A man enjoys a drink over and over and over again, for eight seconds each time. It's the same every time... or at least that's what it seems like at first. With every sip, something changes, making things a little more intriguing each time. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
Music video for Soutasei Riron's song "Miss Parallel World".
A short film by Saori Shiroki.
A boy is always alone, at school, or at home. One day, he finds a sandlot on the way home and thinks of making a ‘town’ of his own. Another boy was watching his play and starts to imitate him.
Naoko had a fight with her brother over a trivial thing and pushed him away. She knew she was childish but she ran away from home.
The primary schoolboy "Kuchao" is hated person in his class. Even if everyone fly balloons, only he doesn't part with his it. When he immediately begins to chew a bubble gum, he enter the imagination world after school. When his balloon becomes the face and begins to chew a bubble gum, it changes into various things. His imagination makes rapid progress more. Then, the bird approaches while flying and... (Source: Official website)
A huge pig is lying down in front of a house. Father, mother, grandmother, six children and a dog live in the house. Everyone is aware of the huge pig, and the pig is aware of the family. But nobody knows how and what the other think. The mother doesn't understand the father… It depends what you imagine when you hear about normal family life. (Source: Fresh Film Fest Website)
The two of them, all alone at home. All alone with her father's corpse. Memories, ideals, and reality all sink beneath the muck. Everyone is alone. Everyone is in solitude. (Source: Geidai Animation)
All of sudden, a boy starts to play hopscotch. Kicking stone is a simply play but it doesn’t work simply as it seems. He struggles by the rule he made himself.
The gaze of a woman from a window to windows leads to a recollection of the various scenes. The metamorphosed windows transfer, expand, reflect, conserve, and sometimes shine like a lighthouse.
The scutes glisten in the corner of her mind and she starts to dig her memories up. What was like the museum director she encountered when she was lost?
Increasing in its number, small rabbits take care of a great dolphin. Can the dolphin get to sleep by rabbits' gentle caress? May many people have good sleep and sweet dreams tonight even in the world with whining sounds and wriggle of yin and yang. (Source: Official Site)
In the evening of a village festival, a young boy named Bunroku goes to the festival with his friend and visits a clog shop on the way. There he learns an old superstition about the fox. (Source: haff.nl)
When the mind says aah, the body says hee. I dance around the confusion and the consensus, and my whole life is getting composed of these dances.
A mother goat rescues her kids from the belly of a wolf, but her eldest son Toruku is missing. One day Toruku shows up home and has to confront his own fears as well as the disfigured bodies of his brothers and sisters. As the wolf once again approaches, secrets of Toruku's absence come to light as the flock fights for survival. (Source: asianmoviepulse)
One rainy day, a woman wakes up, opens the curtains, and stares at her reflection in the window, noticing her curly hair. She climbs out of bed and begins to wash it, while strange images of self-hatred fill her mind.
A work completed by Onohana during her enrollment at the Tokyo University of the Arts. A young boy is compelled to release his pet fish into the sea.
Dogs all end up to be a dusty dog. Dogs’ dust consists of pride of themselves and that of you. The film is of the memory, love and gratitude of the dusty dog, and many other dogs, tracing their senses and memories, dedicating to you who gave love to them. (Source: Official Site)
A girl is informed by her doctor that she is pregnant. Surprised by the unexpected announcement, falls into an anguish. The fleeting dream is a despairing dream. (Source: Geidai Animation)
Satomi Maiya's first year work at the Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Film and New Media, Department of Animation. A young girl seeks the attention of her mother, who is occupied with her newly born sister. Out of jealousy, the girl hides her baby sister in darkness.
Above ground, there are many people, coming and going. Underneath a certain sidewalk grate, lives a garbage bag. He has no work, no home, and no family. This is a story of the dirty, black garbage bag and how he gains new life through his connection to the outside world.
Half asleep with my eyes closed, my conscience flies beyond time and space and I transform myself to all the life forms existing. I become the universe and the universe becomes me, until I fall asleep.... It is a song to pray for the existence of heart and soul at an awakening.
Big cities are glutted with information. Unconscious curiosity, hidden under apparent indifference, invites us into a noisy loop.
Deep within my dream, there comes a landscape in my shapeless eyes. The peaceful sight gradually distorts. When anxiety and upsurge stands behind us, the nightly liberation begins. (Source: YouTube)
A man returns to his apartment at the end of the day completely disheartened. As he goes to light a cigarette, the flame takes on a life of its own.
A man is racking himself at a desk. On his desk there is a tiny man also racking himself at his desk.The big man remains still without any idea. The tiny man moves around in vain trying to catch some idea, which is supposed to be inside of him. Both man get cornered searching for idea, become desperate and after the daybreak the big man is struck by an idea... (Source: Official website)
A cavalcade of heretofore unheard-of critters, great and small, cute and hirsute. (Source: Fantasia Festival)
"Googuri Googuri" - a made up word, a secret word, shared by a girl and her grandfather. For the girl, her grandfather is at times like a mountain, at other times like a tree, or an ocean; a warm and comfortable place. Her thoughts take wing into her endless imagination. The things we have seen, smelled, thought, and everything we have experienced, extending and expanding within the infinite expanse inside ourselves.
Graduate animation by Ryo Orikasa, based The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde.
Satomi Maiya's graduate work at the Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Film and New Media, Department of Animation. A mother secretly threw a letter written by her daughter into the snow-covered ocean. The suspicious daughter follows her mother by sneaking on a rowboat with her.
A woman repeatedly strokes her cat while it moves around in her arms.
As the leaves turn scarlet, a mother cries in front of her recently deceased child. The body of the boy decays, leaving behind a shadow, which the woman quickly embarrasses and takes home. One day, she receives a visitor asking about a shadow of a child.
You always stumble before you arrive. The glass in your hand gets chipped with every fall. Then, you start again. However, there are things you can discover only through repetition. The answer resides in yourself. (Source: YouTube)
One doesn't always know where to go, but he must move forward. He has to move toward his goal. Always transforming, his heart and mind drift and run towards the goal he discovers. (Source: YouTube)
The theme came from the Japanese unique folklore, Red Uncleanness or defilement with blood. A girl, whose thinking pattern jumps at a leap without any train of thought, confines her various thoughts in the other side of the mirror and inside the sliding doors to go outside. (Source: Geidai Animation)
Aoko is confident about the documents she creates at work, but doesn't get any positive feedback. Then, she witnesses her colleague secretly changing the documents she created. Aoko is turned into a piece of candy to keep her quiet... (Source: YouTube)
Toshikazu Tamura's first year work at the Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Film and New Media, Department of Animation. Images of cats are stamped in a notebook to create moving vignettes.
A group of boys set out in search of a large fish. When they near its location, one of the boys jumps in the water as bait.
Almost everyone in our contemporary society is picked up and moved around by someone or something, like in a game of Sugoroku. Those who first do so are our parents. We follow a boy who grows up along on Sugoroku board, during which he depends on his parents. His family play the parts of roles in the game - his father rolling the die, and his mother picking him up and placing him he passively goes about his way. But for how long will he let this continue? (Source: YouTube)
People can show some other personality when eating. Some become like herbivores, chewing so many times. Some becomes like carp, crowing around bait. Some become like hamsters, with their mouths full, etc. Everyone is unique and worth observation. (Source: Official Website)
One day a letter takes a blood-sausage to his friend, liver-sausage. So, he went... (Source: Geidai Animation)
The film is about a family, [that] runs a chicken farm. The boy hankers after birds and his little sister keeps an eye on him. The father loves eggs. The mother loves somebody else. In the family fixture, each member stays there with bias or secrets.
There once lived two brothers in a town. The elder lived alone. The younger lived with his parents. They did not get along well, did neither badly. They called each other occasionally. The elder one was impatient and emotional and does nothing but work. The younger one goes steadily his way. One day the elder brother’s face turned into a tomato… (Source: Geidai Animation)
On a summer day, a strange man who teaches Russian at the beach took me to the town. The familiar town looked totally fresh from a different point of view. The man should be there at the beach tomorrow. (Source: Geidai Animation)
A man walks in a crowd. He cannot stand the crowd but to cover his ears. Then it disappears and he gets lost in a white void space. In that space there is no other man but himself. He had nothing to identify himself and his existence was to come to naught. He starts to struggle to get away from there.
After losing a job at the company a man starts working part-time handing out balloons in a rabbit costume. He finds it comfortable to disguise himself in the costume, as nobody would recognize him. Finally he decides to wear the costume all time in daily life. Then the costume becomes a part of his body and confines him inside…
A girl made of unmelted snow has fallen in love with the dragon who brings spring. A story of changing seasons and thawing hearts. (Source: Geidai Animation)
An award-winning short film following a claymation figure trying to befriend others. As stated in the video's official synopsis, "For friendship it is the most important to be cooperative."
Mizuki Kiyama's short animation utilizes a paint on glass technique to render a young girl's visit to a neighborhood sento (bath house) with her mother with dazzling sensuous wonder. Evoking child-like fascination at daily rituals, this quotidian act amidst feminine intimacy becomes a space of otherworldly fantasy. (Source: Anilist)
There is a stone pillar that continues long and long. Climbers are climbing it. Each climber keeps climbing the stone pillar spending time. They are the symbols of accumulation. (Source: Tokyo University of the Arts)
Set in China in the 1960s, the story opens with an old woman cooling off in her garden. As the sky turns orange with the setting of the sun, an evening primrose begins to bloom. Prompted by the sight of the flower, the woman recalls her childhood and dreams of the time in her life when she was at her most beautiful. Using Chinese-style cutout pictures, the work consciously accentuates the soft texture of the paper and the brilliant colors. (Source: Japan Media Arts Festival Archive)