2011 has been an exciting year in the world of Japanese independent animation. Kōji Yamamura released hismuch anticipated NFB co-production Muybridge’s Strings (マイブリッジの糸, 2011) to great acclaim in Canadaand Japan. It has already won several awards including the Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival. Mirai Mizue was invited to the Biennale to show his latest "cell animation" Modern No. 2 (2011) in which he experiments with increasing the speed of movement and useswashi paper as a background.
There was also much sadness in 2011as the animation community mourned the loss of Masahiro Katayama and NobuhiroAihara. Both belonged to the first waveof “art animators” of the 1960s and 70s and both had been very influentialteachers at art colleges in Japan. Katayama will be best remembered for the amazing series of DVDs of world animation he puttogether for Geneon. His legacy lives onin the amazing work of the students he inspired at Tamabi to give animation atry such as Oscar-winner Kunio Katō, Mirai Mizue, and Akino Kondoh. Kondoh released her latest animated shortKiya Kiya (2006-11) this autumn – a film that took the artistfive years of painstaking work to complete.
Aihara passed away during Nippon Connection 2011. One of his former students, Takeshi Nagata of TOCHKA, was aguest at the festival and I learned a great deal about this influentialexperimental animator’s life and career from him. His final collaboration with Keiichi Tanaami, DREAMS(2011) was released at the Image Forum Festival, and I look forward to seeing it in the New Year.
As it takes some time for animatedshorts to make their way from Japan to Germany, my criteria in selecting Nishikata’sBest Animated Shorts 2011 are as follows: I need to have seen the films either at festivals, through artistreleases online, or by artists sending me their work for consideration. The works must have been completed at somepoint during the last two years and beeither handmade (direct, drawn, puppet, paint-on-glass, cutouts, etc.), experimental, or avant-garde in nature. I do consider CG animation if I feel that it is innovative in some way. Although many amazing animators screenedtheir works at events like Image Forum 2011 and the CALF Short Film Festival in Summer, Icannot take films into consideration that I have not viewed in their entirety with my owneyes. That means that I am lookingforward to seeing not only theaforementioned films, but also Hiroco Ichinose’s TWO TEA TWO (2010), TakashiIshida’s Three Rooms (三つの部屋, 2011), and Naoyuki Tsuji’s WindSpirit (風の精, 2011) sometime in 2012.
Here are the top films that I sawthis year, in the order in which I saw them:
Getting Dressed (服を着るまで, Aico Kitamura, 2010)
Last year, Kitamura’s graduationfilm just barely missed my official list because I had already submitted it to Midnight Eye for their year-end round-up. It is ahighly sophisticated film for a student and makes me very excited aboutKitamura’s future as an artist. The lastI heard, she was working on a new animated short which should be releasedsometime this year. Read Full Review .
Timbre A-Z (Mirai Mizue, 2011)
In January, Mirai Mizue shared aseries of daily shorts on Vimeo and Youtube in which he explored therelationship between music , colour, shape, and movement. It was fascinating to see him experiment withminimalism when his “cell” animations like Jam (2009) had been moving towardsgreater and greater complexity. Read about it here.
Shunga (Keiichi Tanaami + NobuhiroAihara, 2009)
Eroticism has long been a theme inthe animation, paintings, and illustrations of Tanaami and Aihara. For this collaborative work they drawspecifically on the tradition of Shunga (春画) – Japanese erotic art usually executed in the ukiyo-e woodblockprint style. As in Shunga, the film uses exaggerated genitalia and poses. In translating Shunga toanimation Tanaami and Aihara add the element of sensual movement. They also literally translate the concept ofgenitalia being a “second face” by surrealistically depicting a couple withfaces shaped like male and female genitalia making love. This film appears on the DVD/Book setPortrait of Keiichi Tanaami.
Mechanism of Spring (春のしくみ, Atsushi Wada,2010)
Mechanism of Spring is Wada’smost light-hearted film to date, capturing the delight that young children andanimals take in the season. The chubby youths examine the wildlife, takeoff their shirts and run about gaily, and observe a plant sprouting out of theearth, among other delights. The frogs behaving like humans recall the famouspicture scrolls Chōjū-giga (鳥獣戯画, c.12th-13th centuries) whichdepict frolicking animals. This film isavailable on the CALF DVD Atsushi Wada works 2002-2010. Wada is also expected to release a new film in 2012.
Tatamp (Mirai Mizue, 2010)
Like Timbre A-Z, Tatamp continues Mizue's exploration of the relationship between image and movement through his distinctive “cell animation” technique. As the onomatopoeic title suggests, this animated short employs percussive sounds from keyboards to snare drums. As with Fantastic Cells and Jam, the filmbegins minimalistically then builds to a fantastic crescendo of colour andmovement. The call of loons combinedwith the bright colours against heavy blacks reminded me of Haida and Inuitart. Learn more about Mirai Mizue and find out how to order a DVD of his works.
A Gum Boy (くちゃお, Masaki Okuda, 2010)
This dynamic film was one of my favourites in the CALF Animation Special at Nippon Connection 2011. Masaki Okuda has an inspired talent for using animation to poetically interpret music throughmoving images. Read Review.
Steps (Tochka, 2010)
A stop motion film inspired by Norman McLaren and Claude Jutra’s AChairy Tale (1957). The animation teamof Tochka (Takeshi Nagata and Kazue Monno) incorporate elements of their famousPiKA PiKA animation technique into the film. Read Review.
The Woman Who Stole Fingers (指を盗んだ女, Saori Shiroki, 2010)
Saori Shiroki’s graduate film fromthe Tokyo University of the Arts. Shecreates a haunting and melancholic atmosphere using paint-on-glass to explorethe psychological impact of abuse. Read Review.
Hana no Hanashi (はなのはなし, Taku Furukawa, 2010)
A clever little short by one ofJapan’s top animators about men with giant noses from Pinocchio to Cyrano de Bergerac. Furukawa seamlessly adapts 5 short stories by renowned international authors into a mere 6 minutes. Stories referenced in the film include “The Dragon” and “TheNose” by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, “The Nose” by Nikolai Gogol, “The Adventures ofPinocchio” by Carlo Collodi, “Cyrano de Bergerac” by Edward Rostand. Catchy soundtrack composed by ToshiyukiHonda.
TAKU BODA (タクボーダ, Taku Furukawa/Noriyuki Boda, 2009)
Computer animation meets 16mm animation in this modern re-mix of Taku Furukawa's 1977 film Nice to See You (ナイス・トゥ・スィ・ユー). Read Review.
Coffee Takaiku (コーヒータダイク, Tomoyoshi Joko + Hiroco Ichinose, 2011)
2011 was a truly memorable one forthe young animators Tomoyoshi Joko and Hiroco Ichinose as they got married andstarted their own production company together called Decovocal. This name was suggested to them by theirmentor Taku Furukawa. For Furukawa’s 70thbirthday they made this inspired homage to his 1977 animated short Coffee Break (コーヒー・ブレイク). Read Review.
SPECIAL MENTIONS (Longer than 20minutes but not feature length)
Elemi (電信柱エレミの恋い/DenshinbashiraEremi no Koi, 2009)
Hideto Nakata was the winner of the 2009 Noburo Ofuji Award forinnovation in animation for this sentimental stop motion animation. It also won an Excellence Prize from theJapan Media Arts Festival. The film wasreleased on DVD by Pony Canyon in late 2010 and made its way to my post box inJanuary. It tells the story of ananthropomorphized utility pole who falls in love with a human being. Read Review. Order DVD.
Midori-ko (Keita Kurosaka, 2010)
One of the highlights of NipponConnection this year was the screening of Keita Kurosaka’s masterpiece of thegrotesque Midori-ko. It is a complex work that is difficult tosum up in the space of a paragraph, so I refer you instead to my review of the film. No word yet on a DVDrelease, but fans are hopeful that someone will pick up Kurosaka’s catalogue offilms for a Takashi Ito-like boxset.
THANK YOU
I wish to extend my thanks this yearto the generosity of so many who helped make my reviews possible thisyear. A big thanks to all the artists and directors who sent me samples of their work or were kind enough to answer my questionsabout their work: Aico Kitamura, Saori Shiroki, Mirai Mizue, Atsushi Wada, KeiOyama, Takashi Nagata of Tochka, Taku Furukawa, and Takashi Sawa. Marion Komflass, Petra Palmer, and DennisVetter of Nippon Connection very generously took my advice and invited CALFanimators to the 2011 festival and I am delighted to announce that I have beenasked to curate the animation programme for 2012.
In the realm of feature filmanimation, I remember fondly my conversation with Keiichi Hara (Colorful,Summer Days with Coo) in Frankfurt am Main in March. Hara-san warmly shared his views about thecurrent state of independent anime production in Japan and was a real delightto chat with. I very much enjoyed chatting with Yuki Iwamoto, Marie Miyayama, Julia Leser, Clarissa Seidel, and
I am very grateful to my fellowbloggers and film critics who have offered their support throughout the year. Some people who have gone the extra mile include: Nobuaki Doi of CALF and Animations: Creators and Critics, Ben Ettinger of Anipages,Chris MaGee of Shinsedai Fest / Jfilmpowwow for allowing me to sneak an animated short by Tomoyasu Murata intoWorld Film Locations: Tokyo, John Berra for asking me to write about KihachiroKawamoto for the forthcoming book Directory of World Cinema: Japan 2 (2012),Jon Jung of Vcinema, Sayoko Ono at Zakka Films, Isamu Matsue, Franco Picolo of Sonatine, Joel Neville Anderson, Negativ: Magazin für Film und Mediankultur (CiprianDavid / Dennis Vetter / Elisabeth Maurer / Christian Alt), Wildgrounds, Klaus Wiesmüller of JapanKino, and the guys at Schöner Denken.
This blog would not be possiblewithout the inspiring work of / information provided by Anido, Animations: Creators and Critics, CALF, Image Forum, Tokyo ArtBeat, Tokyo University of the Arts, and Tomoyasu Murata and Co.
The greatest thank you of all goes to my loyal readers, friends, and family whose support made this year the best ever for Nishikata Film Review.
Wishing you all Joy and Prosperity in 2012, Cathy
