News On Japan

Japanese Animation Takes Top Prize at DigiCon6 ASIA

TOKYO - The award ceremony for the international short film contest “DigiCon6 ASIA,” which includes participation from 14 countries and regions across Asia, was held, and a Japanese animation was selected for the Grand Prize.

The Grand Prize went to the work titled Night at the Parking Area by Saki Muramoto (36). The piece portrays a quiet moment where weary travelers find solace in a parking area at midnight.

Muramoto commented, "Though it feels endless at times while creating, receiving this award is incredibly motivating."

DigiCon6, organized by TBS since 2000, aims to discover talented content creators, and this year marks its 26th event.

Asaki Misato, famous for directing the stop-motion felt animation Pui Pui Molcar and creating the contest’s official character, also submitted a work during his student years and received a special jury prize.

Misato said, "By submitting works to festivals and having them judged, creators can receive valuable feedback for future projects. It also provides opportunities for networking with fellow creators, and the fact that professional jurors see the works can even lead to career opportunities."

This year, aside from the Grand Prize, five other works from Japan, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and Iran were recognized out of about 1,400 entries.

Source: TBS

News On Japan
POPULAR NEWS

Two typhoons moving across the Pacific southeast of Japan are expected to remain well away from the Japanese mainland, but powerful swells could bring rough seas to a wide stretch of the country's Pacific coastline throughout the three-day holiday weekend, according to forecasts updated at 3 a.m. on October 10.

A series of cyberattacks has disrupted business operations and exposed millions of customer records across Japan, with a ransomware attack on a cloud service provider affecting 495 companies and local governments nationwide, while convenience store operator Lawson has disclosed a separate breach involving more than 2.15 million personal information records.

Japan's first 360-degree projection mapping show will open at the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts on October 10, transforming the historic building into an immersive world of light, music, and seasonal imagery, with organizers hoping the attraction will also help stimulate the city's nighttime economy.

Tokyo University of Science professor emeritus Kenzo Soai has been awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with French chemist Henri B. Kagan for discoveries that transformed scientists' understanding of how chemical reactions can favor one of two mirror-image forms of a molecule.

The US military suspended activities by all forces stationed in Okinawa for 48 hours from noon on October 7, an unusual measure following the arrest of a US Marine in connection with a robbery and murder case that has renewed scrutiny of crimes involving American service members.

MEDIA CHANNELS
         

MORE Entertainment NEWS

Entertainer Tamori and two other prominent figures were named Honorary Citizens of Tokyo on October 1 in recognition of their contributions to the capital's development and the lives of its residents, with an award ceremony held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government headquarters on Tokyo Citizens' Day.

Japanese director Tomoki Misato's stop-motion animation Candy Caries has won the Grand Prize in the children's category for ages 7 and up at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in Canada, one of the world's three major animation festivals.

Makoto Usui, the composer of "Shiawase Hakoberu Yoni," a song written in the aftermath of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that has become a symbol of hope for disaster survivors across Japan and overseas, died in July at the age of 65, leaving behind a musical legacy that his former students are determined to carry forward.

While millions of people across Japan enjoyed this year's five-day Silver Week holiday, workers at Kyoto's Toei Uzumasa Eigamura film studio theme park and a 24-hour smartphone repair service faced packed schedules, with some working late into the night to keep holidaymakers entertained and respond to emergencies.

Japan's oldest record company is turning to artificial intelligence to reshape one of the country's most traditional musical genres, unveiling an AI-generated enka singer as part of a new label combining the technology with the distinctive vocal style of Japanese ballads.

Tsunaki Mihara, a guitarist who rose to fame in the 1960s with the Group Sounds band Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets and remained active in music for decades, died of kidney cancer at a Tokyo hospital at 9:02 a.m. on September 11. He was 80.

Switching from an iPhone to an Android device, or playing on both at different times, turns something as simple as buying PokéCoins into a surprisingly confusing errand.

In this video, we cover the performances taking place this month at the Kabuki-za theatre in Tokyo!