Japan Anima(tor)’s Exhibition

15 one-minute shorts created by various people from Japan's animation industry. The title of the collection, Ani*Kuri15, is abbreviated from the words "anime" and "creators". Season One 1) Shinji Kimura - Attack of Higashimachi Ni Chome/Attack of Higashimachi 2nd Burough 2) Akemi Hayashi - Namida no Mukou/From the Other Side of the Tears 3) Yasufumi Soejima - Hyotoko/Blaze Man 4) Osamu Kobayashi - Sancha Blues/The Aromatic Tea Blues 5) Shinjiro Nishimi - Uchujin Raikou Hiroshi no Baai/Invasion from Space - Hiroshi's Case Season Two 6) Mamoru Oshii - Project Mermaid 7) Kazuto Nakazawa - "yurururu" ~Nichijou Hen~ 8) Range Murata and Tatsuya Yabuta - Gyrosopter 9) Tobira Oda and Yasuyuki Shimizu - Sport Captain Episode No.18: Assassin Descended from the Mountain Hunt!! 10) Atsushi Takeuchi - Wandaba Kiss Season Three 11) Makoto Shinkai - Neko no Shuukai/A Gathering of Cats 12) Mahiro Maeda - Onmitsu Hime 13) Michael Arias - Okkakekko 14) Shouji Kawamori - Project Omega 15) Satoshi Kon - Ohayou/Good Morning

Sweat Punch is a series of five Studio 4°C shorts collected as a direct-to-DVD package film entitled Deep Imagination . 1. Tanpetori Kyouju no Yuuutsu (タンペトリー教授の憂鬱, Professor Dan Petory's Blues) A musical number starring a hand puppet named Junior. The puppet is controlled by the drunken Professor Dan Petory who explains in puppetry the answers to such questions as why the Earth is blue and why UFOs fly in a zig-zag pattern. 2. End of the World "End of the World" is a science fiction story about a young alien girl named Yuko as she escapes from the world of humans. After meeting Kazumi, a human girl Yuko met at a rock concert, the girls head to Kazumi's apartment. Before Yuko even takes off her shoes, however, she leaves through Kazumi's TV with her trusty cybernetic steed FACE to wage a retaliatory campaign against hordes of S&M monsters from another dimension, and the evil queen of Yuko's world. 3. Kigeki (喜劇, Comedy) Set during the Irish War of Independence, a five-year old girl goes out in search of the mysterious Demon’s Castle - home of the Black Knight whose services she hopes to recruit. The Black Knight is a dark, young, skilled swordsman who will only accept a particular genre of books as advance payment. 4. Higan (彼岸, Enlightenment) An injured man lies completely still in a hospital room with doctors hovering at his bedside, appearing serene and peaceful as he slowly succumbs to death. However, in his own mind, memories of a recent battle vividly flash by. Thoughts of death and chaos haunt him, even in his final moments. 5. Garakuta no Machi (ガラクタの町, Junk Town) One summer day, a young boy encounters a little robot at a shopping arcade-a hungry little robot, it turns out, as he devours one machine after the other, growing in size with each "meal". This story of a boy, a machine, and their little adventure is the tale of an unusual friendship, enriched by the details of daily life and seen through the director's unique visual style.

An anthology of seven short animated films from Studio 4°C: 1.) Genius Party (directed by Atsuko Fukushima) A bizarre bird-like creature runs through a barren desert and finds what seems to be a smiling egg lying on the ground. 2.) Shanghai Dragon (directed by Shouji Kawamori) An imaginative Chinese boy finds a futuristic device that can make his own drawings come to life. After discovering the device, the town he lives in is about to be invaded by spaceships and machines of mass destruction that are all centuries ahead of Earth's time. 3.) Deathtic 4 (directed by Shinji Kimura) A tale set in a world full of zombies, living their normal zombie lives. A living frog falls from the blackened sky of the zombie world, and a little zombie boy with his friends try to bring the living creature back to its own world. 4.) Doorbell (directed by Youji Fukuyama) The main character is a ghost in his own world. He must outrun the other versions of himself, or they will take over his life. 5.) Limit Cycle (directed by Hideki Futamura) An existential examination of the world as seen through the lens of a man seemingly trapped in an endless cycle of work. 6.) Happy Machine (directed by Masaaki Yuasa) An infant who is happily secured in his own nursery suddenly discovers that everything about the nursery is fake. Soon the infant is forced out of the nursery into the world that exists outside, where adventure awaits, and there are many alien-like creatures to encounter. 7.) Baby Blue (directed by Shinichirou Watanabe) A small adventure of two young students who decide to go anywhere they can for just one day, to enjoy that day without caring about the rest, and simply be together.

9 of Japan's leading animators were asked to create a short segment that followed the theme of "Robots," for their inclusion in this film. Essentially, this "movie" is 9 short films, all independent of one another. The common element is human interaction with robots, namely the consequences of creating life with one's own hands, played in nine very different ways. 1. Opening (dir. by Atsuko Fukushima and Katsuhiro Otomo) 2. Franken's Gears (dir. by Koji Morimoto) 3. Deprive (dir. by Hidetoshi Omori) 4. Presence (dir. by Yasuomi Umetsu) 5. Star Light Angel (dir. by Hiroyuki Kitazume) 6. Cloud (dir. by Mao Lamdo) 7. A Tale of Two Robots (dir. by Hiroyuki Kitakubo) 8. Nightmare (dir. by Takashi Nakamura) 9. Ending (dir. by Atsuko Fukushima and Katsuhiro Otomo)