Best Japanese short movies

Girl who watches something in glass. Young person who looks into it from the outside to house. Bear that held fishbowl.

Short animated film by Shuhei Nishizawa

While drawing, Rui is surprised by the presence of Epsilon, a mysterious girl with magical powers.

Naoko-san is an alien from the planet Yuri, who is plotting to conquer the Earth by yurifying it. Misuzu is a junior high girl and is always troubled by Naoko-san, who lives on the roof of her house. They hear rumors that a molester is wandering around in the area, so they decide to investigate.

A promotional video for the new Super Smash Bros Wii U and Super Smash Bros 3DS featuring Pit, Link, Dark Pit, and Palutena.

Arichan the Ant finds a violin in a sandbox and keeps it. However, realizing how important it is to its owner, he returns it to her.

A Japanese man mysteriously wakes up inside of his phone and is forced to confront the destruction his addiction to technology has wreaked on his life.

A experimental animated film featuring moving shapes and lines.

The 60-second film features six fierce samurai who rush through a post-futuristic megalopolis using the most unpredictable means of transport (including a kite!) as to make it on time for the last order at their favorite pub.

A psychedelic collage of wartime stock footage and family photos, suggesting an underlying message of peace.

A short animated film by Tadanari Okamoto

A boy competes in various events during the Olympic games. Short film from 1936.

Short animated film from 1947

A short Japanese animation film from 1934.

A commercial aimed at Japanese youths in order to generate an appreciation of their present lives, such that it would be a waste to give up on their futures. Joint campaign by NHK and Advertising Council Japan.

Super Kuma-san is a big stuffed bear that trudges with a drum and drum stick in his hand. While playing the drum and without any expression on his face, Mr. Bear rescued Maa-kun from a bank robber. One day, Maa-kun found Super Kuma-san and a clown entertaining kids by performing for them...

Short animated film by Tadanari Okamoto

Nishika 3D cameras were the inexpensive cousins to the Nimslo 3D cameras made in the mid to late 1980's (the Nimslo cameras used glass lenses, while the Nishika ones used plastic lenses). The cameras used regular 35mm film that captured 4 simultaneous images onto 2 frames of film. These images were printed onto photo stock with a lenticular surface bonded to it which allowed 3D to be seen without glasses, like the old kids story books with the 3D covers. The basic 3D camera kit came with this VHS instructional video that was hosted by Vincent Price. It was one of the last things he did.

Animation by Jixin Zhou. Music by Taishiro Seguchi.

Obāchan is Japanese. She left her native archipelago in 1941 to marry one of her compatriots, 17 years older, settled in Mexico. Through fragments of family films, manga and sequences that she has shot, Nicolasa Ruiz sculpts a complex and delicate memory landscape between the two shores of the Pacific.

Two little creatures discuss possible travel plans to Hong Kong. As they talk to each other, their thoughts are animated above their heads.

Eight woman, one life. Short animation by Sumito Sakakibara. The 9th Japan Media Art Festival Animation Division Grand Prize Winner

A man is continually stalked by a small woman named Kemoko who is utterly in love with him.

Film about a ghost ship. There is no dialogue, just music and a choir.

A boy works hard to please his lord and gain advancement. Short film from 1938.

The short follows the dream of a young boy in which strange whale teleports him to a fantasy land where a happy cat named Pero (modeled after the character in the Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko anime that serves as Toei Animation's mascot) appears. The piece is entirely dialogueless.

The mischievous Chinkoroheibei visits the underwater realm of the fish king where he tries to steal the king's treasure box.

Short animated film by Mitsuyo Seo

Created by Noburo Ofuji, who had been cartoon making since the 1920s, often with decorative paper cutouts. The character animation looks like it was done 15 years before, but a lot of the elements are highly original; design (those trees!), use of camera focus. Heavily musical in a manner that recalls animation's earliest use of sound. The lesson here is: "If you can't count on your friends, travel alone".

Short experimental animation by Mirai Mizue.

Created for Fake Trailer Contest in Japan. The first concept is a rape-revenge-movie written by Jean Rollin and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis.

Short experimental animation by Mirai Mizue.

Unique; one of the only Japanese cartoons that fully employs the physics of US animation (squash & stretch, follow-thru, weight variation, distortion). A silent print of what probably originated as a film with sound.

Monkeys battle polar bears in air combat. Short film from 1942.

Line drawn animation journeying from individual cell through multiplication, growth and formation. The cycle rises and falls twice.

Pikachu and friends visit a town with a huge draw bridge, but problems arise when they come across Oshawatt and Tepig, who have eaten the fruits that Gothita and Darumaka had collected. They head off to collect fruits from the forest across the bridge, but then Meowth appears and tries to steal the fruits. On top of that, the bridge is raised, blocking their passage. What will Pikachu do? The fight for the fruits begins!!

Dreaming of rising up in the world, Chibisuke the little bonze travels to the city, where he becomes a retainer to a Cabinet minister, who takes a liking to Chibisuke who dances for him in his palm. One day, Chibisuke is accompanying a princess to Shimizu when a mountain devil attacks her. Chibisuke makes numerous surprise attacks on the devil before finally overcoming him, and using a horn of plenty left behind by the devil, he ends up a strapping young man.

A short animated film by Tadanaro Okamoto.

Short animated film by Kenjo Tada

Naoyuki Niiya throws in every influence ranging from pre-war kamishibai to Edogawa Rampo and creates a hilariously horrible and exciting tale of an inspector, who gets lost on a mountain.

The dialogue in question takes place between a woman, who appears to be submerged in water, and a man who sits by a tree on sandy soil. The messages the couple sends back and forth to one another take the form of metaphor: a seed, a fish, a thorn, and so on.

The description of Suwami Nogami's minimalistic line drawing piece, Imagination Practice, calls it an unending "thought loop". It depicts an artist sitting in front of a window with a self-portrait, like a miniature mirror image, on the desk in front of him. The window frame and the blue sky filled with moving clouds are in colour, but the figure of the artist is not coloured in. The soundtrack sounds like a skipping record that is punctuated by humourous springing noises (a la Bugs Bunny) as the image 'bounces' in an unending loop from the establishing shot into the "drawing." A philosophical piece, Imagination Practice considers the circular dialogue between an artist and his work.

Short experimental film by Naoyuki Tsuji.

A short film about frogs and a fish trying to eat them all.

A short cross-promoting Monogatari and Okitegami Kyouko no Bibouroku.

A trippy pop-art collage of phallic objects, naked women and American icons, most notably Elvis Presley.

This is the Animal Village within the forest. The Monkey Family with many children, the Bear Family, the Raccoon Family and many other animal families live happily together in this village. One night, a strong northerly wind puts the Monkey Family in panic, and the little boy bear of the Bear Family falls into the river. The Raccoon Family and the Monkey Family members all rush to the river to rescue him.

Norakuro's adventures in the Fierce Dog Brigade continue in this short film from the 1930s.

A short animated film by Tadanari Okamoto

Short animated film by Tadanari Okamoto

A short animated film by Furukawa Taku.

A short animared film by Tanaami Keiichi.

A short puppet animation movie by Tadahito Mochinaga.

Independent animation by Shimamura Tatsuo.

A short puppet animation movie by Tadahito Mochinaga.

Japanese independently-animated short.

A short story about a young ninja.

A short animated film by Furukawa Taku.

Short animated film by Yoji Kuri

In Kei Oyama's grim Consultation Room, a medical diagnosis triggers a wave of traumatic fantasies, portrayed in greyish pencil drawings that waver as if left out for too long in the rain.

Private 2nd Class Norakuro is having the training for recruits, but makes so many mistakes.

"Yoru no Okite" takes us to the sky (or to hell) to accompany the delirium of a man who is assassinated. A different take on a spirit who is adrift after being murdered. This restless spirit takes us on a surreal journey through death, the after life, and back to the land of the living again.

A short animated film by Furukawa Taku.