Yamamura Animation

A sumi-e artwork portrays a landscape inspired by the Seto Inland Sea, accompanied by a violin rendition of the koto composition "Haru no Umi (The Spring Sea)," originally created by Japanese koto artist and musician Miyagi Michio in 1929.

A man spent his life searching for the most concise thing in Tokyo, and at the moment of his death, he pronounced the syllable "da." This piece, created as the initial installment of the "Bungaku Bideo" partnership between modern Japanese literature and animation, features a reading of "Totemo mijikai," an original story by Hideo Furukawa, delivered by Furukawa himself, with animation directed by Koji Yamamura.

A collection of mythical creatures, recorded by an imaginary scholar of monsters from medieval Europe, forms this heartfelt anthology. The beasts' behaviors are depicted using short phrases that suggest motion, including "Taste of Tears" and "Tamed Wildness."

A short animation by Koji Yamamura, created in cooperation with the National Film Board of Canada.

Kipling Jr. stars in a magical animated journey accompanied by his mother, father, and a musical ensemble led by Rog. This distinctive film highlights pioneering animation techniques that give the animated dolls extraordinarily lifelike movements, rendering their actions truly mesmerizing.

The piece was made in 2014 as part of the Digital Spring initiative, a collaboration between the NFB and the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership, and it features a segment from Normand McLaren's 1949 film "Begone Dull Care".

The 13-meter 53-centimeter-long handscroll titled "Tsuru shitae waka kan (Anthology with Cranes)," painted by Sotatsu Tawaraya during the 1600s, offers a distinctive visual story that suggests movement. Yamamura endeavors to decode the significance of this artwork and the creator's purposes, converting it into an avant-garde animated adaptation.

In the morning, a boy rushes out of his apartment with his school bag and enters the building's elevator as he always does. But this day is different; rather than stopping at the ground floor, the elevator continues descending, dropping far below the surface. After an abrupt stop, the elevator doors open, exposing a concealed underground realm. From here, his adventure begins.

Some short pieces of funny animations and penakisticope.

On a beautiful day, Karo and Piyobupt are busy making sandwiches in the kitchen, getting everything ready for a picnic. Eating those sandwiches in a green, grassy field sounds absolutely wonderful, and each bite is so delicious that you would want to eat plenty of them.

More than two centuries ago, the artist Kuwagata Keisai produced 'Ways to Sketch,' a collection of intricately illustrated books depicting humans and animals. While sketching a carp one day, Keisai dozed off and dreamed that he had transformed into the fish. In the dream, the carp swam joyfully until a fisherman eventually caught it.

While rushing home on a rainy afternoon, Karo saw a fish drifting through the air. When he shared this strange sight with Piyobupt, the reaction was laughter. That moment fueled their imagination, and they began picturing flying fish playing in the rain just outside their window.

During a cold winter day, two birds flew above a landscape covered in snow. They spotted a large tree and chose to construct their home there. Through gathering branches, trimming them, and assembling the parts, they succeeded in making a charming small dwelling.

Taking cues from Ish Patel's After Life and Pliny's Natural History, I use clay on a transmitted light stand to sketch and reimagine medieval European creatures.

Raoul the alligator is torn between going to a barber, seeing a dentist, or skipping both entirely because of his toothache and the need for a haircut in "Your Choice!". At the same time, Madillo the armadillo considers whether to take an umbrella. The animated film presents multiple scenarios intended to challenge the Junior Directors' decision-making, spontaneity, and decisiveness. The film's material was created jointly through workshops with those young directors, incorporating their ideas into the finished work.

Enter the magical realm of Kid's Castle, where a little boy's colorful imagination makes his toys come alive. See his room transform in amazing ways, full of playful noises and cheerful voices.

A cannibalized egg, kept as a man's pet, devours a woman at a night bar, or an elderly man who plays the violin. The egg grows larger each day. One night without prey... the poetry of the moon and the skeleton. This film was created using a half-shaped relief puppet technique and photographic backgrounds. The photo was set in Fussa.

A short film directed by Koji Yamamura. In both English and Japanese, words progress from "A" to "Z" (and from "A" to "Nn" in the Japanese syllabary) by taking the last syllable of the previous word. For example: Ant–Take off–F…, Ari–Ririku–Ku…. As the words advance, images metamorphose through a variety of animation techniques, forming a pictorial encyclopedia of animation methods.

A music video by Koji Yamamura.

A parade featuring three managers and four performers. Koji Yamamura presents his new animated project, "Parade" de Satie. Erik Satie composed the ballet music "Parade" in 1916–1917. The Dutch indie jazz group Willem Breuker Kollektief performed this music, and Koji Yamamura directs Erik Satie's "Parade" as a surrealist animated ballet. It is set to arrive in 2016, marking the 150th anniversary of Erik Satie's birth and the 100th anniversary of "Parade".

In this poignant and humorous look at childhood, a young child with a number for a face winds up their own head and carries it under their arm—a representation of their identity. They have fish for eyes, lie down to bump their identity with their forehead, and are silent because a zipper seals their lips shut. When unzipped, another zipper lies beneath. This story examines the distinct world and way of thinking of children, blending elements of sadness and wit.

Set in a reality shown through visuals of tall skyscrapers, black crows, streaming barcodes, uniform office employees, and consumers buried in materialism, this animated film portrays the core of modern city life—characterized by abundance, sameness, and cramped surroundings. By employing diverse methods including manipulated photography, traditional hand-drawn animation, computer-generated 3D models, and elaborate lighting effects, all combined within a multilayered line-art framework, the film creates a distinctive feeling of harmony and compression.

The fates of photographer Eadweard Muybridge and a Japanese mother intersect in a poetic manner within this examination of the unstoppable human longing to freeze time. A co-production between NHK and the National Film Board of Canada.

At a seaside school, the adored principal walks through the hallways, encircled by energetic students. While looking at a childhood drawing of a whale, memories rush back. In the middle of this nostalgia, something on the distant ocean horizon draws their gaze.

North is everywhere, yet solitary. This encompasses all of North and serves as a record of the people encountered within these Norths. However, memory is fragmented and fails to grasp the true point, leading to doubts that all efforts amounted to nothing. Existence is only occasionally recognized through the dull pain that shifts shape bit by bit. According to Yamamura Kouji, the basis for the animated film "Dozens of Norths" is a series of cover illustrations and short texts created across 32 issues of the monthly literary magazine "Bungaku-Kai" (Published by Bungeishunju) from April 2012 to December 2014. By fantasizing about a fictional movie, each independent cover was envisioned as a scene from one larger story, with accompanying text written for each illustration. This is a joint production between 'Yamamura Animation' based in Japan and 'Miyu Productions' based in France. The film held its world premiere at the '8th New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival' on November 6, 2021.

After finding a strange book left on a bench, a boy and his younger sister became curious and opened it. Inside, they saw a detailed illustration of the Tower of Bavel, completely built. Peering more closely, they noticed an old man sitting inside the tower, reading a book surrounded by many others. Every time they turned a page, mythical creatures would appear for a moment, then fade away.

An extremely elderly crocodile, who had lived long enough to see the pyramids being constructed, was plagued by rheumatism and could no longer hunt for his own meals. In his desperation, he made the decision to devour his own great-grandson. Despite the respect his millennia of existence should have commanded, his family concluded that he had to be euthanized. Unable to tolerate such disrespect from his kin, the old crocodile bid farewell to the Nile. One day, he encountered an octopus. The octopus treated her new companion to a variety of fish she caught specifically for him. When night fell, he could not restrain himself and ate one of the octopus’s legs. From that point on, the old crocodile began helping himself to one of the octopus’s legs every night.

A miserly man eats cherry seeds, which causes a cherry tree to sprout from his head, leading to a series of troubles. This animated film is a modern retelling of the classic Japanese Rakugo story "Atama-yama," set in present-day Tokyo.

In "Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor," the protagonist, a country doctor consumed by anxiety, sets out on an urgent nighttime journey to attend to a sick child. The trip takes a surreal turn when he is whisked away instantaneously by supernatural horses. Burdened by his own worries and nursing a grudge against the townspeople, the doctor fails to notice a terrible, fatal wound on the patient. When he arrives, the villagers deride him, accusing him of falling short of their impossible demands. Ultimately, he is condemned to an endless return voyage, losing everything meaningful to him.