Festival and Handicrafts

I personally call the Entertainment Division the "Miscellaneous Division" of the Japan Media Ar ts Festival. These works come from a range of contexts by everyone from individuals to corporations, crisscrossing through this word "entertainment" and forming a valuable place for gathering together works abundant in a service mindset that is trying to make things fun for people in new ways. Many of the entries are operating close to the vogues of the day, offering comparative views of trends every year.As a whole I could sense an increasingly deepening polarization between an "entertainment"-like tendency that is larger in scale, and another tendency moving towards "handicraft "-like creativity rooted in moreindividual contexts and tastes.The former merged more protean technology with narratives that were highly empathetic, demonstrating continued sophistication as well as mobilizing greater audiences. Regardless of whether the medium is a video or website, empathetic and enthusiastic viewers are always pulled into the work, and it feels as if things are moving towards a new kind of festival with value as a single show.On the other hand, in the latter, media expression is more internalized within each individual, showing an ever-increasing diversification. This may be a peculiarity of the division but works stood out where, more than an ambition to "question the work", the motivation was more casual, a case of "I just tried to make this". The works that made the stronger impression were those which guilelessly exhibited unique "merits" fostered in clusters and formed by people with similar interests or attributes, such as the other users existingon an SNS timeline.As a member of the jury, it feels embarrassing only to be able to write about this polarized "Miscellaneous Division" in such a poor style, unnaturally filled with so many uses of "more" and "increasing". And yet this year a rating standard could not be found except for whether the work was a success or failure, and as an individual, it is my hope that you will take an equal interest in the characters of each of the Award-winning Works.