Noburô Ôfuji

A film about traveling artists arriving from Mishima and Odawara.

Created by Noburo Ofuji, who had been cartoon making since the 1920s, often with decorative paper cutouts. The character animation looks like it was done 15 years before, but a lot of the elements are highly original; design (those trees!), use of camera focus. Heavily musical in a manner that recalls animation's earliest use of sound. The lesson here is: "If you can't count on your friends, travel alone".

Short film about a princess being kidnapped.

An early color animation which uses the color to help tell the story. Three butterflies save a bird that falls out of it's nest during a rainstorm. The butterflies decide to ask the flowers for cover, but the red rose will only help the red butterfly since they are the same color.

Early Japanese anime. A stop-motion papercraft animation set to a song sung by Kikoku Inoue

A re-edited, feature length compilation of the two parts of Ôfuji's The Great Sage Shakyamuni Buddha - the culmination of Noburô Ôfuji's monochrome silhouette films. After a portentous dream about a white elephant, the ancient Hindu princess Maya gives birth to a prince. Reared in seclusion from the troubles of the world, Prince Siddhartha is troubled by sights of poverty and deprivation when he is 12 years old. He is married to a beautiful wife, but he is unable to bear the thought of others suffering, and leaves the palace in search of an answer. While sitting beneath a tree, he achieves enlightenment. Planned as a nine-reel life of Buddha, but exhibited in Cannes as ‘Part One’ with only 6 reels completed, this late work by Noburô Ôfuji was not completed until after his death. It was only in 1961 that it was finally exhibited as a full 72-minute film (comprising 10 reels).

A black cat sings and dances, animated using cut-outs.

A Japanese equivalent of a Hollywood Screen Song.