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Miss Hokusai Anime Film Wins at 70th Mainichi Film Awards

The Mainichi Shimbun and Sports Nippon Shimbun newspapers announced the winners for the 70th Annual Mainichi Film Awards on Thursday. Keiichi Hara and Production I.G's Miss Hokusai film won this year's Best Animation Film award.

Additionally, Ryo Orikasa's "Suijun Genten" animated short won the Noburou Oofuji Award, which honors animated works that offer new forms of creative expression. The seven-minute clay-animated short focuses on the postwar poet Yoshirō Ishihara.

Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Kore-eda's live-action film adaptation of Akimi Yoshida's Umimachi Diary manga, also received two awards. Haruka Ayase won the Best Actress award and Masami Nagasawa won the Best Supporting Actress award.

Yōjirō Noda also received the Sponichi Grand Prix Rookie of the Year award for his role in the live-action Toilet no Pieta/Pieta film, which draws inspiration from a concept in Osamu Tezuka's diary.

This year's awards ceremony will be held on February 16 at the Muza Kawasaki Symphony Hall in Kawasaki City.

Mainichi Shimbun launched the Noburou Oofuji Award in 1962, and it is Japan's oldest ongoing animation award. The newspaper then launched the Animation Film Award in 1989.

Previous winners of the Animation Film Award include:

• 2015 - Giovanni's Island
• 2014 - The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
• 2013 - Wolf Children
• 2012 - Hotarubi no Mori e
• 2011 - Colorful
• 2010 - Summer Wars
• 2009 - Sky Crawlers

Previous winners of the Noburou Oofuji Award include:

• 2015 - Onohana's "Yodomi no Sawagi" ("Crazy Little Thing") anime short
• 2014 - Akira Oda's "Umi ni Ochita Tsuki no Hanashi" ("The moon that fell into the sea") anime short
• 2013 - Katsuhiro Otomo's "Combustible" animated short
• 2012 - Isamu Hirabayashi's "663114" anime short
• 2011 - No award given
• 2010 - Hideto Nakata and Sovat Theater's "Denshin-Bashira Elemi no Koi" stop-motion animation film
• 2009 - Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's Ponyo anime film

Miss Hokusai previously won: the Jury Award in the Official Feature Film Competition at the 39th Annecy International Film Festival in June; the Sequences Award for best Asian feature film, the Satoshi Kon Award for best animated feature film, and the Gold Audience Award for best animated feature film at the 19th annual Fantasia International Film Festival in August; the Best Animated Feature Film award at the 48th annual Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival in October; and Best Animated Feature Award at the Asian Pacific Screen Awards in November.

Additionally, Keiichi Hara won Digital Content Expo's Asiagraph 2015 Tsumugi Prize for the film in September. The film has also been nominated for Animation of the Year by the Japan Academy Prize Association.

Source: Anime! Anime!