Mainichi Film Awards
Encyclopedia
The Mainichi Film Awards are a series of annual film
awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan
, since 1946.
films. Following the death of pioneering animator Noburō Ōfuji
in 1961, Mainichi established a new in his honour to recognise animation excellence. A specialist in silhouette animation
, Ōfuji was one of the earliest Japanese animators to gain international recognition, winning accolades at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival and the 1956 Venice Film Festival. This award was first presented in 1962 for by Tezuka Osamu.
With the growth of the animation industry in Japan, the award in the 1980s came to be dominated by big budget studio productions, over the work of the independent animators for whose efforts it was originally established. To address this concern, the Animation Grand Award was established to reward large scale cinematic animation, enabling the Ōfuji award to focus on shorter pieces again. This award was first presented in 1989 for by Hayao Miyazaki
.
The award encompasses a much wider variety of animation than many western anime fans would consider. Two of the most frequent winners over the years, and , specialize mainly in stop motion
rather than cel animation
. As well as being an adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway
novel, The Old Man and the Sea
is the winning work of Russian animator Aleksandr Petrov.
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, since 1946.
Animation awards
Besides the actors and live action films awards, the Mainichi film festival reserves as well two special awards to animationAnimation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
films. Following the death of pioneering animator Noburō Ōfuji
Noburō Ōfuji
was a Japanese film director and animator. One of the most notable auteurs of anime of the first half of the 20th century , he worked primarily with cutout and silhouette animation...
in 1961, Mainichi established a new in his honour to recognise animation excellence. A specialist in silhouette animation
Silhouette animation
Silhouette animation is animation in which the characters are only visible as black silhouettes. This is usually accomplished by backlighting articulated cardboard cut-outs, though other methods exist...
, Ōfuji was one of the earliest Japanese animators to gain international recognition, winning accolades at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival and the 1956 Venice Film Festival. This award was first presented in 1962 for by Tezuka Osamu.
With the growth of the animation industry in Japan, the award in the 1980s came to be dominated by big budget studio productions, over the work of the independent animators for whose efforts it was originally established. To address this concern, the Animation Grand Award was established to reward large scale cinematic animation, enabling the Ōfuji award to focus on shorter pieces again. This award was first presented in 1989 for by Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
.
The award encompasses a much wider variety of animation than many western anime fans would consider. Two of the most frequent winners over the years, and , specialize mainly in stop motion
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...
rather than cel animation
Traditional animation
Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...
. As well as being an adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
novel, The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea (1999 film)
The Old Man and the Sea is a 1999 paint-on-glass-animated short film directed by Aleksandr Petrov, based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. The film won many awards, including the Academy Award for Animated Short Film...
is the winning work of Russian animator Aleksandr Petrov.
Recent animation awards winners
1995- Ōfuji Noburō Award: MemoriesMemories (film)Memories is an anime produced in 1995 by artist/director Katsuhiro Otomo which were based on three of his manga short stories. The film is composed of three episodes: , and...
(「MEMORIES」大友克洋) by Katsuhiro ŌtomoKatsuhiro Otomois a Japanese comic book creator, screenwriter and film director. He is best known as the creator of the manga Akira and its animated film adaptation. Otomo has also directed several live-action films, such as the 2006 feature film adaptation of the manga Mushishi.-Biography:Katsuhiro Otomo was... - Animation Grand Award: Junkers Come HereJunkers Come Hereis an anime movie about a girl, Hiromi Nozawa, and her miniature Schnauzer, Junkers .Hiromi appears on the outside to be a mature, resilient girl, but on the inside she feels like she's falling apart. She hardly sees her parents at all, as they are always busy with work...
(ユンカース・カム・ヒア)
1996
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: Rusuban(るすばん) by N&G Production
- Animation Grand Award:Black JackBlack Jack (manga)is a manga written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka in the 1970s, dealing with the medical adventures of the title character, doctor Black Jack....
(ブラック・ジャック)
1997
- Animation Grand Award: Princess MononokePrincess Mononokeis a 1997 epic Japanese animated historical fantasy feature film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. is not a name, but a general term in the Japanese language for a spirit or monster...
(もののけ姫 Mononoke Hime) by Hayao MiyazakiHayao Miyazakiis a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
/Studio GhibliStudio Ghibliis a Japanese animation and film studio founded in June 1985. The company's logo features the character Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro...
1998
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: Mizu no Sei Kappa Hyakuzu (水の精河童百図) by Shirokumi
- Animation Grand Award: Doraemon: Nobita no Nankai Dai BōkenDoraemon: Nobita's South Sea Adventureis a feature-length Doraemon film which premiered on March 7, 1998.- The start :The film starts with a group of pirates searching for treasure. They enter a cave behind a waterfall and start crossing a bridge when suddenly it falls and some of them fall off. The remaining people continue forward...
(ドラえもん のび太の南海大冒険)
1999
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: Rōjin to Umi - The Old Man and the SeaThe Old Man and the Sea (1999 film)The Old Man and the Sea is a 1999 paint-on-glass-animated short film directed by Aleksandr Petrov, based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. The film won many awards, including the Academy Award for Animated Short Film...
(「老人と海」アレクサンドル・ペトロフと技術スタッフ) by Aleksandr Petrov - Animation Grand Award: Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (人狼) by Hiroyuki OkiuraHiroyuki Okiurais a Japanese animation director and animator.Okiura, who entered the industry at the age of 16 with no academic background , is known for his detailed effects animation in, for example, the chopper attack scene in Patlabor The Movie 2, and more recently his highly realistic character animation in...
/Production I.G
2000
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: Blood: The Last VampireBlood: The Last VampireBlood: The Last Vampire is a 2000 anime film produced by Production I.G and SPE Visual Works and directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo. The film premiered in theaters in Japan on November 18, 2000...
by Hiroyuki Kitakubo/Production I.G - Animation Grand Award: Doraemon: Obāchan no OmoideDoraemon: A Grandmother's Recollectionsis a 2000 Japanese short anime film. It won the Animation Film Award at the 55th Mainichi Film Awards.-Plot:Nobita misses his grandmother that died, so Doraemon takes Nobita to the past to see his grandmother one more time. But they face through a lot of things such as the younger selves of Nobita...
(ドラえもん おばあちゃんの思い出)
2001
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: Kujira Tori (くじらとり) by Studio GhibliStudio Ghibliis a Japanese animation and film studio founded in June 1985. The company's logo features the character Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro...
- Animation Grand Award: Spirited AwaySpirited Awayis a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba,...
(千と千尋の神隠し Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) by Hayao MiyazakiHayao Miyazakiis a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
/Studio GhibliStudio Ghibliis a Japanese animation and film studio founded in June 1985. The company's logo features the character Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro...
2002
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: Millennium ActressMillennium Actressis a 2001 Japanese anime by director Satoshi Kon and animated by the Studio Madhouse. It tells the story of a documentary filmmaker investigating the life of an elderly actress in which reality and cinema become blurred.-Plot:...
(千年女優 Sennen Joyū) by Satoshi KonSatoshi Konwas a Japanese anime director and manga artist from Kushiro, Hokkaidō and a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association . He was a graduate of the Graphic Design department of the Musashino Art University. He is sometimes credited as in the credits of Paranoia Agent...
/MadhouseMadhouse (company)is a Japanese animation studio, founded in 1972 by ex–Mushi Pro animators including Masao Maruyama, Osamu Dezaki, Rintaro, and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. It has created and helped to produce many well known shows, starting with TV anime series Ace o Nerae! in 1973, and including western favourites Ninja... - Animation Grand Award: Crayon Shin-chan: Arashi o Yobu Appare! Sengoku Dai Kassen (クレヨンしんちゃん 嵐を呼ぶアッパレ!戦国大合戦)
2003
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: Winter DaysWinter Daysis a 2003 animated film, directed by Kihachirō Kawamoto. It is based on one of the renku in the 1684 collection of the same name by the 17th-century Japanese poet Bashō....
(冬の日 Fuyu no Hi) - Animation Grand Award: Tokyo GodfathersTokyo Godfathersis a 2003 anime film by the late Japanese director Satoshi Kon.Tokyo Godfathers was Kon's third animated movie, which he wrote and directed. Keiko Nobumoto, noted for being the creator of the Wolf's Rain series and a head scriptwriter for Cowboy Bebop, co-wrote the script with Kon.Tokyo Godfathers...
(東京ゴッドファーザーズ) by Satoshi KonSatoshi Konwas a Japanese anime director and manga artist from Kushiro, Hokkaidō and a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association . He was a graduate of the Graphic Design department of the Musashino Art University. He is sometimes credited as in the credits of Paranoia Agent...
/MadhouseMadhouse (company)is a Japanese animation studio, founded in 1972 by ex–Mushi Pro animators including Masao Maruyama, Osamu Dezaki, Rintaro, and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. It has created and helped to produce many well known shows, starting with TV anime series Ace o Nerae! in 1973, and including western favourites Ninja...
2004
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: Mind GameMind Game (film)is a 2004 Japanese animated feature film based on Robin Nishi's Japanese comic of the same name. It was planned, produced and primarily animated by Studio 4°C and adapted and directed by Masaaki Yuasa, with chief animation direction and model sheets by Yūichirō Sueyoshi, art direction by Tōru...
(マインド・ゲーム) by Masaaki YuasaMasaaki Yuasais an anime television and film director, screenwriter, storyboard artist and animator known for his wild free form style. He was born on March 16, 1965 in Fukuoka, Japan...
/Studio 4°CStudio 4°Cis a Japanese animation studio founded by Eiko Tanaka in 1986. The name comes from the temperature at which water is most dense.-History:STUDIO4°C has produced numerous feature films, OVAs, and shorts. Early film titles include; Memories , Spriggan and Princess Arete... - Animation Grand Award: The Place Promised in Our Early DaysThe Place Promised in Our Early Daysis a 90-minute Japanese anime film created and directed by Makoto Shinkai, following his previous work Voices of a Distant Star. As in the previous film, the soundtrack was composed by Tenmon...
(雲のむこう、約束の場所 Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho) by Makoto ShinkaiMakoto Shinkai, better known by the stage name , is a Japanese anime director, animator, and voice actor. A native of the Koumi Nagano Prefecture in Japan, he studied Japanese literature at Chuo University. He traces his passion for creation to the manga, anime, and novels he was exposed to while in middle...
2005
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: tough guy! by Kishimoto Shintarō
- Animation Grand Award: Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of ShamballaFullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballais a 2005 Japanese animated film directed by Seiji Mizushima and written by Sho Aikawa, and acts as a continuation of the first Fullmetal Alchemist television series...
(劇場版 鋼の錬金術師 シャンバラを征く者 Gekijōban Hagane no Renkinjutsushi: Shanbara o Yuku Mono) by Seiji MizushimaSeiji Mizushimais a Japanese anime director. He has directed such series as Slayers Next, Shaman King, Fullmetal Alchemist, and more recently, Mobile Suit Gundam 00 and Un-Go...
/BONESBones (studio)is a Japanese anime studio. It has produced numerous series, including RahXephon, Wolf's Rain, Scrapped Princess, Eureka Seven, Angelic Layer, Darker than Black, Soul Eater, Ouran High School Host Club and two adaptions of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga along with Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto and...
2006
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: by Michael AriasMichael AriasMichael Arias is an American-born filmmaker active primarily in Japan.Though Arias has worked variously as visual effects artist, animation software developer, and producer, he is best known for his directorial debut, the anime feature Tekkonkinkreet, which established him as the first...
/Studio 4°CStudio 4°Cis a Japanese animation studio founded by Eiko Tanaka in 1986. The name comes from the temperature at which water is most dense.-History:STUDIO4°C has produced numerous feature films, OVAs, and shorts. Early film titles include; Memories , Spriggan and Princess Arete... - Animation Grand Award: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time by Mamoru HosodaMamoru HosodaMamoru Hosoda is a Japanese animator and director. Since 2005, he has been a staff director at Madhouse, where he has made his acclaimed films The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars.Hosoda was commisioned by Studio Ghibli to direct Howl's Moving Castle but left the project during the...
/MadhouseMadhouse (company)is a Japanese animation studio, founded in 1972 by ex–Mushi Pro animators including Masao Maruyama, Osamu Dezaki, Rintaro, and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. It has created and helped to produce many well known shows, starting with TV anime series Ace o Nerae! in 1973, and including western favourites Ninja...
2007
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: A Country DoctorA Country Doctor (film)is a 2007 anime short film by Kōji Yamamura.The film is a direct interpretation of Franz Kafka's short story "A Country Doctor," voiced by kyōgen actors of the Shigeyama house....
(カフカ 田舎医者) by Kōji YamamuraKoji Yamamurais a Japanese independent animator who, since leaving a career as a background artist at an animation studio, currently directs, writes, edits, animates, creates the model sheets and background art for and sometimes produces his own short films and has worked on many commissions such as music... - Animation Grand Award: by Keiichi HaraKeiichi Harais a Japanese director of animated films.-Biography:What started Hara on his career as an animation creator was visiting an animation film company as part of his job hunting activities after graduating from Tokyo Designer Gakuin College . He recklessly left the tour, an act normally forbidden for...
2008
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: Ponyo on the Cliff (崖の上のポニョ, Gake no Ue no Ponyo) by Hayao MiyazakiHayao Miyazakiis a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
/Studio GhibliStudio Ghibliis a Japanese animation and film studio founded in June 1985. The company's logo features the character Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro... - Animation Grand Award: The Sky CrawlersThe Sky Crawlers (film)is a 2008 Japanese anime film, directed by Mamoru Oshii. It is an adaptation of Hiroshi Mori's novel of the same name. It was released across Japanese theatres by Warner Bros. Japan on August 2, 2008. Animated by Production I.G, the film was written by Chihiro Itō, featuring character designs by...
(スカイ·クロラ, Sukai Kurora) by Mamoru OshiiMamoru OshiiMamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director, and writer. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of popular anime, including Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, Ghost in the Shell, and Patlabor 2...
/Production I.G
2009
- Ōfuji Noburō Award: Denshin-Bashira Elemi no Koi by Hideto Nakata/Sovat Theater
- Animation Grand Award: Summer WarsSummer Warsis a 2009 Japanese animated science fiction romance film directed by Mamoru Hosoda, animated by Madhouse and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film's voice cast includes Ryunosuke Kamiki, Nanami Sakuraba, Mitsuki Tanimura, Sumiko Fuji and Ayumu Saitō...
(サマーウォーズ Samā Wōzu) by Mamoru HosodaMamoru HosodaMamoru Hosoda is a Japanese animator and director. Since 2005, he has been a staff director at Madhouse, where he has made his acclaimed films The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars.Hosoda was commisioned by Studio Ghibli to direct Howl's Moving Castle but left the project during the...
/MadhouseMadhouse (company)is a Japanese animation studio, founded in 1972 by ex–Mushi Pro animators including Masao Maruyama, Osamu Dezaki, Rintaro, and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. It has created and helped to produce many well known shows, starting with TV anime series Ace o Nerae! in 1973, and including western favourites Ninja...
2010
- Animation Grand Award: ColorfulColorful (film)is a 2010 Japanese animated feature film directed by Keiichi Hara. It is based on the novel of the same name written by Eto Mori, produced by Sunrise and animated by the animation studio Ascension.-Plot:...
by Keiichi HaraKeiichi Harais a Japanese director of animated films.-Biography:What started Hara on his career as an animation creator was visiting an animation film company as part of his job hunting activities after graduating from Tokyo Designer Gakuin College . He recklessly left the tour, an act normally forbidden for...