Discover Movies

Half man, half steam engine. Full speed ahead, regardless.

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.

An experimental animated short film by Yoriko Mizushiri.

In a gentle adaptation of Megume Nagata's book Flowers Wait for the Moon, a girl grows up, falls in love, and becomes a mother, realizing that her childhood is now forever behind her.

Surrealist video art short film.

A stop-motion adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Nightingale.

Short animated film by Shuhei Nishizawa

Animation by a Japanese artist.

Get lost in your thoughts. It appears in the form of plants. This questions the possibility of true dialogue with oneself.

NHK undertakes a project to visualize written stories of the A-bomb victims through animation. The experience notes of the A-bomb victims which will be the base for the animation are ones sent to NHK's annual reciting, a program to read and share their experience, which have been running as long as 9 years now. A total of 2,200 notes have been sent to us so far.

Iki mixes old and new technologies to create a film that evokes both the sights and sounds (hum of cicadas) of a hot Japanese summer. Black and white photographs of a Shinto shrine, summer landscape and an old Japanese-style house provide the backdrop and CGI technology adds the visual interest in the form of an unusual little girl and her ghostly frog companion. The ghost in this story is more a curiosity than something scary, and the use of a fish-eye lens and other distortions suggest both the sweltering humidity of summer and also imply that the frog is an imaginary creation of the young protagonist

A reimagination of Alice in Wonderland set in modern Japan dealing with themes of bullying, lack of work, household breakdown, child care issues, social media addiction, etc. The animation uses a combination of pixilation, hand-drawn animation, and CG.

A Tsutaetai, Kokoro no Tegami (wedding, elderly aid, and funeral company) commissioned work from Tekken showing the love of a father and the complications as he ages.

Short animated film by Ryo Hirano.

Fan-made "Dynavision" (kamishibai style) adaptation of Hagio Moto's November Gymnasium

Mr. A has arrived and Eagle Talon must fight with him.

A boy’s spoon falls on the floor when he is having breakfast. The moment he is trying to pick it up, the boy is thrown into a different world. There he begins the adventure to take his spoon back

You always stumble before reach. The glass in your hand gets chipped every time. Then everything should start again from the start. There are, however, things you can discover only through repetition. The answer resides in yourself.

The animals are having a swimming contest. The strutting Saru-kun, a monkey, can't bring himself to admit that he cannot swim, and puts himself forward as a contestant. He dives right in, but immediately starts to sink. For some reason the bottom of the pool is littered with seaweed and coral, and a kappa, a type of water imp, also lives down there. Saru-kun fights with the kappa, and manages to seize the saucer off its head. The kappa agrees to let Saru-kun ride on his back while he swims, in exchange for the return of his saucer. Saru-kun then cruises right through the pool, looking for all the world like he is swimming under his own power, and wins the race successfully. But what happens in the end?

Dreaming of rising up in the world, Chibisuke the little bonze travels to the city, where he becomes a retainer to a Cabinet minister, who takes a liking to Chibisuke who dances for him in his palm. One day, Chibisuke is accompanying a princess to Shimizu when a mountain devil attacks her. Chibisuke makes numerous surprise attacks on the devil before finally overcoming him, and using a horn of plenty left behind by the devil, he ends up a strapping young man.

The film is a comedic retelling of the real-life events of the 47 Ronin. The film combines Edo period setting with modern devices such as cameras, motorcycles, and cars.

Mother secretly threw a letter of her daughter in the snow ocean. The daughter in suspicion, followed her mother and sneak into a boat. She waits for a thaw with unreached feelings

Wandering the bizarre town looked like a fishing village boy hero that has been cut a vein bitten his left arm to Memekurage in the coast, in search of a doctor "doctor's where" and while saying being tormented by the fear of death, absurd eye It is talking can undergo surgery met Joy, even though the eye, and require at last (gynaecologist), of obtaining survived without incident.

A short message between a boy and a girl.

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.

Short animated film by Tadanari Okamoto

The short portrays the main character Outafukuko, a 1,028-year-old woman, making and sharing Issenyousho in a scene set in Hiroshima after the Second World War. Issenyousho is considered one of the early dishes that would eventually inspire okonomiyaki. October 10, the day the short went live, is "Okinomiyaki Day" in Japan.

Hikokazu is walking around selling watermelons when he meets Chuemon, a family retainer, in front of a castle. He was looking for someone with wisdom, as he was troubled by an envoy from a neighboring country who was making unreasonable demands. Hikokazu decides to cooperate with Chuemon on the promise that he will buy all the watermelons.

A group of Robbie the Rabbits of varying colors move through the corridors of a hospital, calmly riding elevators, pushing gurneys, and sitting in silence.

The adventure of a lost little rabbit wandering through the woods. As night draws near, wonder-working plants and flowers show the way.

This is Aihara’s earliest surviving work. Motifs of psychedelic culture and the anti-war movement are directly scratched and painted on translucent film.

A girl made of unmelted snow has fallen in love with the dragon who brings spring. A story of changing seasons and thawing hearts.

Little Black Sambo was screened at the first Vancouver International Film Festival in 1958, and won the Best Film award in the Films for Children section.

After being transported into a 19th century Edo painting, a university student discovers everyday sustainable practices from history to bring home to modern Japan.

We cannot stay here any longer. We must leave tomorrow morning. A clown convinces and hurries the residents of an amusement park, a girl, a gay, a soldier, a dog, to be in time for the merry-go-round.

An animated biographical film about the life of Takae Tsuneo, who was dealt a heavy blow when he lost both of his arms but worked to help other people with disabilities.

A short film by Kojiro Shishido.

The adventures of a young and happy bee who is sent by her queen to search for pollen, and in doing so she finds a new world that surrounds her, making friends with various forest creatures.

Fisherman Urashima Tarō rides a turtle on top of the ocean waves.  They then submerge underwater and arrive at a castle, where they are celebrated and greeted by dancing people and octopodes, and a princess.  Based on the folktale “Otogi Banashi.”

An anti-war tale of the chimney sweep, Peroo , who led his country to victory by using "Eggs from Soldiers". He makes a triumphant return to his hometown, but the way is lined with rubble, corpses, and brand new grave markers.. Approximately 20,000 frames of shadow puppet animation produced independently by "Doeisha", which is organized by 10 amateurs, mainly Doshisha University students.

Inorganic and disconnected substances are infected with consciousness. They wander between points and surfaces believing they are complete individuals.

The rooftops of a darkened city, a couple walking by a lone streetlight on an otherwise darkened street, an old man rocking in a creaky chair in the corner of a room lit only by the moon or the streetlight entering through the window.

The curtain rises: a Kyōgen stage, an examination room at an eye specialist’s, a sushi counter. There are two people who meet in this. Feelings of the most diverse kind, alternating between fear and fascination, between tenderness and sanctuary, flare up and are immediately put into practice. The feelings of the other are explored.

An animated adaptation of Yumeno Kyuusaku's sci-fi novel Dogura Magura.

An aggressive and martial arts-devoted mantis kicks cans and hunts down cicadas, bringing havoc into the life of a couple of humans. This personal opus by Shintaro Kishimoto, now steady collaborator of Production I.G's 3D crew, won the prestigious Ofuji Award in 2005.

The mole has lived under ground since he was born. He believes that his current life is perfect, living in the safest and happiest place. This story is about a mole who goes out to the outside world by accident, and he grows as he faces various experiences and kindnesses.

The story centers on a 65-year-old woman named Umiko, who is grieving the recent loss of her husband. She goes to a movie theater for the first time in decades, and there she meets Kai, a university student majoring in film. Umiko becomes really interested in the audience's reactions during the film, and Kai notices. Afterward, Umiko invites Kai back to her house. When Kai then asks her, "You're someone who's interested in making films, aren't you?," Umiko realizes her feelings. From there, she dives into the world of filmmaking.

A short animated film by Furukawa Taku

Kakuei Kakkun Tanaka is a superhero who hangs out with his friends. In his misadventures, he becomes prime minister of Japan, visits New York and prevents a nuclear war.

The Rakugo story of PARROT is told by a Rakugo-ka, or a lone storyteller formed of Japanese characters.

Four short vignettes in this early animated film. In the first, shadows pull away to reveal a puddle, and automobile and bicycle tires pass through it. In the second, cutout shadows of a variety of shoes of people walking are seen. The third is a flurry of geometric forms. In the fourth, the playing card spade courts the heart and pushes away the club, but eventually the club returns, beats up the spade, and wins the heart. (Source: AniDB)

I conveyed my love and gratitude to a certain deceased physician amidst the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, while a personal shopper expressed the same emotions from yet a different place.

An adaptation of Aesop's fable The Ant and the Grasshopper but with a slight change. We have a diligent family ants versus a drunken lazy frog, a bourgeois butterfly and grasshopper couple. As winter comes, the frog, butterfly, and grasshopper are ill and starving.

In a dimly lit kitchen as a chunk of meat is sliced, bugs creep out from the cut. Ordinary action like cooking transforms to the weird and creepy.

An early animated short based on the Japanese folktale. There is some confusion as to which version is which, as there are other animated takes on the tale: 1927s "Yasuji Murata’s Monkey and the Crabs", and 1939s "Monkey and Crabs" or ‘Shin Sarukanigassen’ from Kenzô Masaoka

After the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, I witnessed many changes. Towns were lost in a moment. Children living in Fukushima couldn’t go out and play freely. This work was made from the pictures drawn in the landscapes of parts of Japan. Using the reflection of sunlight, we tried to capture people’s emotion for "energy". Source: CaRTe bLaNChe

Nobody in a class loves ‘Kuchao’ who cannot live without. . . gum. When all [his] classmates fly their balloons, he wouldn’t let his go. After school, on his way home, he gets to his own imaginary world with a bubble gum. His balloon turns to be a face and to many things as he chews [his] gum. His imagination doesn’t stop flying. Then comes a bird. . .

Bonus short included on the "Atsushi Wada Works 2002-2010" DVD.