We are happy to announce the dates for Kotatsu 2016! The events will be held on 24th and 25th September at Chapter and 29th October at Aberystwyth Arts Centre.
The festival will be screening lots of Welsh Premiere films. Also our market place will be open to the public for 2 days, with our favourite stalls offering a taste of Japan including manga, toys and authentic food Bento box.
Please note the marketplace will be held only at Chapter.
Festival Raffle will be held again at the end of the event with lots of exciting prizes on offer. From this year raffle will be taken place at both venues. Tickets will be made available nearer the festival.
We hope everyone will come and enjoy the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival 2016.
Short Peace is a compilation film featuring four anime shorts directed and written by four people including Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of cyberpunk classic Akira and Shuhei Morita, director of the TV anime Tokyo Ghoul. Tsukumo, under the title Possessions, and was nominated for Best Animated Short at the 86th Academy Awards in 2014.
Synopsis
The central theme of this film is Japan and there are four stories about Japan at different points in the nation’s history:
Possessions, Shuhei Morita’s award-winning tale of a lone traveller deep in the mountains who disturbs spirits in an abandoned shrine.
Combustible is a story of love, honour and firefighting in Edo directed by Katsuhiro Otomo.
Gambo directed by Hiroaki Ando is about a legendary battle takes place between a mysterious white bear defending the royal family from a monstrous red demon.
A Farewell to Weapons shows a group of soldiers battle robotic tanks in an apocalyptic Tokyo.
A Letter To Momo
Seven years in the making, this is the latest award-winning film from Hiroyuki Okiura and Production I.G a partnership that brought the world the critically acclaimed sci-fi epic Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade.
See what happens right after the events of the successful TV anime Tiger and Bunny in a new and exciting adventure. People new to the series need know nothing about what has happened previously.
Synopsis
Wild Tiger and Barnaby Brooks Jr have their partnership severed by the new owner of Apollon media. Barnaby must work with his newly assigned partner Golden Ryan but the threat facing Sternbild City is so serious that Wild Tiger will be called upon to help.
Watch the debut film of Satoshi Kon, a man who would push the boundaries of anime with ark psychological stories such as Millennium Actress (2001), Paranoia Agent (2004) and Paprika (2006).
Synopsis
A former pop-idol turned actress finds her sense of reality falling apart when a stalker enters her life and the ghost of her former career haunts her.
The Wings of Honneamise was the first commercial project created by legendary anime studio Gainax that has become what many anime fans regard as a classic.
Synopsis
Aimless astronaut candidate Shirotsugh Lhadatt finds himself inspired to reach for the stars after a chance meeting with a young woman but with his nation on the verge of war he finds himself in a race against time to leave the earth.
More details coming soon, so please keep checking our blog and Facebook, and Twitter.
For ticket and booking, please contact Chapter Box office and Aberystwyth Arts Centre Box office.
We are happy to announce the dates for Kotatsu 2015! The events will be held on 26th September at Chapter and 10th October at Aberystwyth Arts Centre.
The festival will be screening lots of Welsh Premiere films. Also our market place will be open to the public with our favourite stalls offering a taste of Japan including manga, toys and authentic food Bento box.
Festival raffle will be held again at the end of the event with lots of exciting prizes on offer. Raffle tickets will be made available nearer the festival.
Please note the marketplace and raffle will be held only at Chapter.
We hope everyone will come and enjoy the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival 2015.
We have a special message from Yasuhiro Yoshiura, the director of “Patema Inverted“. “Patema Inverted (Sakasama no Patema)” appeals to people globally, whatever their language and culture, whether they are devout fans of animation or not.
I very much hope that everyone who visits Kotatsu Japanese Animation Film Festival 2014 thoroughly enjoys the first Welsh showing of this film.
The Kotatsu Japanese Animation Film Festival will launch on June 07th 2014 at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, South Wales. Again this year we will screen a number of impressive films including Colorful, Patema Inverted, Mai Mai Miracle and Evangelion 3.0. There is also the prospect of another title being added soon. Here are the details on the films we will screen at the event.
A dejected soul reaches the train station to death but is informed that he is ‘lucky’ and will have another chance at life. The soul is placed in the body of a 14-year-old boy named Makoto Kobayashi, who has just committed suicide but for a limited time in which the soul must discover why Makoto committed suicide and what the soul’s biggest sin in life was.
Mai Mai Miracle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MES8njjlEE8
Mai Mai Miracle gets a theatrical screening after a highly successful Kickstarter Campaign. Directed by Sunao Katabuchi (assistant director of Kiki’s Delivery Service) and produced by MADHOUSE in 2009, when it was first released it won a slew of awards including Best Animated Film at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montréal along with the Excellence Prize for Feature Length Animation at the 2010 Japan Media Arts Festival.
Synopsis
Shinko, is a third grade elementary school student with a magically active imagination. She spends a lot of her time listening to her grandfather’s history lessons, imagining what her town was like 1,000 years earlier. One day, a sad and sombre girl called Kiiko transfers to Shinko’s school from Tokyo. A strong friendship soon grows between the two girls as Shinko helps Kiiko come out of her shell and deal with her loss – all thanks to their adventures, both imagined and real.
Patema Inverted
Patema Inverted is the latest directorial effort from Yasuhiro Yoshiura, director of Time of Eve and Pale Cocoon OVA. The film was previously shown at the 2013 Scotland Loves Anime Festival, where it won the Audience and Judge awards. It was also nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at 2013’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards. The official synopsis is as follows:
Synopsis
Patema has lived her whole life underground. Following a catastrophic attempt to harness alternative power sources, her community were driven to settle in a dark, cramped network of tunnels below ground. She roams them by torchlight, dreaming of adventures on the surface. Age does not fit in comfortably in school or society as a whole. The world he lives in is known as ‘Aiga’, controlled by the tyrant Izamura’s family for generations. The city at the centre of the kingdom is dominated by a massive ‘Control Tower’ with a vast wasteland lurking on the horizon. Together – the pair are about to be pulled into something much bigger that will turn their worlds on their heads…
Evangelion 3.0
This is the third of Hideaki Anno’s Rebuild of Evangelion and the story takes a darkly psychological turn.
Synopsis
Fourteen years after the third impact, Shinji awakens to a world that is in ruins and former allies turned against him as Nerv has ceased to exist. He does not know what happened. He is now Trapped in a harrowing cycle of death and rebirth, and an ongoing battle against the angels – even as the world spirals down towards what could be a tragic end.
By Your Side
We are also holding a special screening of By Your Side. This film was the collaboration of Tsuneo Goda, the creator of Domo and the singer Sade, created through the project called Zapuni.
Zapuni unites Japanese visual artists with world-renowned musicians to create and dedicate videos to charities that help children affected by the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in Japan with the power of music.
More details coming soon, so please keep checking our blog and Facebook, and Twitter.
For ticket and booking, please contact Chapter Box office.
Kotatsu Festival has been slightly postponed this year but we are now happy to announce the date for the next one. The event will be held on 7th June 2014 at Chapter Arts Centre.
The festival will be screening the very best in Japanese Anime. Also our market place will be open to the public with our favourite stalls offering a taste of Japan including manga, toys and authentic food Bento box.
The raffle will be held at the end of the event with lots of exciting prizes on offer. Raffle tickets will be made available nearer the date.
For any information concerning the event or how you could become a volunteer, please contact us at info@kotatsufestival.com
We hope everyone will come and enjoy the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival 2014 in Cardiff.
Thank you very much for all the people who came to the 3rd Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival, making it another successful event for Kotatsu.
The Japanese Marketplace
We had 5 stalls at this year’s marketplace, one of the highlights was the authentic Japanese Bento boxes by Yakiniku. Toys, anime and manga comics were available from Super Tomato previously known as Otakuzoku.
Arts and crafts were on sale from local artists Twilight Amoeba offering oil paintings, prints and original felt artwork and Niggleberry Treen offered hand crafted wooden objects, including spoons and fun-birds.
Japanese multi-designer Asuka Tanaka from Kodawari-Chaya was also at the marketplace selling her self-published fan illustration book Do-jinshi. She was drawing manga characters for people on request.
Nigelberry Treen
Super Tomato
Kodawari-Chaya
Twilight Amoeba
Yakiniku
Screenings
This year we had 3 Welsh premiere screenings, including:
A screening of the wonderful stop motion animation ‘Komaneko’ directed by Tsuneo Goda, followed by a live Q&A session with the director and Hirokazu Minegishi, stop-motion animator via Skype from Japan.
Komaneko is a stop-motion series of shorts featuring a curious cat, his friends and their adventures. Beautifully animated, with lovable characters, exquisite set pieces and enchanting story lines guaranteed to please all ages.
Tsuneo Goda is also the creator of Domo, internationally famous character and the official mascot of Japan’s NHK television station.
Here is a special message from director Tsuneo Goda.
“The Kotatsu Film Festival is such a lovely name for this festival of animation. Thank you once again for inviting me to participate in the festival. Komaneko is presented using `cat language’. Some parts are also shown in `dog language’. The film should therefore be enjoyed by Japanese and British people, and indeed by people the world over, whatever their language. I would be thrilled and delighted to know that you enjoyed my film.“
Hello everyone, we are happy to announce the date for this year’s Kotatsu Japanese animation festival!
The festival will be held on Saturday 1st December at Chapter Arts Centre. We are hoping to repeat the success of previous year’s festival with a selection of films such as studio Ghibli film.
This year we have more spaces available in the market place. Any shops or artists involved with a Japanese/Anime theme, please contact the festival for details.
Thank you very much for all the people who came to the 2nd Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival; again it was another successful year for us.
The Atrium Reception area
Short Film Screenings at The Atrium
Day 1 of the festival opened at the University of Glamorgan, Atrium in Cardiff with the Japanese Short Animation Film Screenings which sported a packed cinema. The audience enjoyed several short films from up and coming, as well as established, Japanese animators followed by some animations from courses taught at the Atrium itself.
Down in the foyer were a selection of local specialist retailers such as Otakuzoku, who sell retro video games, manga, comic books, and toys, anlongside the comic specialist The Comic Man who both laid out their stands for the whole afternoon prior to the short film screenings..
Queuing for tickets by the Japanese Marketplace
Chapter Arts Centre
Day 2 was held at the Chapter Arts Centre with the feature film screenings including:
Arrietty (the latest animated film by Studio Ghibli)
In keeping with last year’s tradition of showcasing a premiere film, Redline had its Welsh premiere in front of a packed cinema.
The Japanese Marketplace
The Japanese Marketplace
Held in the foyer area again this year, the marketplace really adds to the atmosphere of the entire weekend. Food, snacks, sweets, toys, videogames, anime and manga were available to buy, and the stalls which included Otakuzoku,Yakiniku, and The Comic Man helped create an event fit for celebrating Japanese animation.
Haiku Animation Workshop
The Haiku Animation Workshop
This was a great success with lots of children taking part. Gerald Conn, the director of an award winning animation company Gritty Realism Productions, hosted the workshop which taught children how to animate with sand and cutout card on a lightbox. Each frame was captured using a stills camera mounted on an overhead rostrum.
Initially tasked with creating a Haiku poem, they then set about animating a short piece with their poems being read out as a soundtrack.
The result of their efforts is presented here (see video below), and we think you’ll agree they did a wonderful job considering they had no animation experience at all.
Ever wanted to try your hand at writing Japanese? We invited Yukiko Ayres, a London-based professional Calligrapher, whose workshops allow everyone to try their hand at writing in Japanese using a traditional brush and ink.
Whether it was your own name, or the name of a loved one, Yukiko would show you how to do it, and then supervise while you tried to copy the intricate brush strokes.
Japanese calligraphy obeys strict rules when it comes to the number and order of the brush strokes, even down to the posture held whilst writing.
Bet Davies calling the Raffle Prize Draw
Raffle Prize Draw
This year’s raffle draw took place in the foyer near the cinema entrance with an excited crowd waiting to hear their numbers called. Bet Davis who is Head of Corporate Affairs, Wales Millennium Centre and also a member of Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival Committee hosted the raffle prizes.
There were some great prizes, such as a StopMate Motion Animation Armature by Japanese armature maker Tetsu, animation software Stop Motion Pro HD, anime DVDs, a beautiful kimono, books, dolls, badges, gift vouchers, bento boxes and lots more. It was also nice to see the armature being won by an animation student from the Atrium, a somewhat fitting end to a great weekend.
Plans are under way for this year’s festival, and will be published here as soon as they are finalized. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who came to this year’s festival, we really hope you enjoyed yourselves. Please spread the word to all your friends and family and we hope to see you all again next year for the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival 2012.
