Description: I want to keep a hamster. But someday, they will die. Could I endure that sadness and pain? No, I probably couldn’t. “Then why not just keep something that is already dead?” Thinking this way, the girl breathes life into various lifeless objects around her. So when will those already dead things die again? This work is an animation depicting the moment when “death” dies once more. By combining simplified, fancy characters with vividly shot live-action footage, the work creates a coexistence of cuteness and grotesquery, enhancing the appeal of each.

It was created using a variety of tools, including Unity, Maya, and UE4.

About the work A man trudges through the same place again and again in a dim wasteland, as if dragging his weary body behind him. His doubles, replicated like afterimages, drift through the air, forming a huge mass that hovers over his head. On the ground, tentacles cling to him as if to hinder his steps. Before long, the man collapses to the ground and sinks into a mental realm. A visual work that depicts modern people, constantly exposed to information and living alongside complex human relationships, in an unfamiliar brilliance. The contours and boundaries of the self, shaped by self-awareness, waver, mutate, and dissolve. It portrays human beings living through this cycle. Directed and produced by the unit of Ryo Kitabatake and Takuma Sasaki, winners of Best of Stash and the Telly Award Gold. Filmed at Dimension Studio in London using the latest volumetric imaging technology, with music by Max Cooper. Max Cooper How many artists over the past decade have, like Max Cooper, reexamined and expanded the relationship between electronic music, visual art, technology, and science? Through collaborations with artists and institutions across disciplines, including the Barbican Centre, Zaha Hadid Architects, and Dolby Atmos, Cooper works with a mixed-media approach to create immersive installations, psychoacoustics, visual art, and electronic music. Max Cooper▶ maxcooper.net/ Dimension Studio Dimension Studio is a London studio that provides innovative volumetric and real-time production for creating next-generation virtual production, digital humans, and XR content. With production studios based in the UK and the US, as well as mobile environments operating around the world, it is committed to bringing the virtual entertainment of the future to life. Dimension Studio▶ dimensionstudio.co/

I just absolutely love the song! The moment I heard it, colorful candies started spinning around in my head. Since it’s “daishikyuu,” I wanted to make something fast-paced, chaotic, and above all super cute, so we had lots of costumes prepared, along with a bike, props, and all kinds of things for the shoot. With the theme of dreams you see while sleeping, I imagined a story like this: you desperately need to wake up, but you can’t get out of the dream world and end up going on a wild rampage! Also, I planned it with an image of a struggle over who has dominion over the dream—whether it’s Kana-chan’s dream or Sakina-chan’s dream, whose dream is it, anyway!? In the end, the domination battle element was removed, and it was shaped into more of a dream world, a cute little space, and that sort of image... When I listen to the song, it gives me the image of the two of them playing sports, and I pictured them wearing baseball uniforms in a gyaru style. I thought it would be absolutely adorable, so we went with it. (Kind of like Ayaya’s “Tropica~l Koi Shite~ru” lol) I also pushed for us to film the bike scene. When you think of speed, you think of a bike. The animation is also gorgeous, and for the very first OP animation, I asked misa to create something based on the idea that it takes place inside a girl’s dream. It’s insanely cute and amazing. The animation for the first chorus is the scene where they blow away the nightmare, and that was created by RaParu-san. I’ve loved RaParu-san for a long time and always hoped we’d get to work together someday... so I was really happy that my wish finally came true. And for the flashy effect animation in the baseball scene, of course it had to be Tetsuya Tatamiya-kun, the reliable go-to for effect animation!

Kitanklub’s 15th anniversary video work. A fake documentary that depicts the history of capsule toys entirely through lies. Three parts in all. A documentary from a program in a fictional country, with every detail fabricated, became a major topic on social media. Part 2: Modern Era https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iyPhcs9REg Part 3: Future Era https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8ckIfMr97s

What I first felt when I listened to the song was a sense of floating in the melody, so I focused on creating visuals of fluffy things drifting freely on the wind, while abstractly depicting the “I” in the lyrics and making the animation move comfortably in sync with the melody. It really felt spot on. And when you’re simply having fun, feeling cute, liking something, or completely absorbed in it, you naturally end up smiling, don’t you? With those feelings in mind, I created this video.

Description: A new science video released on NIMS’s public relations website, “Materials Power,” and on the official NIMS YouTube channel, created to promote the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), a Japanese public research organization. Centered on one of the fundamental principles of science, “energy conversion,” it uses simple and clear visuals to depict how energy such as heat, electricity, and motion is transformed from one form to another.

WOW was responsible for the planning, direction, and production of a permanent installation to be installed in the outdoor plaza, Sunken Square, of The MixC, a massive shopping mall in Shanghai. The installation consists of 20 towers, each approximately 2.3 meters tall, with glass tiled over LED, spanning more than 10 meters in width. It was placed within the existing overflow structure in the plaza so that it would harmonize with the environment. There are two types of presentation, themed around natural phenomena and Shanghai’s nightscape, and the projected images repeatedly reflect and refract through the glass. Like a landscape of nature in constant transformation, the appearance of the work continually changes depending on the surrounding environment and the viewer’s position. Video works are often considered best when they are high-resolution and have a clearly defined beginning and end within a fixed timeline. However, this work was born from the idea that human imagination may possess infinite resolution and an infinite timeline. When you carefully observe the rippling surface of water or the bottom of a river, you seem to see reflected images of the surrounding scenery repeatedly forming and falling apart, creating a mysterious sensation as if you were seeing abstract and representational landscapes over and over again. Based on such an experience, this work expresses, through a visual interpretation, the distinctive scenery created by the properties of light—reflection and refraction.

Created to promote the importance of chilling out. The hectic modern world is portrayed as an endless staircase, and the story follows someone escaping that endless staircase by drinking the relaxation drink CHILL OUT. Produced entirely in full CG, it presents a dystopian world view.

I was in charge of the animation for NHK Minna no Uta’s “Boku no Naka no Guitar Case” (“Me Inside the Guitar Case”). The image that came to mind was of a humble, steadfast me, living each day while carrying worries and anxieties. Turning the various thoughts and realizations that arise in everyday life into music, and that music enriching my life. I wanted to depict that adorable little life. I also felt that this song was not only for those who dream of becoming musicians, but for everyone who is pursuing different kinds of dreams. So I decided to make the animation feel like a collection of pieces from an ordinary, simple life. This time, the protagonist is me, carrying a guitar case, but I think many of you may find your own lives reflected in it as well. I hope your everyday lives will come to feel dear and precious to you. *The video shown is silent due to licensing restrictions.

The viewer themselves enters this virtual world, where they can explore and play. “Hakoniwa,” a pun combining the words for “box” and “garden,” is indeed the perfect environment for the playful creativity that the piece inspires. After your face is 3D scanned, you fall through the sky as a character in this world, quickly adopting the amusing routines of the other citizens, such as dancing around and occasionally dropping your face on the ground. Simple controls allow for interaction with other characters and their environment, as the cycle of life, creation, and destruction keeps the world in a state of constant change. By 3D-scanning the face, the viewer becomes an avatar and can step into the virtual space on the spot. Using a classic game controller to observe and play tricks on oneself, the viewer experiences something different from the real world.