We produced the opening video used for the 2022 VALORANT Champions Tour Challengers Japan Stage 2 – Playoff Finals, the official tournament for the tactical FPS game VALORANT, held at Saitama Super Arena. With Japanese teams achieving success on the world stage and the first offline tournament with a live audience being held, we aimed to create a work that evokes the “dawn” of Japan’s esports scene. In addition, drawing from “time,” an important element within VALORANT, we built anticipation for the start of the event with a countdown timer modeled after the in-game UI. By using footage and audio from past tournaments in chronological order, the piece suggests that time is gradually moving toward the present. As for the sound design, because this was a shooting game filled with intense exchanges and a large-scale offline tournament realized after overcoming the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, we placed greater emphasis than usual on aggressive sounds. Since this was the deciding match to determine Japan’s representative team, we incorporated chords that evoke a sense of Japanese harmony, as well as sounds sampled from instruments of gagaku, traditional Japanese court music.

Major Awards & Selections Award Winner — Asia Digital Art Award FUKUOKA 2025 Award Winner — Mitaka no Mori Animation Festa 2026, 24th Indies Animation Festa Official Selection – In Competition — SPARK ANIMATION 2026 (Canada / Academy Award®-Qualifying Festival) Official Selection – Music Video Panorama — Turku Animated Film Festival 2026 (Finland) Official Selection — Breath of the City and Forest Film Festival 2026 Official Selection – International Short Film Competition — 2nd Tochigi International Film Festival Official Selection – International Competition — Big Cartoon Festival 2026 (Russia) Competition Nominee — Fukuoka Independent Film Festival 2026 Seed of a Star One day, my daughter casually said the words, “Seed of a Star.” Those simple words quietly planted a seed in me. Drawn to their gentle sound and poetic resonance, I began to imagine stars descending into a silent forest and a landscape inhabited by tiny creatures. The story begins as stars softly fall from the night sky into the forest. When they reach the ground, they become tiny seeds, eventually sprouting and blooming into “star flowers.” The small creatures of the forest gather around them, playing music as they quietly watch over the flowers. Through the light and sounds spreading across the nighttime forest and the gentle passage of time, I wanted to create a world that feels both peaceful and warm. I created the film using Blender, a tool I have worked with for many years. The forest, stars, flowers, and tiny creatures reflect my love of nature and are rendered with a simple, handcrafted feel. By carefully shaping the light, shadow, and textures, I sought to create a landscape that seems to drift somewhere between reality and imagination. Rather than synchronizing the music and images precisely, I wanted them to gently accompany and resonate with one another. The music was composed by cokiyu, a musician with whom I have collaborated on previous works and who has also contributed music to Confessions, directed by Tetsuya Nakashima. For this film, her delicate piano melodies are accompanied by her clear, ethereal voice, perfectly complementing the atmosphere of the nighttime forest. The lyrics carry the themes of the story, with each word resonating quietly, almost as if speaking directly to the viewer. Her voice gently deepens the visual world, enriching its sense of light, time, and the poetic universe of Seed of a Star. I hope that Seed of a Star will quietly take root in the hearts of those who watch it, allowing their own imagination and feelings to gently unfold.