There was a
fair bit of brouhaha this year surrounding the fact that for the first time in
its 30-year history, no films by Japanese animators featured in the official
selection of the Hiroshima International Animation Festival. This state of affairs says more about the
tastes of the selection committee – who had to whittle 2,214 films from 74
countries down to just 59 – than it does about the state of indie animation in
Japan, which continues to thrive thanks in part to the efforts of animation
schools who are attracting young animators from both inside and outside of
Japan.
Japanese
animation and animators received nods from most international festivals this
year, with Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫の物語, 2013) being a critical favourite. Among its many accolades, the film screened
as part of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, opened the Annecy festival, and
screened at TIFF as part of its Masters’ Programme. The big Studio Ghibli film of the year was of
course When Marnie Was There (思い出のマーニー, 2014) directed by Hiromasa Yonebayshi. The
film opened in third place at the box office and has been warmly received by
critics. Studio Ghibli fans have
something to look forward to as the film slowly makes its way around the
globe. The lucky French get the film
next with a cinema release slated for the 14th of January.
Makoto Shinkai’s The Garden of Words (言の葉の庭, 2013), continued to do well at festivals for a
second year by winning the AniMovie award for best feature at Stuttgart. Mizuho
Nishikubo and Production I.G. racked
up many prizes for Giovanni’s Island
(ジョバンニの島, 2014) including the Jury Distinction award at
Annecy, the Satoshi Kon Award at Fantasia, and an Excellence Award at the Japan
Media Arts Festival.
In terms of
franchises, the 22nd Crayon Shin-chan movie Crayon Shin-chan: Serious Battle! Robot Dad Strikes Back (クレヨンしんちゃん ガチンコ!逆襲のロボ とーちゃん,
2014), directed by Kazuki Nagashima
was both a critical and financial success, winning an Excellence Award at the
Japan Media Arts Festival. The Doraemon
franchise traded 2D for 3D in the computer animated feature Stand by Me Doraemon (STAND BY ME ドラえもん, 2014), directed by Takashi Yamazaki (of Always:
Sunset on Third Street fame) and Ryūichi
Yagi. Pony Canyon will be releasing
a deluxe edition Blu-ray of the film in February 2015. The Naruto franchise celebrated its 15th
anniversary with their tenth feature film The
Last: Naruto the Movie (ザ・ラスト ナルト・ザ・ムービー, 2014) earlier this month and performed well at
the box office.
The most
popular forum for animation in Japan continues to be TV, and there were a
number of innovative series this year. I
have long been a fan of Masaaki Yuasa,
and his adaptation of Taiyō Matsumoto’s manga PING PONG (2014) for Tatsunoko
Production did not disappoint with its bold colours and innovative use of
split screens and interesting framing. Trigger’s Kill la Kill (キルラキル, 2013 - present) has been very
popular with anime fans this year with its compelling mix of comedy and action
sequences. Director Hiroyuki Imaishi is known for his frantic animation pace and the
choreography of his fight sequences cannot be beat. Other series that have caught my attention
this year are Shinichirō Watanabe’s suspenseful
series Terror in Resonance (残響のテロル, 2014), and Masaki
Tachibana’s super-sweet adaptation of the manga Barakamon (ばらかもん, 2014)
My heart of
course lies in independent animation and I treated myself with a trip to
Stuttgart this year for the animation festival.
I got a chance to chat with the delightful Maya Yonesho, who does innovative Daumenreisen
animation workshops, and her husband, the German animator Thomas Meyer-Hermann. Kōji Yamamura was at Stuttgart with Hiromitsu Murakami (A
boy who wanted to be a super-hero) and a group of Geidai students including Yuanyuan Hu (Sunset
Flower Blooming), Mari Miyazawa
(Decorations,
Twins
in the Bakery), Yantong Zhu (My
Milk Cup Cow), Ayasa Kugenuma (The Blooms)
and Saki Muramoto (It’s
Time for Supper)
I was
delighted to have Yamamura as my
guest at Nippon Connection this
year. His presentation of the Geidai
(Tokyo University of Arts) student film screening was sold out once again and
we had a strong turnout for his retrospective.
The animation programme was very strong with Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s Patema
Inverted (2013), Shinichiro Watanabe
and Shingo Natsume’s innovated
series Space Dandy (2014), and the Short Peace (2013) omnibus by Katsuhiro Otomo, Shuhei Morita, Hiroaki Ando
and Hajime Katoki rounding things
off.
My trip to
Japan for a Satoyama
Forum in Fukui Prefecture coincided nicely with the Hiroshima International
Animation Festival this year so I was able to catch up with many Japanese /
Japan-based independent animators of all generations. I came home with a big pile of sample DVDs
that I have only just barely begun to work my way through. Some of the highlights were meeting legendary
puppet animator Fumiko Magari, who
worked on the films of both Tadanari Okamoto and Kihachirō Kawamoto; meeting
Osamu Tezuka’s son Macoto Tezka at
the premiere of Legend of the Forest,
Part 2. Other faces at the festival
included Masatoki Minami, who gave
me a copy of his documentary
on Wagorō Arai, Taku Furukawa, Yōji Kuri, Takashi Namiki and the Anido
gang, Tamaki Okamoto and many of the filmmakers she represents,
Geidai animators and staff, Tatsutoshi
Nomura and Tamabi animators, Makiko
Sukikara + Kōhei Matsumura (While
the Crow Weeps) and, of course, the great leader of the whole affair Sayoko Kinoshita and her tireless volunteers. Needless to say, I came back with an armful
of sample DVDs that I am slowly working my way through for 2015. See: Japan
Animation Today to learn more about the Japanese selection at Hiroshima
2014.
I also had a
chance to go to Wissembourg, France to hear Ilan Nguyen give talks on Japanese
Auteur Animation at RICA. At
Wissembourg I had a chance to interview Czech animator Jiří Barta about his Japanese co-production Yuki Onna (2014) – an adaptation of one of Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan
tales. Interview and review to be
published early in the New Year. I am
also hoping to write up my notes taken during Michèle Lemieux’s presentation on the pinscreen and Phil Comeau’s
documentary Frédérick Back: Grandeur
nature, which features interviews with Isao Takahata and Takashi Namiki.
I concluded
my year in animation at the Deutsches Filmmuseum Frankfurt
for the opening of Oscar-prize winner Thomas
Stellmach and artist Maja Oschmann’s
exhibition the Making of
Virtuos Virtuell. I had seen Virtuos Virutell at Hiroshima and was
impressed by its pairing of animation and the music of Louis Spohr. There is a hint of Japanese aesthetic with
their use of a sumi-e brush for some
of the technique. The exhibition will continue
until February 22, 2015.
Catherine
Munroe Hotes 2014
