NHK Minna no Uta, an animated work created in conjunction with the October–November 2023 song “Take a Rest on the Canoe” by Kei Owada and LAGHEADS. Aiming to visually capture the dreamlike feeling of being gently rocked in a canoe in nature through a song that celebrates that comfort, we expressed it by blending hand-drawn animation with water-surface effects created in Houdini.

From singer-songwriter RIQUO’s album “TWIN PIANOS,” a short animation set to the song “The Meaning Of Love.” A singer sings of the meaning of love amid sounds that echo and travel through water. “How many springs have passed since we first met? And there are things known only to the two of us And now I am by your side That feeling I have when I’m singing I know it—this love is true” (excerpt from the lyrics) Like improvising within a jazz piece, this is a visual poem drawn from imagination, valuing feeling over meaning.

(Hyacinth Lake) is the title of this animation series, set in a world with a lake that reflects the colors before dawn. Various anthropomorphized characters appear, and their relationships drift as if in a dream, with the theme of depicting an otherworldly world whose sensation feels pleasantly so. This work, “1. Rainbow in the Gaze,” is the prologue. On the table sits a pot of petunias, resting its cheek on its hand. As a digitalis arm turns the pages of a diary, a playful orchid mantis, choking a little, savors the fallen leaves and pressed flowers that spring out. In a room filled with various presences, beams of gazing light pour onto a girl (eye) spinning her wheels. [Expression Method / Concept] The digitally drawn images are created with an emphasis on the visual interest and texture made possible by extensively layering elements in each frame. By animating those visuals, I want to create an unreal world in which the shifting of light and changes in color act on the viewer’s feelings. The music is also produced independently, moving back and forth in close coordination with the visuals.