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Wolf Children, 'Combustible' Win at 67th Mainichi Film Awards
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The Mainichi Shimbun newspaper has announced its winners for the 67th Annual Mainichi Film Awards. Mamoru Hosoda's Wolf Children anime film and Katsuhiro Ōtomo's animated short "Combustible" were among the winners.
Wolf Children won this year's Animation Film Award. The film's story covers 13 years and begins with a 19-year-old college student named Hana who encounters and falls in "fairy tale-like" love with a "wolf man." After marrying the wolf man, Hana gives birth and raises two wolf children — an older sister named Yuki ("snow") who was born on a snowy day, and a younger brother named Ame ("rain") who was born on a rainy day. When the wolf man suddenly dies, Hana decides to move to a rural town far removed from the city. Funimation plans to release the film theatrically and on home video this year in North America. Hosoda's Summer Wars had won the same award in 2010.
Otomo's "Combustible" short won the Noburou Oofuji Award, which honors animated works that offer new forms of creative expression. 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 story centers around people who put out fires in Japan's historical Edo period. The film, which is a part of the Short Peace anime omnibus project, competed at France's Annecy last year, and it was also screened at the Platform International Animation Festival in Los Angeles in October. That festival also presented Otomo with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The short won the Grand Prize in Animation at the Ministry of Cultural Affairs' Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in December.
The live-action Thermae Romae film won the Tatsuya Film Fan Award in the domestic category. Those who hold T Cards, the membership card of the Tsutaya video rental chain, voted for the winners of this award. Additionally, Sakura Andō won the Best Supporting Actress Award for her performance as Gamuko in Takashi Miike's live-action film adaptation of Ikki Kajiwara's Ai to Makoto (Ai and Makoto) romance manga.
At last year's awards, Hotarubi no Mori e won the Animation Film Award and Isamu Hirabayashi's "663114" anime short won the Noburou Oofuji Award.
This year's awards ceremony was held on February 7 in Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture.
[Via Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web]
