NeW Wave: NeW Animation Shorts From Japan

Discover the latest Japanese animation shorts from NeW NeW, a Creator Support Program initiative connecting Japanese animators to the world. With the slogan 'NeW Way, NeW World', dive into these bold stories that promises to offer a NeW way of seeing.

The programme includes the following films

1. Hoichi (Work In Progress) by Hoji Tsuchiya / 4:05 min / Japan / 2025 
Lured by the gifted blind Hochi's skills in playing the biwa (Japanese short-necked wooden lute), spirits began visiting him and he performed for them night after night. Fearing that the ghosts would eventually claim his life, the priest covered his entire body with sacred sutra writings to protect him. Caught between the visible world and the unseen, Hoichi’s heart raged violently.

2. Difference and Repetition and Coffee by Masa Kudo/ 4:45 min / Japan / 2020 
A serene, pencil-drawn animation portraying the repitition and daily scenes of a coffee shop. 

3. One Day by Shohei Ohmae / 3:39 min / Japan / 2022 
In a world filled with uncertainty, life continues as the seasons turn. People move along with these changes, a little lost but also finding small pleasures and joys. 

4. My Organs Lying on the Ground by Shinobu Soejima / 11 min / Japan / 2024 
In a cave, it wakes. Human in shape, but only an empty puppet. As the line between self and other dissolves, it realises the cycle of life and death.

5. happy eyescream by Shiika Okada / 14:59 min / Japan / 2025
Tsumire idolises her older brother. She believes everything he says although she looks down on his girlfriends, except for QT, a conspiracy theorist whom she admires. Troubled by her small eyes since childhood, Tsumire's perspective in life starts to change through her interactions with QT. 

6. IIZUNA FAIR by Sumito Sakakibara / 11:33 min / Japan / 2021
In the midst of a frenzied night, a man finds himself lost in the crevasse of time. Buried under broken promises, he is held at a distance from a place he longs for, while words drift to him from the shore.