Interest

1st Image of Otomo's 'Hi no Youjin' Short Posted

The official website for France's Annecy, the world's largest animation festival, has posted an image from Katsuhiro Ōtomo's "Hi-no-youjin" or "Combustible" anime short (above). Annecy reavealed on Monday that it will screen the almost 13-minute short between June 4-9.

Otomo created a one-shot manga called "Hi no Yōjin" in the very first issue of the Comic Cue anthology from East Press in December of 1994. (The issue is cover-dated 1995.) The story centers around people who put out fires in Japan's historical Edo period.

The website also posted an image from Syuhei Morita's "Tsukumo" or "Posessions" anime short (below). The Annecy website describes the 14-minute short as follows:

One night in the 18th Century, deep in the mountains, a man loses his way and comes across a small shrine. As he enters, the space transforms into a room of a different world.

Morita previously worked as an animation producer on the Kakurenbo film.

Aside from these two shorts, the festival will also show Shin Hashimoto's "Beluga," Akihito Izuhara's "LI.LI.TA.AL," Mirai Mizue's "Modern No. 2," Florian Piento's French-Japanese production "The People Who Never Stop," and Ayaka Nakata and Yuki Sakitani's "Yonalure: Moment to Moment" in the same Short Films category. The first Blue Exorcist episode will be in the TV series category, while Masaki Okuda, Ryō Ōkawara, and Yutaro Ogawa's Art Path 2011 "Count Down" will be in the Advertising Films category. Several student films round out Japan's roster at the festival.

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[Via Catsuka]