with
scattered stained glass windows unfolds, and color andmusic appear for the first time. Bullets and butterflies※1"Anno Hideaki's Animation Style", Yuichiro Oguro, Interviews with
Anime Creators: People most in the know about Anime 2001-2002,
Kodansha, 2011, p. 317.
※2

Film director Alfred Hitchcock defined "surprise" as the explosion of abomb that neither the characters in the play nor the audience knows.
Then "suspense" is the explosion of a bomb that the characters do
not know but the audience does; alternatively, it is the tension that theaudience will experience until the bomb explodes. For more information,
see the following documents. Tetsuya Miura, History of the Suspense
Film, Misuzu Shobo, 2012, pp. 176-177.

32

Furthermore, in response to the subsequent order,"Please put all hardware and sharp objects in here," theprotagonists attempt to pry open the lock with a knife
before giving up and letting go of the knife. That is thesame attitude they show in the previous scene, in which
they do not easily give up their weapons. As described, it
is clear that the male protagonists, especially the skinny
one, show an obsession with hunting and weapons.
Taking away weapons from the protagonists anddisarming them is a process of disempowering them andturning them into foodstuffs. While we consider hunting
rifles and knives as cultural symbols, it is also a processof depriving them of the symbols of their masculinity.
Weapons such as knives and guns have traditionallybelonged on the side of masculine culture; hence theirdisarmament is also a symbolic deprivation of masculinity.
In the first place, the act of taking off one's clothes is a
detachment from civilized forces in the sense of leaving
culture and returning to nature, a primitive animal state.
Here, in the preliminary stage, the two protagonists havedetached from their cultural masculinity. In this light, we
can interpret the protagonists' obsession with weapons as
a desire to retain cultural masculinity.
Interpreting the protagonists are rendered powerless byorders as a deprivation of masculinity, we see the processof their masculinity become at risk in the film. The presenceof female characters at the film's end explains it further.
As the two protagonists take their places at the table,
three women appear dancing, then reveal themselves as
Wildcats to attack the protagonists. It is noticeable that

Koji Yamamura

explode, and the film depicts the contrast between artificeand nature once again. Then, they go up a staircase here
and down there, discovering an underground canal, thenup again and back to the corridor, repeating the up anddown motion. The up and down represent the positioningof reality and illusion, wandering between them, giving
the impression of a labyrinth so that nobody knows
where the two are in the building. Finally, they emerge atthe end, in an ample space under a limestone cave with aspiral corridor, where cats attack them. That is the placethat feels to be the most expansive space in the film.
Thus, the twisting of reality begins as they start down
the hill, and the underground space at the bottom is themost spacious and illusory. It is like a reverse perspectivethat becomes wider and larger the deeper it goes.
The film The Restaurant of Many Orders depicts thechange from reality to a world of illusion through spatial
depiction using an up-and-down movement and wideand narrow spaces to show the expansion of men's
desires and their fall.

〈Focus on Character①〉Masculinity and Femininity in the Animated Film The Restaurant of Many Orders
The Restaurant of Many Orders is a story of two men
who come to the mountain to hunt and unknowingly
shift their position from hunters and predators to prey
trapped and eaten through a series of orders they receiveat the Wildcat Restaurant. In terms of the story's setting,the act of the two men laying down their weapons
and taking off their clothes indicates the process bywhich they become eaten. However, a different aspectappears from the perspective of cultural and symbolic"masculinity" and how female characters are portrayed in
the film. In Tadanari Okamoto's version of the animatedfilm, the female characters appear as a threat to the two
protagonists toward the end of the film, suggesting that
their shift in position to the side of being eaten is parallelto the threat to their masculinity.
After arriving at the Wildcat Restaurant, one of the two
protagonists plays a game on the arcade machine as if
to relieve his frustration with hunting, which has notworked out in reality. Later, after preparing themselvesby "making their hair tidy and cleaning the mud off their
shoes," as per their first order, the two protagonists do
not immediately comply with another order to "not bringin guns and bullets." Instead, as they search for a way
forward with their guns, they shoot at a spider, shatter
stained glass windows, and then throw their guns away,
cowed by many butterflies that have appeared. Although,as a result, they follow orders, they never try to leave
their guns and bullets behind from the beginning. That,
together with the arcade machine scene earlier, shows
the protagonists' obsession with guns and hunting.

Yutaka Tsukada

look on in horror. Despite the audience's interest, thebattles between the two sides are not depicted in thefilm. The table turns over while they wrestle and covers
the screen with a black tint, which dominates the screen
for a few seconds. This darkening of the screen allows theaudience to imagine the absolute terror of the scene by
not depicting it as a concrete image as they expect.
This all-black screen with no layout functions inthe story because of the solidity of the worldview
accumulated through the editing process up to thatpoint, which is why editing and layout are criticaltheatrical tools for animation.

〈Focus on Images②〉Depiction of Space in the Film, The Restaurant of Many Orders
In the animated short film The Restaurant of Many
Orders , edited by Kihachiro Kawamoto and written
and directed by Tadanari Okamoto, there is no spoken
language such as narration or dialogue. Only visuals suchas images, text in visual signs, and the final captions areintended to reveal the story.
A characteristic of the movement in this animation
is to apply short overlaps to moving images, perhaps
to suppress the texture of the pencil drawings frommoving too crudely on video. As a result, it may lack thecrispness of the movement overall. However, instead ofthe movement, they focus on the space to tell the story
through the changes in that space.
The backlit light throughout the film emphasizes thesilhouettes of people and objects while it does notclearly show facial expressions. The light from behindbrightens only the object's edges, blurring the outlines
so that the object blends into the background. A little
dusk light covers the entire image, and although the lightsource should be at the back of the scene, it is not clear

Japanese Language Education × Animation Example reviews

Yuko Miyamoto

all three women have hair short or in a bob. The bob
hairstyle was the trademark hairstyle of the "modern
girls," and a prewar "new woman" was called a moga inJapan, the equivalent of the American "flappers." That
was a world trend in the 1920s and 1930s, with the short
haircut symbolizing the departure of the old traditional
femininity. Back in the film, the hairstyle and accessories of
the women, especially two in a bob, appear in the exact
style of "mogas" of the time. In other words, in this scene,
the new women who have shed their traditional femininity
pose a threat to the male protagonists, who have been
disarmed and deprived of their traditional masculinity.
Let us also recall another scene in which women appear.
Upon the order of "make your hair tidy and clean the
mud off your shoes," a shot of two women displays. This
shot, presumably inside the two protagonists, is probably
an image of the women they might encounter in therestaurant after cleaning themselves up. The women here
also do not have long hair, but they are the object of theprotagonists' desire at that stage. Later, however, womenappear as a threat to the protagonists, who have losttheir masculinity symbols. When they are armed, women
can be objects of desire, but once they lose their symbolic
masculinity, women turn into threats to them. Depriving
the masculinity symbols turn the men from the subjectsof desire to the prey of the women who have liberated
themselves from traditional femininity. In this way, the filmshows the inversion of the traditional gender role normof male=subject, female=object, not only the inversion of
the subject and object of eating and being eaten.

〈Focus on Characters②〉Why are the movements not smooth in The Restaurant of Many Orders?
The short animation movie The Restaurant of Many
Orders (1991), based on Kenji Miyazawa's children's
story of the same title, was created by Tadanari Okamoto,an animation artist, and was completed by Kihachiro
Kawamoto, Okamoto's close friend※1 and an animation
artist himself. This paper will analyze the film with afocus on its movement.
The characteristic of the movements in The Restaurantof Many Orders is that they are not smooth. In otherwords, it looks unnatural.
The most obvious example of unnaturalness is thedancing scene of the women, Wildcats in disguise. The
women's movements, which are violent and frenzied,give the impression of being awkward as if they wererobots. That is because the trajectories of their swinging
arms and legs do not follow soft curves. The movementsof humans and animals are usually curvilinear. Also, theway the women's dresses sway is somewhat unnatural.
In this scene, the dresses sway almost in the same
rhythm as the bodies. It is unnatural for the hems andother extended parts of the dresses to move in thesame rhythm as the bodies since they follow the body's
movement. Although that is an easy-to-understandexample, the unnaturalness of the movements is atendency continually seen throughout this film.
So, what effect does the unnatural movement haveon the viewers? To find out, let us refer to the Disneystudio's emphasis on the naturalness of movement.

In the Disney animation textbook, The Illusion of Life,by legendary Disney Studio animators Frank Thomas
and Ollie Johnston, twelve principles of animation arepresented. Most of the book is devoted to describing
specific and detailed techniques on how to make apicture look natural※2.
In The Illusion of Life, he explains that to involve theviewers in the world of animation, we must include
elements that everyone knows and understands. We
may not be able to explain the mechanics of movement
as well as scientists, but we know what it is from ourexperience.That is why natural movement is realisticand helps the viewers become immersed in the world ofanimation.
On the other hand, what about unnatural movements?
Think about a character who looks like a human but
moves so unnaturally and differently from humanlike movements. Such scenes make the viewers feel
eeriness and horror as if someone or somebody familiar
suddenly starts behaving incomprehensibly to us. In thiscase, the viewers will not feel connected to the worldof the animation but will perceive it as an unrealistic
and mysterious world. In other words, unnatural motion
emphasizes the sense of unreality and creates a distance
between the animated world and the viewers.
The Restaurant of Many Orders is not a work to get
emotionally involved with the hunters, to feel the thrillof excitement, or to feel a sense of relief when theyescape alive. Although the worldview of The Restaurantof Many Orders is a fantasy, it is a work that suggests
the common human folly of falling victim to greed
and irretrievable consequences due to arrogance. Thismessage cannot be seen by simply following the surfaceof the story but by paying attention to the structure of
the work. In this case, taking some distance from theviewers is more efficient and clever in conveying themessage than immersing them in the world of the work.
Therefore, although it is difficult to say to what extent
the unnatural movements in The Restaurant of Many
Orders were intentional, we can conclude that unnatural
movements are more effective in this case than natural
movements that engage the viewers.
※1

Although there are several animated films based on Kenji's The
Restaurant of Many Orders , this work deals only with the animatedshort film produced in 1991, which will henceforth be referred to as
The Restaurant of Many Orders .
※2Animator Alan Becker has uploaded a video of him practicing the"12 Basic Principles" on YouTube for reference. https://youtube.com/
playlist?list=PL-bOh8btec4CXd2ya1NmSKpi92U_l6ZJd (last accessed
April 22, 2022)
The following website also summarizes the "12 Basic Principles" with
examples (in Japanese): LiCLOG, "[12 Principles of Animation] Learningfrom Disney How to Express Your Visual Artwork," https://liclog.net/12principal-of-animation/ (last accessed April 22, 2022)

References.
Thomas, Frank/Johnston, Ollie (2002), The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation,translated by Studio Ghibli, Tokuma Shoten.Publishing〈Focus on Sound〉When the "World" Collapses
Sometimes, we may encounter what we used to think ofas "reality" collapses. We see it in Tadanari Okamoto's
last work, The Restaurant of Many Orders , completed
by his close friend Kihachiro Kawamoto from the materials
left behind after his death.
Animation can "choose" both pictures and sounds. Whatto draw and what sounds to add are left to the creator's
discretion. The Restaurant of Many Orders depicts theworld of two hunters. The only sounds that echo throughthe mountains they drive to are those of animals. Becausethat is what they are after and focus on consciously. On
the way, hear the sound of the wind, too. As hunters,
they must sense the changes in the weather. The sound in
the first half of the work mainly depicts the real world of
the hunters.
However, there comes a moment when it breaks down.
When fog shrouds the area, the music suddenly rings out.
It comes from "outside" the story's world as the men's
reality. What the men see at that moment is a Westernstyle house. When the men step inside, their world

irrevocably begins to change.
The Western-style house is the very "Restaurant of Many
Orders." It seems strange to have a restaurant in the
middle of the woods, but the two men do not suspect
it at all. As hunters with guns, the two men consider
themselves the strongest beings in the forest and do not
feel threatened. It would not be surprising if they were
under the illusion that everything would be at their will inthis forest.
It is precisely this arrogance that the Wildcat, therestaurant owner, aims. The restaurant's orders andlabyrinth-like interior structure make the hunters lose
their sense of direction. The sounds on the screen, suchas music boxes and live performances, increase andeventually blend with the off-screen music. The orders
become increasingly bizarre and out of the ordinary, but
the wandering hunters follow them. They fall deep into
the trick.
Unlike Kenji Miyazawa's original story, the Wildcats do
not speak in this film. They transform themselves into

Nobuaki Doi
glamorous women. Again, this is not in Kenji's original,
but the intent of the Wildcats is clear. They want to show
the men what they want, lure them to deeper depths,
and make them their prey. They know the arrogance ofthe men, who are under the delusion that the world exists
for them.
The men narrowly escape the Wildcats. However, welearn that their faces, which turned into balled-up paper
scraps when the Wildcats threatened them, are never thesame afterward. Why are the men's faces left scrunched
up like paper scraps and never recovered even though
they have survived? Is this too much of an exaggeration
for the shock they encountered?
Nevertheless, this film depicts the story of the collapse of
the men's delusion that they can make the world what
they want it to be. It shows a realization of the outside
world's existence that can threaten them. The world inwhich they could live comfortably is no more. It was only
an illusion. That is what shakes the men's world. The
Wildcats had won even if they could not prey on them.

〈Comparison with the Original〉The Adaptation of The Restaurant of Many Orders - Polysemy in Words and Images
The Restaurant of Many Orders , the animated film
directed by Tadanari Okamoto, is an adaptation of Kenji
Miyazawa's novel of the same title. The animated versionof the film has a few additional scenes that are not in
the original work, but the storyline differs little from theoriginal. In particular, the caption of the film's last scene
is almost identical to the last line of the original story:"However, their faces, scrunched up like paper scrap,
never restored even after they returned to the city andwhen they took a hot bath," thus it appears that the story
ends exactly as in the original story.
However, although identical, the phrase "their faces
like paper scrap" in both the original and the animatedversion actually has the opposite meaning. In the original
story, the "two young gentlemen" do not change muchin terms of human nature throughout the story. In
contrast, in Okamoto's version, a great deal of humantransformation occurs, symbolized by "two faces like
paper scrap."
The "two young gentlemen" in the original story speakof a desire to shoot "whatever it takes" and bring brandnew guns and hounds with them. They are portrayedas rich men who have taken up hunting as a hobby, notas hunters in their own right. They find no difference
between buying prey with money and killing by hunting;presumably, they usually solve most of their problems
with money. This human nature does not change from the
beginning to the end of the story; for example, after the
Wildcat Restaurant disappears, they buy a pheasant withmoney to fulfill their purpose of visiting the mountain.

Indeed, their faces have become "like paper scrap"
because their lives faced endangerment at the Wildcat
Restaurant. However, this does not mean a change intheir nature but suggests their arrogance and inability tostop relying on the power of "paper" money, no matter
how horrific the consequences.*
On the other hand, Okamoto's The Restaurant ofMany Orders has contrasting scenes of changes in the
gentlemen at the beginning and the ending. The film
begins with a powerful car entering a mountain while
trampling over vegetation. This scene symbolizes thearrogance of the gentlemen who think they can control
nature by using weapons such as cars and guns. On
the contrary, the ending is full of mountains and plants
displayed on the screen with their car fleeing away
through the scenery. In stark contrast to the arrogance ofthe opening, the ending depicts the powerlessness of the
gentlemen against nature. Then, "two faces scrunched
up like paper scrap" in the animated version appears tosignify the gentlemen's realization of their powerlessness
as "paper scrap" through the terrible experience at the
Wildcat Restaurant.
Why is there such a difference between the original
story and the animated version despite almost the same
storyline? It is due to the difference in the polysemy of thenovel's words and the animation's images.
For example, in the original story, the gentlemen interpretthe words written on the corridor door of the Wildcat
Restaurant as "Please bear with us, though too manyorders (by customers, it may take time to serve)." It

Daisuke Tanaka

Takaaki Nomura

correctly means, "Please bear with us, though too
many orders (by us may bother you)." A series of theirconvenient interpretation of words leads them closer
to the Wildcats as prey. Nonetheless, just as the wrong
interpretation is convenient for the gentlemen, thecorrect meaning is only convenient for the Wildcats, who
desire to eat their guests. It makes the meaning correct
only because the Wildcats have the upper hand over the
gentlemen. The polysemy of the words in the original
story is ultimately only a question of whose interpretationis convenient for whom, which allows the gentlemen to
confine themselves to what is convenient for themselves
once the Wildcats vanish.
In the animated version of The Restaurant of Many
Orders , the polysemy of the images works differently andimportantly, as what is in front of us can take a completely
different figure. For example, the gentlemen's faces alter
to "scrunched up like paper scrap" when they see womenposing as Wildcats transforming into real Wildcats. Not
only are they unable to wield their power over the world,
but they also witness the world changing its appearance
and concept regardless of their convenience. This sense of
powerlessness by the multiplicity of such images decisively
changes the gentlemen.
※

See below for studies as a discussion of reading Kenji Miyazawa's
The Restaurant of Many Orders as a story of consumer society withthe monetary economy. Hidetaka Tsukuda, The "Restaurant of Many
Orders: Consumption, Reading, and Eating" and The Restaurantof Many Orders : Hearsay from Ihatov (Norio Akasaka and Fuminori
Yoshida, Goryu Books, 1995)

33

Academy Ars Electronica × Hiroshima Animation Season
As one of the cultural education projects of the
Academy program in the Hiroshima Animation
Season, this international exchange program for highschool students was held by connecting Hiroshima
and Austria online. The participants were 12 students
from each school: the Creative Expression Course at
Motomachi High School in Hiroshima and the MediaArt Course at BORG Bad Leonfelden High School
in Linz, Austria. The program had support from Ars
Electronica in Linz, Austria.

ProgramSchedule
May 19 (Thu) Pre-meeting (Austria)
May 24 (Tue) Pre-meeting (Japan)
May 30 (Mon) 15:30-17:00 1st exchange meeting
June 2 (Thu) 16:30-18:00 2nd exchange meeting
Location
OnlineParticipating schools
Hiroshima Municipal Motomachi High School (Japan)
BORG Bad Leonfelden High School (Austria)
With thanks to
Ars Electronica Linz GmbH & Co KG (Austria)

34

Hiroshima Animation Club:
Exploit young potential
through exchanges,
experience, and learning
By Akiko Isonaga

A r s E l e c t ro n i c a i s a c re a t i v eorganization based in Linz,
Austria. While conducting
cutting-edge research andeducational and cultural projects
combining art and technology,
they address future-oriented
u r b a n d e v e l o p m e n t t h ro u g hc u l t u re a n d a r t . I t i s k n o w n
for holding one of the world's
largest media art festivals andinternational competitions.
For Ars Electronica, at theforefront of global activities withnumerous joint research andprojects with leading companies,
it was the first time to conduct an
educational program for Japanesehigh school students, which wassuch a fascinating endeavor.

Experienceis the driving force of art
Since 2020, the world has
been at the mercy of the newcoronavirus. Perhaps the mostaffected people are children.
The students of Motomachi HighSchool's Creative Expression
Course were no exception. As all
school events were canceled dueto the new coronavirus infection,
students faced difficulties
maintaining motivation for theircreative activities, and many
became unwell from the stress.
Their teacher, Hideki Kamikawa,
also reflected on those days andexpressed his joy at being able toparticipate in this program.
"The students and teachers
were in a difficult situation fora long time, and the school
was always concerned about
how to increase the number ofactivities that would involve reallife experience. Interacting withthe same generation engaged in
the same art form overseas was
exciting."
Kamikawa entrusted the students
with all the preparations andtried not to intervene.

"I told the students to think
for themselves and researchwhat they didn't know. I lefteverything to them. I was a little
worried, but when I opened
the door, I found that they had
thoughtfully arranged everythingfrom selecting their works to thebest way to convey the essenceof their works and had prepareda c c o rd i n g l y. T h e y w e re a l s oproficient in using the app for
online meetings and machinetranslation on their tablets. I wasvery impressed," said Kamikawa.
Another thing he noticed wasthat the students seemed tomake a little more effort on
appearance than usual, which
made him smile. For the students
who have spent most of theirschool life in the pandemic,
perhaps this experience was a
grand occasion.
Now, let me tell you about theevent day when we were all
ready to go.
The online exchange beganwith mutual self-introductions.
The students from BORG Bad
Leonfelden High School, wereseated around a table in abright classroom, in a relaxedatmosphere. On the other hand,the students from Motomachi
High School were a bit nervous
due to the pressure of giving

their speeches in English.
However, this all changed when
it came to introducing theirworks. Asuka Kurome, a thirdyear student considering studying
abroad someday, held a canvas oftulips in her hand and presented
the background and concept ofher artwork in fluent English.
She appeared truly magnificent.
I interviewed her after the event;she answered, "The moment I
put the painting out, there wasan outburst of cheers, and in
response to my explanation,
people said, 'Oh, yes!' and'Wow!' I was thrilled they shared
my feelings in the work as I felt
very strongly about it."
The second day, June 2, wasa one-on-one free discussion.
Unlike the first day, the students
were in a relaxed moodthroughout the session, laughing
here and there and enjoying
the conversation. It covered
many topics, including schooland personal life. The students
in Linz seemed surprised at thelength of classes per day inJapan, saying that they have along school day!

Inspiring two daysfor our future
The Academy's inter national

exchange program aims to
exploit the students' future,and it appears that the seeds
planted on this day are alreadygrowing tiny buds.
Lily Sanger and Haruna
Fukumoto, third-year andsecond-year students ofMotomachi High School,
wanted to do something tohelp Ukraine when they saw
the news of Russia's invasion.
So they started a project tomake and sell original stickers
in blue and yellow colors of the
Ukrainian flag and to donate
the proceeds. When Lily told
the students of BORG Bad
Leonfelden High School about
their project, she received along message from one ofthem, who had just moved infrom Ukraine.
Interested in the project,
students from BORG Bad
Leonfelden High expressed theirwish to support them, and they
are now talking about starting
another project together shortly.
F u r t h e r m o re , t h e i r t e a c h e r ssuggested to Kamikawa a plan
to create an animation together,and this project has just begun
to be accomplished.
More input came from Shizuka
Miyazaki, Artistic Directoro f t h e H i ro s h i m a A n i m a t i o n

Season, who worked hard tocoordinate with Ars Electronica
and other parties to deliver thisinternational exchange program
successfully.
"The concept of the Hiroshima
Festival is to sow seeds ofp e a c e a n d n u r t u re t h e n e x t
generations," said she. "Thatis one of the reasons why wehave the Academy program in
the Animation Season. I often
talk with Nobuaki Doi, theproducer of the Academy, about
how wonderful it would be if
participants in our programs
would create animated films toenroll in competitions and winawards. So, it would be fantastic
if Motomachi and BORG Bad
Leonfelden High Schools makeit happen. It is not an easy task,
but I would like them to takeup the challenge. I wish bothschools the very best for the
future."
The collective efforts of many
people made the Academy's
international exchange program
happen. Let's hope top
animation artists emerge fromamongst participants in thisexchange program sometime in
the future.

35

Academy Hiroshima Animation Salon 1: Making the City More Interesting through Culture
The "Hiroshima Animation Salon" is a membership
event online/offline that provides hints for future urban
development and cultural creation through animation
and art. In the first event, we welcomed Hideaki
Ogawa, co-chairman of Ars Electronica Futurelab,
as the primary guest. The program also included
presentations by a couple of key players working on
new urban development in Hiroshima through culture,
followed by a discussion to explore the ideal form ofculture and future development of the city.

ProgramDate & Time
June 22 (Wed)
Place
Lounge bar "The Poolside"at KIRO Hiroshima by the Share Hotels, 3F
Keynote Speech
Hideaki Ogawa
Co-chairman of Ars Electronica Futurelab
and Director of Sapporo International Art Festival 2024
※Online from Linz

Presenters
Chiharu Taniguchi
Director of Shinya Corporation and Representative of Minagarten

Jun Imada
Director of Co-Creation Center for Regions and Book Curator

Moderator
Nobuaki Doi
CEO of New Deer,
Producer of the Media Arts Division of Hiroshima Festivaland Hiroshima Animation Season 2022
※Online from Tokyo36

Art and technology makethe city more
future-oriented and creative
By Akiko Isonaga

The Hiroshima Animation Salon
was held as a hybrid event,connecting Austria, Tokyo, andthe Hiroshima venue (KIRO
Hiroshima) online. The theme
w a s " M a k i n g t h e c i t y m o reInteresting through culture,"a goal of this newly launched
festival, Hiroshima Animation
Season. The theme was also very
timely for Hiroshima, as largescale urban redevelopment iscurrently underway at a rapid
pace in the center of the city,and many people are interested
in the future of the International
City of Peace and Culture,"Hiroshima."
Hideaki Ogawa, the primary
guest, has been involved withArs Electronica, an art andtechnology creative institution
based in Linz, Austria, since2007 as an artist, curator, andresearcher. As co-chair of the Ars
Electronica Futurelab in chargeof research and development
at the institution, he iscurrently involved in numerous
international projects that
prototype the future. He has also
been appointed as the directorof the Sapporo International Art
Festival 2024.

Ars Electronica is the premier
media arts organization thattransformed Linz from adeclining industrial city into afuture-oriented creative city.
Many people involved in art andarea management in Hiroshimaattended to hear Ogawa, who
contributed to this historicachievement as a member of theorganization.
Nobuaki Doi, the producer of theHiroshima Animation Season,
expected a lot, "When it was
decided to hold the Hiroshima
Festival, I didn't want it to bea mere firework. And the Ars
Electronica project was the firstthing that came to mind. I waseager to hear his story." Living
up to everyone's expectations,Ogawa spoke at length about
each topic, introducing specificcase studies such as videos ofactual award-winning works.
It covered various stories, from
how Ars Electronica had createdan innovation in Linz, howculture was born there to growas civic pride, and how it evolved
into a brand and economy.
For example, he talked about
the critical value of the "PrixA r s E l e c t ro n i c a , " t h e a w a rd

which now receives over 3,000
worldwide submissions. Or
how they completely revampeda super huge former tobacco
factory with the power of art
and culture and transformed it
into a creative hub where over
300 start-ups gathered. There
were many more, but in any
case, they were all exciting, andI found myself with over ten
pages of notes.

Urban development
for future Hiroshima
After Ogawa's speech, twourban development players in
Hiroshima appeared on staget o g i v e q u i c k p re s e n t a t i o n s
on their current projects.
C h i h a r u Ta n i g u c h i o p e r a t e s
the community facility called"Minagarten." She presented
the urban development project
under the theme of "People,
Livelihood, and Well-being" ina place called Minaga in thesuburbs of Hiroshima City. Wideranging initiatives at Minagarten
include running a shared
kitchen and artist-in-residence,
horticultural activities and open
markets, and the practice of acreative community that they will
launch in the future.
Jun Imada, Director of theCenter for the Co-creation ofRegional Value, also delivereda presentation on the activitiesof "Kamihachi Kiteru,"
an experiment to enhance
regional value by incorporating

artistic elements in the area of
Kamiya-cho and Hatchoboriin the center of Hiroshima
C i t y. O g a w a c o m m e n t e d o ntheir presentations, "The twopresenters are highly sensitiveand practice creative actions.
I think the three of us share acommon interest in creatinga real community in this
divided age and using art as alubricant."
In response to Imada's question
about how Linz City and Ars
Electronica managed to kicks t a r t c re a t i v e d e v e l o p m e n t ,Ogawa advised giving value tothe process and telling the story
first to gain empathy rather than
numerical values such as KPIs.
He then answered Doi's questionof whether Linz's reform was
unique to the city of Linz or if
it could happen in other cities
and the critical elements orconditions. "In the case of Linz,"
he said, "it could have happened
in other cities as well." Hecontinued that establishing themuseum center and the research
institute laboratory in 1996 wassignificant because it made it
possible to embody the ideathat everyone can experience
the future just as water comesout when you turn on the tap.
H o w e v e r, h e d i d n ' t s u g g e s tthat a center or a laboratory
would always be necessary forother cities. Instead, "if we candesign a project that considers
the movement linked to thecommunity, an ecosystem like

Linz may emerge," he advised.
As the session gradually grew
more heated and the speakers
and participants became more
focused, Taniguchi referred to an
ongoing redevelopment planningin Hiroshima to relocate thelibrary to a commercial facility infront of the station.
"When redeveloping a city withexisting buildings, there aretimes when things happen likea chain reaction in moving. As acountermeasure, I'm interested
in the idea of restructuring byfocusing on the functions within
multiple facilities rather thanhandling them as a package.
For example, gathering only
the necessary functions frommultiple facilities and placing
them together in a smaller office,or dispersing the functions that
do not need to be together." Shethen asked Ogawa's opinion.
He agreed with her, saying that
focusing on the system would
be a very peaceful approach. He
continued, "If we convert thediscussion to what kind of new
system we want to create, rather
than where to move the libraryor what kind of library to build,
everyone will be able to have
logical discussions in search of agood system."
Regarding the Sapporo
International Art Festival 2024,
for which Ogawa has been
appointed director, he admittedwith laughter that he wast h ro w i n g d i ff i c u l t q u e s t i o n saround, declaring to makethe festival a creative engine.
"Everyone is baffled because
they are trying to do something
completely new. But it will be
excellent if Sapporo, Hiroshima,and other cities with similar
challenges interact like this andmake knowledge and processes
more and more accessible to the
public."Doi voiced with him and said,"Like having planned this sortof 'salon' for the Hiroshima
Animation Season, we intend
to continue taking an unusualapproach and practicing
something social throughanimation. Holding 'salons' likethis to create opportunities forcommunication will eventuallylead to a more significant trend."
He closed the event by praising
three guest speakers for awonderful two hours of learning
fantastic leading examples.

After the Salon
Listening to today's talks, I
keenly realized that urban
development is the creation ofa future-oriented city and thatart plays a role as one of theengines of this process, as wellas the importance of education
to foster creative thinking. As
the Hiroshima Animation Season
continues this year and next, I
cannot help but hope that oursociety will update the concept
of art and create a futurewith cultural infrastructure in
Hiroshima.

37

Academy – Pre-event A Day to Create, A Day to Think
The 1st Hiroshima Festival is a new music and media
arts festival, including animation, film, and manga. It
takes place in Hiroshima for one month from August
1, 2022, with the concept of "sowing seeds of peaceand nurturing the next generations through art." A
new type of resident-participation event is about tobegin, in which everybody who performs, watches, andcreates plays the lead. Prior to its opening, a pre-event
called "A Day to Create, A Day to Think" was held
on Saturday, April 16, at JMS Aster Plaza Middle Hall,
where people could experience music and media arts.

ProgramPart 1: Stories to Create①Lectures"Stories to Draw" By Koji Yamamura"Stories to Speak" By Mayumi Shintani②Practice"Pika Pika Lantern: Let's draw a picture andmove it around!"By Shizuka Miyazaki with Soraha Shinano &Yuuna Kawamata (STU48)"Let's dub a Hiroshima Festival PR Video!"
By Mayumi Shintani with Soraha Shinano &Yuuna Kawamata (STU48)
Part 2: Stories to Think③Screening & Performances

Screening of a masterpiece animation: Hedgehog in the Fog
Hiroshima Music Session: A dedication to Kenji Miyazawa.
"Songs of the Stars," "Over the Rainbow," and "Sakura Alley"
Produced by Tatsuya Shimono
Performed by Yoshiko Kobayashi & Miho Haga
Reading a book in Japanese and English:
Yamanashi - Mountain Stream by Kenji Miyazawa
By Arthur Binard & Mayumi Shintani

Showcase of artists andcreators of music
and media arts
at 100 days pre-event
By Akiko Isonaga

Opening the event
On Saturday, April 16, "A Day
to Create, A Day to Think", apre-event celebrating the 1st
Hiroshima Festival, took place
at JMS Aster Plaza Middle Hall.
Kazutaka Yamamoto, chairmanof the Hiroshima Festival
Executive Committee, addressed
opening the event on behalf ofthe organizers. While introducing
t h e " H i ro s h i m a F e s t i v a l " i nAugust, he spoke of his hopethat everyone would experiencethe magic of music and media
arts at their best and learn the
preciousness of peace.

Part 1:
Stories toCreate - Lectures
The first speaker was Koji
Yamamura, an animation artist
active on the world stage.
Yamamura, who also designed
Carp Star , the two characters ofthe Hiroshima Festival, explainedin an easy-to-understand mannerwith illustrations the process ofcreating the Carp Star from theirbirth. He also demonstrated
a roll animation technique by
using two sheets of paper tocreate an animation, to which
the audience responded in awe.
He told us that people create all
artworks in the world; people
create culture and peace andthen sometimes destroy it. He
also expressed that at Hiroshima
Festival, people would voicethat every work of art respects
the individuals who created it
and their characters. He thenconcluded his speech by hoping
people would feel the "genesis"of the animation and music
introduced at the Hiroshima
Festival in August. Mayumi
Shintani, an actress who also
does character voices, followed.
Under the theme of "Stories
to speak," she talked about
unknown episodes when she
coached the Hiroshima dialect
t o N o n , w h o s t a r re d i n t h eanimated film, In This Corner ofthe World , playing a charactervoice, as well as about how she
became an actress and her work
as a voice actress.

Part 1:
Stories toCreate - PracticeIn the practice session,
S h i z u k a M i y a z a k i p re s e n t e d

the Pika Pika Lantern , a joint
development by Sanikleen
Academy and Hijiyama JuniorCollege, where she is enrolled.
The Pika Pika Lantern is ahandmade slide projector
prototype called a magic
lantern. She explained how it
would work as it is inseparablefrom animation. In fact, it
appears in Yamanashi , a story
by Kenji Miyazawa, which wewill talk about later!
Next, STU48 members Soraha
Shinano and Yuuna Kawamata
appeared on stage. They tried
to make a two-frame animation
using the Pika Pika Lantern .
When the slide projected theirsilhouettes and drawings on thescreen, the children audienceyelled, "It's Soraya!" or "That's
a crescent moon!" And the two
responded to them, creating afriendly atmosphere in the hall.
At the end of the event,
Shintani and STU48 trialed
dubbing the voices of two
c h a r a c t e r s i n t h e H i ro s h i m a
Festival PR video, Hiroshima
Hajimaru , produced by
Ya m a m u r a . F o l l o w i n g t h eexample of Shintani, an active
voice actor, two members of
STU48 also tried dubbing.
When the two struggled toexpress themselves as they
wished and to match theirtiming, Shintani advised them,"Take your time a little slower,"and "Try speaking your voice
like singing a song."
The two began playing as
their characters in response to
Shintani's encouragement toplay along comfortably. On the

fourth take, they finally passed
the test. "It was my first time
doing it, but it was fun," and"I want to be good enough to
do ad-libs someday," they said
excitedly.

Part 2:
Stories to Think –Screening& Performances
After a 15-minute break, theevent's second part began withthe screening of Hedgehog in
the Fog , acclaimed as a forevermasterpiece in the history ofanimation.
This short animation was createdin 1975 by Yuri Norshtein, aRussian (*the Soviet Union at
the time) animation artist. The
story is about a tiny hedgehog
walking in the forest to visit hisbear cub friend when suddenly
a deep fog appears, and various
animals, such as a white horse
and an eagle owl, appear
and disappear in front of thehedgehog.
It is not just a fantasy, but a lotof symbolic meanings to think
about, from the deep fog toeach animal that appears one
after another.
The second piece of the "Stories
to Think" part featured soprano
Yoshiko Kobayashi and pianist
Miho Haga from the Hiroshima
Music Session. Kobayashi sang"Songs of the Stars" and "Overthe Rainbow" as part of theperformance dedicated to Kenji
Miyazawa. The beautiful piano
tones and voices soothed theaudience.

The last of the performance
was a reading of a picturebook by Arthur Binard
and Mayumi Shintani. The
book was published in April
2022 from Imajinsha, with
the English title Mountain
Stream . It is a JapaneseEnglish bilingual picture book ofKenji Miyazawa's masterpiece
Ya m a n a s h i , t r a n s l a t e d b y
Arthur Binard and illustrated by
Koji Yamamura.
With the background of
Yamamura's stunningly brightand clean illustration reflecting
the riverbed, Binard rhythmicallyread the English text while
Shintani read the Japaneset e x t w i t h g e s t u re s a n d r i c hemotion. We all lost ourselvesin the world of Kenji Miyazawa
depicted by each of them.

Part 2:
Stories to Think - Talk
The final part of today's event
was a talk between Arthur
Binard and Koji Yamamura. Theyinteractively discussed the storyof this masterpiece itself, therole of the lantern in the story's
beginning, and the true identityof kuramubon .
The word that Binard had
the most trouble with whentranslating this story was"k u r a m u b o n . " T h e E n g l i s hword as it reads would be"crambone " or "clamborn ,"but the meaning changes
depending on whether it is
written with an "r" or an"l." Furthermore, since either"bone" or "born" has its own

meaning as well as "clam,"the mistranslation would
give a different impression
from the original text. W ith
all creative efforts after
trials and errors, he finallyreached a new interpretationthat kuramubon is a crab
language that has been passed
down among crabs, similar to achantey or spell such as "Heaveho!" or "abracadabra" in thehuman world. He also stressedthat "Plato's Allegory of theCave" must have been at theroot of this story.
Ya m a m u r a a g r e e d w i t h
B i n a rd ' s c r a b l a n g u a g e a n dphilosophical theories, but alsomentioned episodes behindthe creation of the scenes
involving a lantern at the story's
beginning and ending andwhere the kuramubon appears.
S h a r i n g t h e ro u g h s k e t c h e s
he drew during the process,Yamamura talked about why
they did not use the drawings
that were not selected and whatthought he put into the ones
they selected.
Hiroshima Festival runs with theconcept of "sowing seeds ofpeace and nurturing the next
generations." Coincidentally,
the world is experiencing a seriesof events contrary to peace.
Under such circumstances, it isvery significant that this festival
takes place in Hiroshima, theInternational City of Peace andCulture. Through the festival, I
hope Hiroshima will show theworld our mutual understanding
across all barriers, such as
nationality and genre.

④Talk"What is 'kuramubon' in the story of Yamanashi? "New interpretation by a poet and a picture book writer
By Arthur Binard & Koji Yamamura

38

Images courtesy of Hiroshima Festival Executive Committee (except for photos marked *).

※39

Academy – Pre-event Fumiyo Kouno Talks "Stories to Draw Manga."
The second pre-event commemorating the 1st
Hiroshima Festival was a talk on manga. Fumiyo
Kouno, a Hiroshima native and active manga artist,spoke to "aspiring manga artists," "those who havenot drawn manga but are interested in the workof manga artists," and "everyone across a broad
spectrum of manga lovers." In the first half, shetalked about "what she feels is good about drawing
manga," and in the second half, she explained "whatelements make manga," taking her own works as
examples and interweaving text and drawings with alive camera.

Program
Date

July 2 (Sat)Place

JMS Aster Plaza Middle Hall

Speaker Fumiyo Kouno

40

Fumiyo Kouno
on the charm of manga
and tips on how to draw it
By Akiko Isonaga

The venue was JMS Aster Plaza
Middle Hall, the same as thefirst pre-event held in April. The
last time was a joint event with
the Hiroshima Music Session,
but several events took place atvarious venues this time. Herean event was held by Hiroshima
Animation Season exclusively.
Before the doors opened at 1
pm, visitors lined up outside thebuilding, hoping to get a goodseat; the popularity of Kouno, a
local native, was evident.
At 1.30 pm, it finally opened.
Fumiyo Kouno, in an orange
dress, appeared on stage with asmile and declared, "I have beendrawing manga for about 40
years, and I still love it." So thelecture began.
S a t i n f ro n t o f t h e p o d i u m ,Kouno spread a sheet of paperand started drawing something.

T h e p ro j e c t o r d i s p l a y e d h e r
working process on the stage's
screen, and everyone intently
watched her hands moving. The
drawing was a cute illustration
with the topics of today's lecture
and a speech balloon saying,"Welcome in this hot weather!"To our surprise, she gave herl e c t u re u s i n g h a n d - d r a w i n gmaterials live on the stage. That
astounded the audience.
When thinking of Kouno's
works, I am always impressedby the sweet charactersw i t h a re l a x e d a t m o s p h e re ,the painstakingly drawn
backgrounds, and the simple
handwritten texts that naturally
blended into the works. The
letters and illustrations projectedon the screen were just as I had
imagined, so that experience
just moved me.

Stories to deliverto those who love manga
The lecture, which began witha surprise, was developed along
three topics: "good things
about manga," "who is suited
to manga," and "elements ofmanga."The good thing about manga,a c c o rd i n g t o K o u n o , i s t h a t
drawing manga is inexpensive as
people can use anything aroundas material, from school life andfamily to their own stories offailure.
Her confession that she hadturned her bad experiences
into comics to relieve hersorrows drew laughter from theaudience.
She then introduced a quotef ro m a n e d i t o r, " W h a t y o udraw is the key to the popularityand value of the work." Sheexplained further that people
tended to focus on how todraw , but if we didn't have aclear idea of what we wanted
to tell, we could not think
about how to. Indeed, this istrue not only for manga but
also for animation, painting,

and writing. That is a criticalperspective for those engaged
in creative activities.
She also expressed her theory
that people suited to manga arethose who are good at Japaneseand those who like drawing.
Many know that Kouno spent
a lot of time reading a hugevolume of materials when she
c r e a t e d To w n o f E v e n i n g
Calm, Country of Cherry
Blossoms and In this Cornero f t h e Wo r l d . S o , h e r t a l k
was persuasive regarding theJapanese language, which wasessential for comprehending theinformation and constructing
scenarios and lines.
In the second half, analyzing
her own work, Hijiyama s Ear(Hijiyama-san-no-Mimi) thatw a s i n c l u d e d i n t h e re s u m e
d i s t r i b u t e d b e f o re h a n d , s h e
explained specific techniquessuch as the composition ofillustrations, panel layout, andtips for dialogues.
She wanted to deliver thislecture to "aspiring manga
artists," "those who have notdrawn manga but are interested
in the work of manga artists,"and "everyone across a broad
spectrum of manga lovers."
True to her words, the talk waspractical and worth listening to,
and many people took notes
with great enthusiasm.

After the Lecture
I had a chance to interview
Kouno after the lecture.
"When I started drawing
manga, my parents opposedme, and I felt that manga had
a low cultural status. However,times have changed, and I
am glad manga has gained
acceptance. You can now readmanga on phones. Althoughsome may argue, I hope more
people become familiar withreading and drawing mangain any form. And I would bedelighted if my lectures inspired
somebody to start drawing
manga."
In fact, in the past, there havebeen people who debuted as
manga artists inspired by her
lecture, and she is still proudof it. Many art students ofthe Hijiyama Junior College
attended this event, where sheteaches as a guest. There is ahigh hope that future artistsof manga or animation will
emerge among them.

Days Counting!
Hiroshima Animation
Season 2022
Finally, there was a series ofofficial announcements for the
Hiroshima Animation Season
2022 (Aug 17-21). It included
the schedule, the trailer, andthe jury for the Pan-Pacific andAsia Competition. The trailer,
unveiled for the first time, wasc re a t e d b y a re l a y o f s e v e n
artists headed by the festival's
artistic directors, Koji Yamamura
and Shizuka Miyazaki, with two
members of the competitioncommittee and three " H-AIR
Hiroshima Artist in Residence"
invitees. Momentum increased
with the release of eachannouncement, culminating inan eagerly anticipated upcoming
event.

41

H-AIR Hiroshima Artist in Residence
Machikado (Community) Animation Workshop

For the Hiroshima Animation Season 2022, three artists from Iran, the U.S., and Japan
were selected through a rigorous selection process.
The three artists are staying in Hiroshima City for six months from May 2022.

The three invited artists created animation projects with residents of Hiroshima.
The completed short films will be shown during the Hiroshima Animation Season 2022 before the program screenings.

〈Mahboobeh Kalaee〉 A Good Dog s Afternoon／See Sea〈Nata Metlukh〉 Animation of a Bird

Activities

Elementary school students tried their hand at animation, using clay to make dogs of various
colors and shapes. They also worked in groups to create animations of metamorphosing fish.

Students worked on loop animation using six drawingsof birds, which are a symbol of hope in Hiroshima.

Production, development, or research activities / Working on their new projects

Venue: Misasa Community Center, Suzuhari Children s Center

Venue: Hiroshima Municipal Joyama Junior High School

Date: July 13th (Wed.), 22nd (Fri.)

Date: July 6th (Wed.), 27th (Wed.), August 3rd (Wed.)

Exchange activities with local residents〈Sakura Koretsune〉 A City of Rivers Built Together

Interaction with the residents of Hiroshima City and the area where they will be staying,as well as with people involved in art and culture.

With Minagarten, a new community facility in Minaga as thevenue, the participants created an animation piece telling thestory of the beautiful city of rivers in which they live. As theylearned about the rivers that flow in the city, each participant

AREA

Yokogawa
Station

Venue: Minagarten
Date: July 9th (Sat.),24th (Sun.), 25th (Mon.)

AREA-1 Tsurumi Area

Hijiyama
University

Yokogawa
Cinemaused various materials to create their very own artwork withthe theme creatures of the river, city of rivers, and thesea and islands beyond the river. These artworks were thenphotographed to create a stop motion animation.

AREA-2

AREA-2 Yokogawa Area

gallery G

AREA-3 Minaga Area

Sanyo Shinkansen
Hakata

AREA-3Hiroshima
StationCinematographic
andAudio-Visual Library

Hijiyama ParkTokyo／Shin-Osaka

Shin-Inokuchi
StationSanyo MainLine
Miyajima

AtomicBomb
Dome

AREA-1

JMS
Aster
Plaza
Salon Cinema

Mazda Museum

Kaitaichi
StationKure Line

Lecture at Hijiyama University
The three artists talked about their careers at Hijiyama University, which is kindly providing them with a freely available studio space.
Kure

Major Activities（as of August 2022）「Hello!Hiroshima」Hiroshima Artist in Residence (H-AIR) Invited Artists Group Exhibition
To commemorate the start of the residence program in May, an exhibition was held introducing the three artists past works
and their H-AIR projects.
Venue： gallery G

Date: May 31st (Tue.) - June 5th (Sun.)

Monthly Report and Residency Journals
Each artist is asked to submit a report every month during their stay.
The reports can be read in the Journal section on the Hiroshima Animation Season official website in Japanese and English.

42

43

AREA-1 Tsurumi Area Nata Metlukh

H-AIR Hiroshima Artist in Residence
AREA-1
Tsurumi-cho Area
(Naka Ward)
A residential area with excellent
access from the center ofHiroshima City. Misawa Copo
No.2, the apartment building
where the invitee will bestaying, re-opened this April as
Art Building for Everyone,a gathering place for various
galleries, including Kari to Tsuru (Geese and Cranes), an exchange space forart fans, a branch of the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, which
is currently being renovated and closed, and other art galleries and studios. The
area is a quiet area where you can enjoy walking and other activities, as it isclose to the river and has easy access to Hijiyama Mountain.

Artist Profile

Nata Metlukh
Nata Metlukh was born in 1982 in Ukraine.
She studied classical animation at VancouverFilm School, and received the Master ofArts degree at Estonian Academy of Arts,
where she studied film direction under the
Priit Parn supervision. Now she is based in
San Francisco, working on commercial andpersonal projects, focusing on making gifs
and animated short films. She creates visuallybold, character driven works in a digitally
hand-drawn technique. Her stories are basedon absurdity and defamiliarization of common
things. Nata s films have been recognizedby major animation festivals and received anumber of awards.

Breathing Life
into the Ordinary
with Vibrant Colors
and Bold Visuals
Interviewed and reported by Akiko Isonaga

Nata Metlukh is an animation
artist making mainly shortanimations. After working
as a graphic designer and an
illustrator, she became drawn tothe creativity that comes withadding a temporal element. She
studied abroad in Canada andEstonia, where she acquired heranimation skills.
Nata uses a digitally hand-drawn
technique in her works. She
explains that drawing digitallyallows her to work faster, andthat she is able to make herworks livelier when they arehand-drawn.
When I ask what kind of person
is suited to become an animator,
she answers, Animation requires
patience and focus. If you canspend ten hours every weekday
on it, then that s your job. Thesewords alone reveal how muchtime and passion Nata herself
puts into animation.

Goals for
H-AIR Hiroshima
Artist in Residence
Nata is staying in the Tsurumi

area, which has great accessto Hiroshima s city center. It
is a stimulating region home
to numerous galleries ofartists working in Hiroshima.
Referring to the typical Japanesestreetscape of houses crammed
together, Nata says, All of it isinteresting to me, and I also likethe view of the river near where
I live. She seems to be enjoying
her days here.
Life itself is the most talented
creator and nothing can beatit, she says, and as those words
suggest, most of her ideas comefrom observing common things
found in everyday life. Nata talks
about her endeavor with H-AIR
Hiroshima Artist in Residence. I
hope this experience living in adifferent culture will inspire newideas not just in the present, but
for future projects as well.
Currently, she is working on
Off-Time , a piece focusing on
the concept of time, which has

been in the works since before
her arrival in Hiroshima. At thesame time, she has an ongoing
GIF animation sub-project titled
I Didn t Know I Was Tall . The
theme, she explains, is thethings that seem odd when you
look at life in Hiroshima from aforeigner s point of view. It will
be interesting to see what partsof Hiroshima stood out to her
once the project is complete.

My Home, Ukraine
H-AIR Hiroshima Artist in
Residence hopes for the invitedartists to proactively interact
with the local people. As partof her GIF workshop held at
Hiroshima Municipal Joyama
Junior High School, Nata
visited the school on July 6th
for a presentation in a schoolw i d e a s s e m b l y. S h e s h o w e d
her past GIF works and talked
about the ideas and processes

behind them. The students andteachers all listened to Nata s
passionate presentation in rapt
attention, but what made thestudents faces tighten up were
her stories about Ukraine.
Nata s family lives near Kharkiv,
the second largest city in
Ukraine located close to theRussian border. They have been
experiencing bombings from theRussian territory almost everyday. Nata says she is worried
about her family and that she
makes sure to check the news
and contact her family daily via
messages or phone calls. My
family is unable to leave and isremaining where they live. But
even under these circumstances,
they are trying hard to live as
normal a life as possible. Every
Ukrainian is fighting to takeback their freedom. It mighttake some time before the war
is over, but I believe Ukraine isgoing to win in the end.

She showed the students two
GIF videos that she made for herhome country Ukraine. The firstis rabid dog , in which a dog
attempts to attack a cat but is
met with a counter-strike. The
second is spring is coming ,which shows two white circles
symbolizing Ukraine being struckby lightning while burning up in
flames. The flames are then put
out with rain and flowers begin
to bloom. Both GIFs are available
to watch on Nata s official
website (https://www.notofagus.
com/).
Finally, I ask about the places shewants to visit or the activities
she wants to try during her stay.
Right now, I want to focus on
my work and just give it my all,she says, looking straight ahead
with unwavering determination.
As she has done until now, Natawill no doubt transform her
new experiences into wonderfulworks of animation.

Overview of project

Off-Time
Off-Time will be an animated short film featuring time indifferent aspects. The goal is to explore time-related themes suchas: urban rush in the big city, the urge to be productive all thetime, different time perceptions, speeding up time when we getolder, etc. Urban life will be shown in various time states: when
all the actions are going in slow-motion, when the time reverses
and everything is running backwards, when the time is frozen, or
flying by too fast.

Community Animation Workshop at Hiroshima Municipal Joyama Junior High School.

I Didn t Know I Was Tall , currently in development in Hiroshima.

44

Off-Time project image.

Kitchen scene from Off-Time , currently in development in Hiroshima.

45

AREA-2 Yokogawa Area Mahboobeh Kalaee

H-AIR Hiroshima Artist in Residence
AREA-2
Yokogawa Area
(Nishi Ward)A d o w n t o w n a re a j u s t t w o
J R s t o p s w e s t o f H i ro s h i m a
Station. There are many uniquerestaurants, and the area
is also active in culture andart activities. The apartment
where the invitee will bestaying has a shared ateliers
for local artists, and the neighborhood is culturally rich with a art-house movie
theater and independent used book stores, and regular live music concerts. The
area has a downtown atmosphere, and a shopping district hosts a variety ofevents throughout the year. There is also an understanding of sports, and local
residents support the women s soccer team, Ange Violet Hiroshima.

Artist Profile

Mahboobeh Kalaee
Mahboobeh Kalaee (1992, Iran)
graduated from the Tehran College ofFine Arts with a BA in Industrial Design(2015). A MA Animation Directing at
Tehran University of Art (Faculty ofCinema & Theater) (2020). She is a 2D
animator, author, illustrator, graphic
designer, and director of experimental
and short animations.
Her first professional film s successmotivated her to devote herself full-time
to her special mix media technique,as well as to study the form and narrative structure of experimental films. Herfavorite forms are studies on real-world images as an animation material that
led to essays films and creative animated documentaries. Her goal is to create aworld which stands in the blurry line between the real and the imaginary.

Animating Language
Through Real World Images
and Mixed MediaInterviewed and reported by Akiko Isonaga

Mahboobeh Kalaee is an
animation artist residing in Iran.
She says that learning about
J a p a n e s e l i t e r a t u re a n d t h eJapanese language at university
played a part in her becominginterested in animation.
In my bachelor s thesis,
I discussed the future ofbooks and especially theiri n t e r a c t i v i t y. S t u d y i n g t h eJapanese language was apart of that. I was interested
in Japanese literature, and I
lear ned that with the visual
nature of Japanese writing, you
could transform the meaningof words by adding small
gestures and slightly changing

the shapes of the words. That s
what I was drawn to.
Mahboobeh became captivatedby animating language andbegan studying animation
intensively in her postgraduate
program at university.
Animation allows me toc o m b i n e a l l o f m y i n t e re s t ssuch as writing, designing, anddrawing. That means I am able
to constantly try new things,
and I am drawn to the infinite
possibilities of animation.
Since completing her
postgraduate program,
Mahboobeh has worked invarious fields of media arts as a
2D animator, illustrator, graphicd e s i g n e r, a n d e x p e r i m e n t a l
and short animation director.
However, she says she prefers
working on her personal
projects and has often
prioritized them over workcommissioned by clients.
Prioritizing personal projects
over work comes with countlesschallenges. But making thatchoice has allowed me to learn
more about myself and myideas.
With her first professional film
The Fourth Wall , Mahboobeh
won the Animation Division
Grand Prize at the 25th JapanMedia Arts Festival. The
Fourth Wall is an experimental
animated short film set in a
kitchen. It uses a mixed media
technique combining real-worldimages of a washing machineand refrigerator, stop motion,
as well as 2D animation.
Although this techniquerequires a lot of time andeffort, Mahboobeh says thatit allows her to turn the realworld into a fantastical one.
She goes on to say that thisshort film would not havebeen made possible without
the cooperation of her family.
I m truly thankful to myfamily and especially my father
f o r g ivin g me p e r mis s io n t o
use the kitchen for the shootand for lending me a helping
hand. She also tells me a storya b o u t h e r n e p h e w, w h o m
she saw folding a drawing hehad drawn. This inspired thetechnique she used to animate
the characters in her short film.

Goals for
H-AIR Hiroshima
Artist in Residence
Mahboobeh says she heard
about H-AIR Hiroshima Artist
in Residence just as she wasthinking of going abroad towork or study. She had wantedt o b ro a d e n h e r h o r izo n a n d
had been preparing for a new
project.
I was interested in Japan andits culture and especially its
language, so this project wasvery appealing. When I waschosen to come to Hiroshima, I
was elated, Mahboobeh says,recounting her excitement.
Currently, Mahboobeh is staying
i n a re s i d e n c e i n Yo k o g a w a
and working on Ship for Our
Relation . As she did in The
Fourth Wall , she is employing
a mixed media technique. The
story is inspired by the Japaneselegend of the utsurobune(hollow ship), and Mahboobeh
plays the character of a foreign
girl who tries to get to thebottom of a mystery. With theconnection between the Persian
and Japanese languages as thes u b j e c t m a t t e r, M a h b o o b e h
is planning on exploring theshapes of words and their
meanings, as well as thepotential of animation as a tool
for storytelling.
I ask her about the Yokogawa
area. It s filled with energy andpassion for creativity. All of theinteresting things I see in thestreets inspire me to create andget me excited, Mahboobeh
says, sharing her enthusiasm
f o r w o r k i n g o n h e r p ro j e c t .
With the project keeping herbusy, she says she hasn t had asmuch time to wander aroundthe city as she had hoped, buteven then, she notes down
any thoughts she has andtakes pictures of interesting
finds. She also enjoys seeing
how the Japanese language
is used in the streets and theway children act or talk. I
am curious to see how these
inspirations she has gatheredfrom the city of Hiroshima arereflected in her work.

Overview of project

Ship for Our Relation
A group of Iranian miniature characters traveling to Japan to
discover new edge of Calligraphy. Although they date backhundreds of years, they are in the form of a collection ofillustrations from a book that are traveling in the present age.
The film is an animated documentary about the journey of an
Iranian miniature book and the connections that their charactersmake with the real world through mixed media technique. The
connection between Persian and Japanese words as a material
for focusing to study form and meaning of the words and how
can improve their storytelling potential with animate.

広島で制作中の様子

Community Animation Workshop held for elementary students in Hiroshima City.
Development process in Hiroshima.

46

Ship for Our Relation project image.

47

AREA-3 Minaga Area Sakura Koretsune

H-AIR Hiroshima Artist in Residence
AREA-3
Minaga District(Saeki Ward)
A quiet residential area
located a short distance fromthe city center. A community
residential area is currently
being built around a facility
called Minagarten, which
was converted from a former
landscape gardener s building. It is attracting attention as a place where longtime local residents and newcomers can interact each other.
https://minagarten.jp

Artist Profile

Sakura Koretsune
Born in 1986, Ondo-cho, Kure city, Hiroshima2010 University of Alaska Fairbanks Bachelorof Fine Arts, Art: Painting, U.S.A.
2017 M.F.A., Tohoku University of Art& Design. She has been inquiring about
whaling, fishing, and the folk culture of
the sea in Japan and abroad, and has
published her findings in the form of little
presses, embroidery, and sculptural works.
Presides over the little press Ordinary
Whales . Recent exhibitions include 20th
Anniversary Exhibition: Restoration of
Narratives (Sendai Mediatheque, 2021)
and VOCA Exhibition 2022 (The Ueno
Royal Museum, Tokyo).

Overview of project

Eyes of hippocampus
I was born and raised in the Seto Inland Sea, and was inspiredby my original landscape of Landscapes Animated by Water
to create an animation/video work that mixes animation andreal landscapes. First, as fieldwork, I will observe and record themoving scenery that I can see from the boat on various large
and small voyages to and from Hiroshima City, and also observeand record the moving objects in the sea by diving into thesea at bathing beaches in the suburbs of Hiroshima City. We will
also interview people who use boats as a means of livelihood,and conduct research on the past of ports, rivers, gantries, etc.
in Hiroshima City and on the islands. We will also incorporate
ideas from the fieldwork in the creation of our work. We will
use animation techniques such as zoetrope, para-para manga,and stop-motion animation of fabric works to create a threedimensional work with animation elements, like a portable device.
The moving animation of the device will be set up in the city,
harbor, or waterfront and filmed along with the actual scenery.

Reflecting on Time,
Weaving Stories
with Text and Textiles
Interviewed and reported by Akiko Isonaga

Sakura was born on Kurahashijima, an island set at thesouthernmost tip of Hiroshima
Prefecture. She grew up
surrounded by nature, herchildhood home just a shortwalk away from the sea. Aftercompleting high school, she
moved all the way to Alaska
to study at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks. While there,
she met the indigenous whaling
community, which ignited hercurrent passions. She now travels
all over Japan and the world,
gathering stories of whales andcrafting them into booklets andembroidery.
Why Alaska? Why whales? To
that, she answers, There wasn ta singular clear reason. It was a
combination of many things.
Sakura enjoyed drawing andmaking things from an early age
and studied at a high schoolthat produces many creators
and artists. There, she became
immersed in woodworking andother various creative projects.
It was a teacher at this schoolthat awoke Sakura s interest in
Alaska. When I was in my firstyear, this teacher left the school
to take pictures of narwhals in
Canada. I was awed by that kindof lifestyle, and I started readingbooks by Michio Hoshino, which
the teacher had recommended
to me. That s what inspired me
to go to Alaska.
Sakura began studying English
intensively and enrolled in the

Stories (text) and embroidery (textile).

48

Umiuma no me (Eyes of hippocampus)
project image.

University of Alaska Fairbanks,
the same university the wildlife
photographer Michio Hoshino
had attended. She pursued her
i n t e re s t s a n d s t u d i e d n a t i v earts, which led her to meet theindigenous people that huntwhales. In Alaska, whaling is
recognized as part of indigenous
activity and so native groups
are given permission to hunt.
As I gathered various stories
about whales and whaling fromthe locals, I started to thinkof whales, not as animals thatprovoked conflict, but as a vital
part of various communities
that bonded people together.
Since then, I ve been consistently
visiting places related to whales
and creating artworks with thestories that I ve collected.

Expression ThroughWriting (Text) andEmbroidery (Textile)
Sakura has always loved writing
as well as crafting, but she says
there is a lot more to why she
chose these two methods. Both
text and textile come fromthe Latin word texere meaning
to weave. When you weave
words you create text, and when
you weave yar n you create
textile. I found it interesting
how tracing the origins ofdifferent words can reveal theirsimilarities. Another reason isthat embroidery looks completely
different on the front and theback. Whales also have twosides to them – they are often
associated with whaling issues,
but in certain parts of the world,
they are worshiped as gods that
grant bountiful catches of fish.
The side you see depends on
your standpoint or your culture,
but at the root of it, it might
be all connected. That s part ofwhat I want to express throughtext and textiles.
Hand embroidery can take agreat deal of time and effort,
even just to stitch a single line.
Yet for Sakura, who says that
this time allows her to savor thestories and words that inspired
the artwork, time-consuming
embroidery is perhaps the ideal
method of expression.

Goals for
H-AIR Hiroshima
Artist in Residence
Embroidery and writing havealways been important creative
outlets for Sakura, but theCovid-19 pandemic prompted
her to explore a new artform –animation.
In the spring of 2020, I drew
about 15 drawings of a cherry
blossom tree and turned theminto a GIF as a personal project.
Because of the Covid-19
pandemic, I was unable tovisit Hokkaido like I usually did
a n d s e e t h e No r t h J a p a n e s ehill cherry blossoms that I had
been excited to see. Making
the GIF was my way of trying
to enjoy the cherry blossoms
with others in some way. WhenI showed the finished piece toother people, they seemed toreally enjoy it. That s when I saw
the potential of animation asa means to communicate andexpress my ideas.
As exhibitions she had been

Sakura Koretsune conducts fieldwork.

preparing for were canceled or
postponed one after the other,and as spaces of communicationand expression were shifting
online, Sakura became
interested in animation, a formof art compatible with theonline space.
Out of the three invited artists in
the residency program, Sakura
is the only artist who does not
specialize in animation. Although
she admits she was a little
worried, she says she has a clear
image of the animation project
she wants to undertake during
her residency.
The Minaga area, in which I am
currently staying, has a deep
connection to water. Minaga
used to be written as 水長 (longwater) because every time
there was a flood, water would
remain in the area for a longtime. However, it is said thatafter constructions took place tochange the flow of the river, allof the residents celebrated andthe characters were changed to
皆賀 (all celebrate). Now, you
can walk along the Yahata Riverout to the sea and see a hill thatis said to once have been an
island. You can feel the impact
the flow of water has had on
the region.
It s well known that the Seto
Inland Sea is a habitat of finless
porpoise, but there are also
records that show that until theend of the 19th century, big
whales had been coming into
the sea or that pods of dolphinsused to come up to the mouthof the Yahata River. That s partof what I hope to incorporate in
the animation I am making: thedifferent waterscapes of thenand now, the ecosystem thatonce was, and the things thatstart to become visible when you
think about these creatures.

Connecting with Locals
and Pondering theEffects of Time
on People and Places
The main aim of this residency
program is to create opportunities
for the participating artists toproactively interact with the local
communities and environment.
On May 18th, Sakura attended
an event held at the Hiroshima
Peace Memorial Park, in which
the lists of victims of the atomic
bombings were taken out oft h e c e n o t a p h a n d a i re d o u t
to remove moisture. In 2021,
Sakura s great-grandparents andgreat-aunt were newly added to
the registry. Sakura had learnedof this and had wanted tovisit the memorial park, which
she did, accompanied by theHiroshima Animation Season
assistant producer Momo
Hiraishi.
From 8 a.m. when the
preparations began to 10 a.m.
when the event ended, Sakura
stood under the clear blue
sky and continued to watch
the Hiroshima Municipal
Government employees atwork.
Time doesn t stand still here.
Every year, the lists of names
are aired out by hand. It looked
to me like the books werebreathing, like the past andpresent were being connected in
the process. I m glad I was able
to be a part of that time and it
also made me want to visit myancestors graves.
Sakura, who had not visited
the Atomic Bomb Dome since
she was a child says that it
looked smaller than she hadremembered. Places lookdifferent when you get older.
It also reminded me thatd i ff e re n t p l a c e s h a v e v a s t l ydifferent histories, stories, andlandscapes.
Since May 1st, Sakura has been
staying in the community facility
Minagarten in a suburb of
Hiroshima City called Minaga.
She has been continuously taking
part in activities and events heldby Minagarten and interactingwith the local community.
Minagarten houses
Minabatake, a community
garden in which the local people
grow vegetables with love andcare. Everyone comes together
to tend to the plants, fertilize
the soil, grow the vegetables,
and harvest them. That process
can t be completed in a shortperiod of time. Taking part ina place like a vegetable garden
makes me feel like I can connect
deeper with the community.
Chiharu Taniguchi, the ownerof Minagarten says Sakura issomeone who has the ability
to envision the time that had
accumulated before her arrivaland can see that everything shesees before her is a result of that
accumulation. Chiharu adds
that this quality is a reflection of
Sakura s kindness.
Spending time with Sakura, it
seems to me that she does notmake decisions immediately
based on what she sees andhears. Instead, she tries to grasp
the bigger picture over a longer
time frame. When I tell her myobservation, she says, I find thatlooking at things in the long-term
is more enriching. All of thevalues Sakura holds seem to be
encapsulated in those words.
Ever since she started herr e s i d e n c y, S a k u r a h a s b e e nvisiting the Yahata River and theislands of the Seto Inland Sea tocollect stories. I cannot wait to
see what she has in store for us
after her six-month stay.

Sakura observes the airing out of the lists of victims.

49

Credits
Timetable

All Films

Pan-Pacific& AsiaCompetition

Hiroshima Animation Season 2022
Organized by

Hiroshima International Peace and Culture Festival Executive Committee

Presented by

Mitsui Fudosan Realty Chugoku

Supported by

Japan Keirin Autorace Foundation,
Association for Corporate Support of the Arts: 2021 Social Creativity through Arts and Culture Fund

Cooperation

Japan Animation Association, The Japan Society for Animation Studies,
The Association of Japanese Animations, Embassy of Canada,
Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan: Taiwan Cultural Center in Tokyo,
The Quebec Government Office in Tokyo, Embassy of Switzerland in Japan

World
Competition

Special cooperation Hijiyama University, Tokyo University of the Arts, Sanikleen Chugoku, Yasuda Women's University
SpecialPrograms

Cooperation for Subtitling

Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy
Cooperation（ Subtitles ）New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival,
Skip City International D-Cinema Festival, Tokyo International Film Festival

AcademyH-AIR

Cooperation（ Marche fixture production ）Hiroshima
Artist-inResidence

Anabuki College of Design: Anabuki Gakuen
Sponsored by

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Ministry of Economy,
Trade and Industry, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan Tourism Agency, Hiroshima Prefecture, Hiroshima City,
Hiroshima City Board of Education, Kure City, Takehara City, Mihara City, Miyoshi City, Otake City,
Higashi-Hiroshima City, Hatsukaichi City, Akitakata City, Etajima City, Fuchu Town, Kaita Town, Kumano Town,
Saka Town, Akiota Town, Kitahiroshima Town, Osakikamijima Town, Sera Town, Iwakuni City, Yanai City,
Suo-Oshima Town, Waki Town, Kaminoseki Town, Tabuse Town, Hirao Town, Hamada City, Misato Town, Onan Town

競輪の
補助事業

50

HIROSHIMAANIMETION
SEASON
2022

Issued August 17, 2022

GUIDEBOOK

design：PJD

print：SHINANO SHOSEKI PRINTING

edit:

NEW DEER

translation： Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy

Nobuaki Doi
production： PICT-UP

Unauthorized reproduction or copying of this document is prohibited.

HIROSHIMA ANIMATION SEASON 2022

競輪補助事業
https://hojo.keirin-autorace.or.jp
この事業は、競輪の補助を受けて実施しています。