Grievance of a Starmaker

The walls of video rental shops in Japan are lined with hundreds upon hundreds of animation DVDs, but experimental and art animation on DVD are rare. To remedy this situation, Image Forum put together this showcase of the work of contemporary avant-garde animators trained in Kyoto and Tokyo.

A rare glimpse of early Japanese sound anime and prewar Japanese culture, The Roots of Japanese Anime features the masterworks of such pioneers of Japanese animation as Noburo Ofuji, Yasuji Murata, and Kenzo Masaoka, in addition to Mitsuyo Seo’s Momotaro’s Sea Eagle, the notorious war cartoon billed as Japan’s first feature anime. These movies represent the brilliance and variety of anime, ranging from beautiful Japanese paper animation to powerful multiplane cel cartoons. They also evoke the fascinating complexity of Japan, a nation that is then both marching towards war, enlisting kids in militarist nationalism, yet also delighting in a mixture of modern popular culture, ancient folk tales, irreverent comedy, and the everyday life of prewar Japanese children.

Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…

An Irish doctor survived the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki and was given a Samurai sword for the lives he saved. 70 years later his family searches for the origin of their father's sword.

"The Pine's Branches" is the latest work in Murata Tomoyasu’s series “Sei toshi ni matsuwaru kioku no tabi (Journey through memories of life and death),” which he began following the Tohoku earthquake in 2011.

This is the first letter addressed to you. A voyage to trace the vague images of memories.

When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patient's dreams is stolen, all hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist can stop it and recover it before damage is done: Paprika.

Ori Peer's Sun character in a 3 minute short employing a unique, cynical take on the cycle of life.

Satou Ichirou once called himself 'Maryuuin Kouga' and behaved as if he were a hero in a fantasy world. His strange behavior caused his classmates to bully him and he left the school. At his new school, he tries to behave like a normal boy, but one day he meets a girl who cosplays with a blue cape. She calls herself "a researcher traveling from the outer world to search for the 'Dragon Terminal'". At first, Ichirou rejects the girl, Satou Ryouko, because her behavior reminds him of his embarrassing past, but he changes his mind after seeing her getting bullied. In order to bring Ryouko back to real life, Ichirou accepts her and his past and begins the final battle as Maryuuin Kouga.

A member of an elite paramilitary counter-terrorism unit becomes traumatized after witnessing the suicide bombing of a young girl and is forced to undergo retraining. However, unbeknownst to him, he becomes a key player in a dispute between rival police divisions, as he finds himself increasingly involved with the sister of the girl he saw die.

Kido Tatsuhiko moved to Tokyo to attend an art school and start his new life. In his new room, there's a small hole in the wall. At first he can see nothing through the small hole, but one night, through the peeping hole, he saw a girl named Ikuno Emiru, a perverted voyeur who ropes him into her peeping fetish… But each winds up getting more than they bargained for.

Short US propaganda cartoon.

In the future, an outbreak of canine flu leads the mayor of a Japanese city to banish all dogs to an island used as a garbage dump. The outcasts must soon embark on an epic journey when a 12-year-old boy arrives on the island to find his beloved pet.

Summer, 2006. A 5th grader Ryuhei discovers a notebook entitled "Tokyo Exploring Records." It was a journal kept by his father, Shohei, when he was around Ryuhei's age. Ryuhei forms his own exploration party with his friends Shun and Yoshio. One summer day, the party and Ryuhei's younger brother Sasuke who happens to tag along, heads to the dungeon looking for a treasure indicated on the journal

An elite superhuman agent must stop a foreign military unit from seizing control of an ancient artifact that holds the key to ultimate power.

The Fifth Holy Grail War continues, and the ensuing chaos results in higher stakes for all participants. Shirou Emiya continues to participate in the war, aspiring to be a hero of justice who saves everyone. He sets out in search of the truth behind a mysterious dark shadow and its murder spree, determined to defeat it. Meanwhile, Shinji Matou sets his own plans into motion, threatening Shirou through his sister Sakura Matou. Shirou and Rin Tohsaka battle Shinji, hoping to relieve Sakura from the abuses of her brother. But the ugly truth of the Matou siblings begins to surface, and many dark secrets are exposed.

As Sakura drowns in the murky darkness of the sins she has committed, Shirou's vow to protect her at all costs leads him into a raging battle to put an end to the Holy Grail War. Will Shirou's wish reach Sakura even as he challenges fate itself in a desperate battle against the rising tide?

Bugs fights stereotyped Japanese during World War II.

Afro Samurai avenged his father and found a life of peace. But the legendary master is forced back into the game by a beautiful and deadly woman from his past. The sparks of violence dropped along Afro’s bloody path now burn out of control – and nowhere are the flames of hatred more intense than in the eyes of Sio.

It is mid-december, and SOS Brigade chief Haruhi Suzumiya announces that the Brigade is going to hold a Christmas party in their clubroom, with Japanese hotpot for dinner. The brigade members Kyon, Yuki Nagato, Mikuru Asahina and Itsuki Koizumi start preparing everything for the party, such as costumes and decorations. But a couple of days later, Kyon arrives at school only to find that Haruhi is missing. Not only that, but Mikuru claims she has never known Kyon before, Koizumi is also missing, and Yuki has become the sole member of the literature club. The SOS Brigade seems to have never existed, nor has Haruhi Suzumiya. No one in the school has ever heard about her… except for Kyon.