Author: Tad Osaki

Michel Hazanavicius’ OSS 117, Cairo Nest of Spies was awarded the Sakura Grand Prix at the closing ceremony of the 19th Tokyo International Film Festival in Tokyo yesterday. The 2006 French film, starring Aure Atika, also won Tokyo Governor’s Award at the festival which attracted 271,000 visitors during its nine-day run at two main venues and two satellite locations including Tokyo Anime Center at Akihabara Square. This film, along with five other award winners were picked out of 16 films shown in the competition at the event. The 19th edition of the TIFF featured 614 projects from 66 countries.

Although none of the anime features were among the contestants this year, animation is a key element of the three-year-old content market component of the film festival, TIFFCOM, A total of 161 animation houses, content providers and media companies (82 Japanese and 81 international entities) attended TIFFCOM this year, up 22% from 131 in 2005. Eight of the 54 production plans presented to TPG were anime or anime-related this year.

Eleven anime titles, including Satoshi Kon’s latest acclaimed feature Paprika and the TV series Oban Star-Racers (a co-production between French outfit Sav! The World Productions and Japanese studio Hal Film Maker which premiered on Toon Disney Jetix block in June) screened at the Animecs TIFF 2006.

Akira Amari, Japan’s minister of economy, trade and industry, said in his closing ceremony speech that the Japanese Government is hoping to position TIFF as a total content festival covering movies, anime, game and music in 2007. ‘The content production as a whole is one of the key export industries in the 21st century,’ maintained Amari. Daiki Matsuyama, Animecs TIFF 2006 producer, also told Animation Magazine, ‘We are hoping to position anime as a key pillar of the TIFF next year,’

Some of the anime houses and TV networks, however, are not quite as thrilled at the prospect of TIFF becoming another international anime event in Tokyo. They are, in fact, more or less weary of having to participate in another international anime fair in Tokyo only less than five months prior to the Tokyo International Anime Fair, which has finally become a globally recognized anime fair after four years of struggle. One of the anime house executives who had just returned from MIPCOM pointed out that they were not able to return home early enough to prepare their booths for TIFFCOM.

Another anime house executive and a terrestrial network anime producer said that proliferation of international anime fairs in Asia may become a problem in the near future. ‘If you have one each in Tokyo, Pusan, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore, that’s already plenty to attend for anime buyers and sellers,’ he noted. ‘Maybe we need only one in Asia a year, rotating the location every year, for effective and efficient buying and selling of anime,’ he said, ‘though the idea is quite likely to be shot down by every country and city involved in the existing anime fair that is contributing to income gains from visitors and tourists.’

One of the reasons behind the TIFF going after anime is that anime is easier to import than Japanese live-action movies as an export item, thanks to decades of popularity of the genre all over the world. Backed by diehard fans and followers of manga in different age, Japanese anime is still going strong in ll genres of distribution media. TV Tokyo (home of the original Pokemon) continues to air 36 different anime titles in primetime toda. Yukio Kawasaki, animation business manager, content businesses division at TV Tokyo says that this company is the biggest single buyer of local anime in Japan and that at the same time anime accounts for over 90% of TV Tokyo’s program sales overseas.

‘In order to keep marketing anime abroad,’ opines Kawasaki, ‘you’ve got to plan at least three years ahead, because even the fastest selling anime show would face a five-year peak from which its dissemination drops.’ Following the successful marketing of Yu-Gi-Oh! in the US and Europe, Kawasaki is prepared to push Naruto across the world today, following its premiere on Cartoon Network in the US.

Tokyo Metropolitan TV (Tokyo MX), the only UHF station in Tokyo which is in its 11th year of operation today, has recently upped its anime lineup to 25 a week. While most terrestrial networksare cutting down the number of anime titles in view of the declining advertising revenue, Tokyo MX has emerged as a savior of anime houses offering more time slots for the genre, albeit at lower purchase prices.

On the production side, Aniplex, known for Full Metal Alchemist and Naruto is probably producing more TV anime series than anybody else, currently with a dozen titles on terrestrial networks, including the education channel of NHK, the public broadcaster. Founded as Sony Pictures Entertainment/Music Publishing in 1995, the production changed its name several times within the Sony group and became Aniplex in 2003. After setting up Aniplex of America Inc. in March, 2005, Aniplex founded A-1 Pictures as a 14,400 square feet animation production studio in May of the same year.

Toei Animation, Japan’s largest and oldest animation house, has also been a major player in the market, consistently offering five anime series a week for terrestrial TV locally. Having celerated its 50th anniversary this summer, it has increased its sales pitch abroad via its branch offices in Los Angeles, Paris and Hong Kong. The theatrical version of One Piece, one of Toei’ hit TV series which airs on 4Kids stateside, was released in about 100 screens in Korea recently.

Igor Kovalyov’s Milch from the U.S. beat out 52 other entries to win the grand Prix and a one-million-yen ($8,620) bounty at the 11th edition of the biannual Hiroshima International Animation Festival that closed its four-day schedule at Hiroshima’s Aster Plaza on Aug. 28. The international jury of six, headed by Canada’s Marcy Page of Paradisia, also picked Korean Hyung-yun Chang’s Wolf Daddy for the Hiroshima Prize, which was also a million-yen prize.

The newly created Rene Laloux prize ($2,000) went to French filmmaker Philippe Grammaticopoulos’ The Regulator, while special international jury prizes were awarded to: Jeremy Clapin’s A Backbone Tale from France, Giul Alkabetz’s Dying of Love from Germany, Rastko Ciric’s Metamorph from Serbia Montenegro, Georges Schwizgebel’s Play from Switzerland, Run Wrake’s Rabit from the U.K. and Regina Pessoa’s Tragic Story with Happy Ending from Portugal.

The Hiroshima 2006 Anime Fair was preceded by the Hiroshima Animation Biennale 2006, which took place between July 28 and Aug. 27 at NTT Credo Hall in Hiroshima, and featured 50 years of history of respected Japanese toon factory Toei Animation.

The fifth edition of the annual Tokyo International Anime Fair named Aniplex’s Full Metal Alchemist: The Movie the Animation of The Year in late March. The film was chosen by 205 judges from a field of 389 titles of all genres that were shown, aired or sold on home video during 2005. The anime production also fetched the Best Original Story award for Hiromu Arakawa, the woman behind the Manga of the same name carried by Square-Enix’s Boy’s Gangan monthly magazine, and the Best Music award for Michiru Oshima.

Disney’s The Incredibles won the Notable Entry award in the overseas feature film category, while Tatsunoko Production’s Karas and Bandai Visual’s Yukikaze shared the Notable Entry prize in the original video category.

The Notable awards in the television category were presented to Bones’ Psalms of Planets Eureka Seven, directed by Tomoki Kyoda; Tezuka Prods.’ Black Jack, directed by Makoto Tezka, the son of Osamu Tezka of Astro Boy fame; and Marvelous Ent.’s Mushi-shi, directed by Hiroshi Nagahama. Meanwhile, TMS’s Detective Conan, Strategy Above the Depths, directed by Yasuichiro Yamamoto, and Sunrise’s Mobile Suit Z Gundam ‘ Heirs to The Stars, both won Notable Entry awards in the theater division. Gundam‘s director, Yoshiyuki Tomino, was named the Best Director and Eureka scribe Dai Sato won Best Screenplay. The awards for best character design and art direction went to Kenichi Yoshida and Takeshi Waki, respectively, for Mushi-shi.

The open entries category included 143 student films from 19 countries. The grand prize was awarded to Crow That Wears Cloths, a film about a crow dreaming of becoming a human, directed by Kazuo Ebisawa, a junior at Waseda University’s Kawaguchi Art School.

All these award-winning anime titles will be shown free of charge Aug. 25-27 at the Tokyo Anime Center, officially opened to the public on March 15 at Akihabara UDX Building in the Akihabara terminal. Tokyo Metropolitan TV (MXTV) will air the show itself and the award winning anime between 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. on May 4 and 5.

Directed by Seiji Mizushima, Full Metal Alchemist is the saga of two brothers torn apart by war. The show is known in Japan as Hagaren, an abbreviation of the Japanese title, Hagane-no Renkinjutsushi. A total of 51 episodes aired in Japan on TBS/MBS networks every Saturday between October 2003 and September 2004, and can still be found in rotation around the world. Cartoon Network responsible for the U.S. and Australian market.

Tokyo Anime Fair 2006 was held March 23-25 and attracted 98,984 visitors, up 17.6% from last year, and nearly twice as many as in the first edition in 2002. A record number of 890 members of the press showed up, marking an impressive 42.7% increase from last year and showing a soaring media interest in the event, according to the organizing committee.

The show gave a strong push to new anime creators, setting aside a special corner and 30-plus booths to individual animators and anime-related schools, whose numbers doubled to 19 this year from last year’s 10.

The largest display of the show in size was the dragon head from Studio Ghibli’s new anime feature, Gedo Senki (Ged’s War Chronicle). Known in English-speaking territories as Chaos from Earthsea, the production is based on the 1972 book The Farthest Shore, the third story in Ursula K. Le Guin’s saga Tales from Earthsea. The new film is directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son, Goro Miyazaki, in his directorial debut, and produced by Toshio Suzuki. The story follows the adventure of Ged, a young man with magical powers who teams up with Prince Arren in the outskirts of civilization where old Gods and dragons lurk. Korea’s DR Movie worked with Studio Ghibli to create the animation for the film.

A few years back, Suzuki told a local newspaper that Hayao Miyazaki was talking about translating Le Guin’s stories for anime more than 30 years ago. It didn’t materialize then, partly because of reluctance on Le Guin’s part, and also because Miyazaki was so involved preparing production for his feature, Nausica in the Valley of the Wind.

The trailer for Gedo Senki aired on Nippon TV on February 23 and the production is scheduled to be released in Japan by Toho theaters in July. No details were revealed about overseas distribution, thanks to the usually tight-lipped Studio Ghibli, but Walt Disney Pictures is likely to handle the U.S. release.

The 2007 edition of the Tokyo Anime Fair will take place at the same Tokyo Big Site in Daiba water front in Tokyo between March 22 and 25. Although Gov. Shintaro Ishihara will remain chairman of the anime fair executive committee, the actual operations of the show will be largely handled by the Association of Japanese Animations, with the coordination of Tokyo Metro Government staff so far in charge of the show, according to Kentaro Kato, executive committee producer of the 2006 show.