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Ninth season of Yami Shibai.

Two brothers are in the spotlight: one a movie star making a football movie, the other a musician who occasionally goes to school (to cover for his sibling). What will destiny bring them?

Somewhere in the desert lies the Wolf Zirkus: a strange circus where Popee, a clown in a pink rabbit jumpsuit, shares the stage with Kedamono, a purple creature who wears a mask. Together, they juggle the whims of performing, practicing their acts, and poking fun at each other. In a world where anything seems possible, there is no telling what will happen next during this eccentric spectacle. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

In the year 2010, practically one hundred percent of Cat Earth's GDP comes from the megacorporation Catty & Co., which is rapidly spreading across the rest of the galaxy. Here lives Tamala, a beautiful yet foul-mouthed cat, who decides to travel to the planet of her birth, Orion. After an unfortunate crash landing on the planet Q, Tamala meets Michaelangelo, a fellow cat, whom Tamala refers to as "MoiMoi." As Tamala and Michaelangelo explore the planet's capital, Hate City—which is under martial law to separate the feuding cat and dog populations—they pass by graffiti and museum exhibits about the ancient cult of Minerva that speak of something dark and sinister. After Tamala catches the eye of the extremely violent motorcycle-riding Kentauros, she and Michaelangelo flee, but mysteries about Tamala's identity continue to surface. Why did Tamala originally leave Orion, and what exactly is her connection to Catty & Co.? [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Tenth season of Yami Shibai.

A masochistic mobster meets his match in the dark streets of Tokyo. His nemesis, Ichi, is a psychopathic killer with an unrelenting thirst for bloodshed. A horrifying secret burns in his mind, and his hands deal death without mercy. At last, the shrouds of mystery are parted to reveal the origin of the monster. The city will know its greatest fear at the unveiling of Ichi the Killer. (Source: ANN)

The Yomota family is small and typical: father Kinekuni (42), mother Tamiko (38), and son Inumaru (17). One day, a beautiful girl appears at their front door, calling herself "Maroko Yomota," granddaughter of Inumaru who travels back in time with a time machine to visit her ancestors. Even with Tamiko's strong objection, Kinekuni and Inumaru welcome her to stay with them, and the structure of a happy family has begun to collapse. (Source: ANN)

A man enjoys a drink over and over and over again, for eight seconds each time. At first, it seems like every drink is the same. But with every sip, something changes, making things a little more intriguing each time. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

This work "Kikumana" is an animation of a girl called Kikumana who acts like in a stage performance, the role defeated by such an ill circumstance though she tries to find herself. The primal aim is to get the audience feeling a strange atmosphere spread from this work. The image has a pictorial atmosphere and a documentary touch at the same time. Unrealistic phenomena take place there. (Source: AniDB)

After a stingy man eats some cherry seeds, a cherry tree grows on his head and he gets into a lot of trouble.

Eleventh season of Yami Shibai.

The film fuses live action and animation and was screened at Three-Person Animation 2. Musique concrète and electronic sounds made by modulating everyday noises such as flush toilets are interspersed throughout the work. Contrasts between opposites, as encapsulated by the title—between live-action space and animated space, between mundane sounds of daily life and bizarre noises—and the war between the sexes, a signature theme in Youji Kuri's work, are also palpable in the juxtaposition of musique concrète and scat singing. (Source: Collaborative Cataloging Japan, edited)

Twelfth season of Yami Shibai.

"Agitated Screams of Maggots" was directed by Keita Kurosaka and released in 2006 with the single, "Agitated Screams of Maggots", made by Japanese rock band, DIR EN GREY. ASOM has a traditional drawing design with erotic and grotesque aspects. The video had also received some attention from it's art style and was shown at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2007.

In these jokey short films, many of them crudely animated, Kago's sick sense of humor reaches its full heights of absurdity. There's a playful surrealist sensibility to Kago's work, as well as a tendency to revel in the ridiculous, the crude and the disturbing. His work straddles a weird boundary between avant-garde experimentation and low-brow fart jokes—the punchline of one of these films is literally an oozing torrent of shit—although, admittedly, his videos seem to lean a bit more heavily towards the fart jokes than his comics. But hey, who doesn't appreciate a good fart joke once in a while? (Source: Only the Cinema blog)

A lone house stands amidst a barren landscape. Here lives a petite pigtailed girl, unfettered by her loneliness. There is rarely anyone for her to meet and interact with, save for the occasional masked visitors from a place unknown. Her only company is the inanimate objects present around her. They tell tales about themselves, the girl, and the unchanging surroundings they view day in and day out—all the while, she remains oblivious to their sentience. One day, the monotony is broken when the girl meets someone who offers her a choice capable of altering many fates, including her own. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hiroki and Kanata have been together since they were children. One day Hiroki is caught up in an accident while trying to save a little girl. The next thing he knows, he is looking down on his own body. Separated from his body, Kanata, and everything else, he tries to figure out just what is going on. Why is he outside his body which is living on as if nothing has changed, how can he convince Kanata that he is there, and who is the strange girl, Fhalei, who keeps appearing for him? (Source: AniDB)

A test subject is administered daily medication by a nurse in a ward where mysterious medical experiments take place. One day, when the nurse presses the switch of the test subject, it successfully transforms into a chimera. When the test subject continues to hold human desires to take on non-human forms, what spectacle will arise as a result? And what effect will this have on the subject's relationship with the nurse? (Source: Japan Media Arts Festival)

The short film tells the story of a young boy, who as a result of seeing a dog's corpse, becomes interested in the bodies of living things and starts to develop phobias. Before long all manner of things begin to appear grotesque to him. (Source: Wochi Kochi)

One of the must-see gems making its premiere at our festival, Midori-Ko is adored Japanese animator Kurosaka Keita's whimsically nightmarish vision of 21st-century Tokyo on the brink of apocalypse. Ten years in the making and entirely, single-handedly rendered in colored pencil, Kurosaka's fantastical labor of love is a marvel to behold. Emerging from the staggering detail and craft flooding every frame is the story of a young woman who sets out to engineer a dream-food that can put an end to the world's famine. Synthesizing Frederic Back's subtle, haptic textures with Bill Plympton's frenetic mutations and David Lynch's haunting wormholes, Kurosaka’s work still retains its own singular, luminous potency. (Source: Los Angeles Animation Festival summary)

Thirteenth season of Yami Shibai.

A music video from Yoshiura Yasuhiro, done in year 2000. Music is done by Shibata Yuki.

Animation veteran and Studio 4°C collaborator Koji Morimoto teamed up with techo artist Ken Ishii for this AMV. "EXTRA" is a random cross talk about computer, music, images, and Internet by two authors working on their first collaboration in techno music and animation. This short animation which is stored on CD-ROM and immediately shakes the viewer with question as to what the word of the title, "EXTRA," means. (Source: AniDB)

Ishihara Toru is an everyday guy with an on-and-off girlfriend and a position working for a train buff. Things become complicated when a ghostly vehicle dubbed the X Train begins to ride the rails, destroying everything in its path. Somehow, it seems that Toru is connected with the X Train by a strange power, which draws the attention of some very dangerous and power hungry people who would wield it for their own... (Source: ANN)