Jury Members

Born in Marseille, France, in 1964. While carrying out speculative research into contemporary art, he also conducts installations and concerts in both indoor and outdoor spaces pursuing the balance, independence, and interpenetration of disparate elements.

Born in Saga Prefecture in 1966. After graduating from the Faculty of Image Design at Kyushu Institute of Design (presently Kyushu University School of Design), he worked at a consulting firm. Later, he founded PetWORKs Co., Ltd. He has served as a professor in the Department of Intermedia Art in the Faculty of Fine Art at Tokyo University of the Arts since 2010. His works are often functional devices and include communication tools such as Inter Dis-Communication Machine and PostPet as well as AirBoard, a skateboard fitted with a jet engine, and OpenSky, a project to build a real-life model of the Möwe aircraft from a Japanese animated film.

Born in 1971. He is a life science researcher and formative artist. While conducting research into “the mechanism by which life spontaneously creates rhythm and form” using photosynthetic bacteria, he has also undertaken three-dimensional works using abstract paper cutouts as well as art using living matter such as organisms and cells (bio media art). He is interested in diverse modes of representing and describing “life” such as scientific perspectives on life and how they play into cultural and everyday perspectives, along with representations of life in the arts, especially the innate resonance between referring to, experiencing, and creating life and referring to, experiencing, and creating art. He is the director of the biological/bio media art platform metaPhorest and a professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University.

Born in Chiba Prefecture in 1976. She joined the staff of YCAM in April 2008. Since then, she has produced numerous YCAM original performances including the dance piece “Holistic Strata” by dancer UMEDA Hiroaki (2011), the tour performance “hey you, ask the animals” by contact Gonzo and YCAM (2013), and the Noh and Kyogen collaborative performance “LIFE—WELL” by actor NOMURA Mansai, composer SAKAMOTO Ryuichi, and artist TAKATANI Shiro (2013). In addition, she has directed research and development projects pursuing new relationships between technology and the body such as “Reactor for Awareness in Motion” (2010-).

Born in Tokyo. TASAKA’s main projects include Eizo o meguru boken vol. 5 Kiroku wa kanou ka (Quest for Vision Vol.5 – Spelling Dystopia) (2012-13), Takatani Shiro akarui heya (Shiro Takatani: La Chambre Claire) (2013-14), Apichatpong Weerasethakul boreitachi (Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Ghosts in the Darkness) (2016-17), the Ekusupandeddo shinema saiko (Japanese Expanded Cinema Revisited) exhibit (2017), and the Second to 12th Yebisu International Festivals for Art & Alternative Visions (2009-20).

Born in the city of Obihiro in Hokkaido in 1979. She graduated from the design department of Meisei University in 2002 and completed a master’s degree program in ceramic, glass, and metal work at Tama Art University in 2004, later joining Dentsu Inc. in that same year. While working as an art director at Dentsu’s Communication Design Center, she is also an artist whose works have been shown at art museums in Japan and abroad. She has received numerous awards including the Grand Prize at the “Hitotsubo” Exhibition and the Award for Excellence at the Exhibition of the Okamoto Taro Memorial Award for Contemporary Art.

Artist and designer. HASEGAWA produced many works putting emphasis on subjects relating to technology and people with employing techniques such as bio art, speculative design and design fiction. After graduating from Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences, She obtained degree of MA in 2012 from Royal College of Art in Britain; worked as a researcher at the MIT Media Lab from 2014 to fall of 2016; took degree of MS in 2016. She has served as a project researcher at the University of Tokyo from April 2017 to March 2020. She won Excellence Award at Art Division in 19th Japan Media Arts Festival for her work titled (Im)possible Baby, Case 01: Asako & Moriga. She hold exhibitions within and outside Japan including at Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, Mori Art Museum, Design Museum Holon in Israel, Triennale Milano, and Ars Electronica. She published a design education book Revolutionary20XX [BNN, Inc., 2020].

Joined Hakuhodo Inc. in 1993 after graduating from Osaka University, working for its production bureau as a copywriter. After leaving Hakuhodo in 2006, he founded POOL Inc., a company providing concept development, product development, commercial facility development, clothing design, and IT creation. He is also involved in creative direction, copywriting, web and interactive communication development, and urban and facility development. He has received awards from numerous organizations including the Clio Awards, Art Directors Club of New York, The One Show, Tokyo Copywriters Club, and ACC Tokyo Creativity Awards. He is a member of the Tokyo Copywriters Club jury, the Senden Kaigi Award jury, and the ENGINE 01 Cultural Strategy Council.

Writer, story critic, and author of original manga. His writing on video games includes Bokutachi no ge-mu shi (A People’s History of Video Games) [Star Seas Company], Bungaku to shite no Dragon Quest (Dragon Quest as Literature) [Core Magazine], and Game zasshi guidebook (Guidebook to Video Game Magazines) [Sansai Books]. He also authored Junendai bunkaron (Culturology of the 2010s) [Star Seas Company], Bungaku no yomikata (How to Read Literature) [Star Seas Company], AKB shoho to ha nan datta noka (What Was AKB’s Way of Doing Business?) [Taiyohtosho], Kyara no shikoho (Ways of Thinking About Characters) [Seidosha], Meitantei Konan to Heisei (Detective Conan (Case Closed) and the Heisei Period) [Core Magazine], and more. He is the author of the original manga qtμt [LINE COMICS, drawings by FUMI Fumiko].

Born in Kanagawa Prefecture, 1966. TOKITA began creating games using pixel art during the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) era as a part-timer in theatrical activities. He worked as a planner and director, and is currently engaged in production work. TOKITA’s important work includes Final Fantasy IV, Live A Live, Chrono Trigger, the Hanjuku eiyu (Hanjuku Hero) series, Parasite Eve, and Nanashi no Geeme (Nameless Game). He is currently a producer in the Second Product Development Division, Division 6 of SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD., and a director at Tokyo RPG Factory Co., Ltd. TOKITA is also involved in teaching the next generation as a member of the Human Resources Development Committee of the Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association.

Anime critic born in 1968. He became a freelance writer after working as a newspaper reporter and weekly magazine editor and writes frequently for outlets such as web media and anime magazines.
He has authored books including “Anime and War” (Nippon Hyoron Sha Co., Ltd.), “13 Professionals Discuss Their Voice-Acting Careers” (Kawade Shobo Shinsha), and “Why We Watch Anime” (Film Art Inc.). He is also an adjunct instructor at Tokyo Polytechnic University.

Began pursuing research activities focused on global animation after graduating from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Tokyo. In addition to writing animation-related articles for animation and film journals, he has also served as an adjunct instructor of the history of animation at Tokyo Zokei University since the 2001 academic year. His major written works include “Euro Animation” (Film Art Inc.; coeditor), “Best 150 World and Japanese Animation Films Selected by Professionals” (Fusion Product; supervising editor), and “The World of Italian Animation” (PetitGlam Publishing; content contributor).

MIZUSAKI specializes in a wide range of preprocessing work including planning, directing, and designing, and works mainly on music videos, the opening sequences of video games and anime, and feature-length films. His recent activities include directing the main episode of SOUND & FURY, the visual album of Grammy-winning artist Sturgill SIMPSON; inventing a media style for switching smartphone images between portrait and landscape view to add a layer of animation to the music video for Tokyo Jihen’s single 3min; and other efforts to continually expand the possibilities of video. His motto is “Compromise is death.” His directorial works include the feature-length film Batman Ninja and the music video Togemeku Spica on NHK’s Minna no Uta.

Born in Tokyo, 1978. He studied video at Image Forum and graduated from Tokyo Zokei University. His graduation work entitled Consultation Room won First Prize in the Campus Genius Contest, earned a Jury Selection at the 9th Japan Media Arts Festival, and was screened during the Directors’ Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival and at many other international film festivals. In 2009, his animated short film HAND SOAP earned many awards—including the Grand Prix at the Holland Animation Film Festival, the Prize of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, and a Special Prize at the Hiroshima International Animation Festival—and was also a Jury Selection at the 13th Japan Media Arts Festival. He is a full-time lecturer at Image Forum and representative director of CALF Co., Ltd.

SUGAWA completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Film and Television Studies at the Graduate School of the University of Warwick in the UK. Her focus of study was animation, 2.5D theater and other elements of popular culture theory, as well as audience and fan research. She is the chair of the Japan Society for Animation Studies. Her research focuses on audiences and representations of young girls in television animation in terms of gender. Recently, she has been engaged in researching female fans in 2.5D culture. Author of Shojo to maho: Garu hiro wa ikani juyo saretanoka (Girls and Magic: How have girl heroes been accepted?) (NTT Publishing, 2013), she received the 2014 Japan Society for Animation Studies Award. Co-author of works such as Japanese Animation: East Asian Perspectives (co-authored) (University Press of Mississippi, 2013), Teaching Japanese Popular Culture (co-authored) (AAS, 2016), Shōjo Across Media (co-authored) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and Women’s Manga in Asia and Beyond (co-authored) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Co-editor of works such as Anime kenkyu nyumon: Oyohen (Introduction to Animation Studies: Practical Version) (Gendai Shokan, 2018) and Animeshon bunka 55 no kiwado (55 Keywords of Animation Culture) (Minerva Shobo, 2019).

Specializes in sociology, cultural anthropology, cultural studies, and gender studies. She came to Japan in 1997 as a Japanese-government-sponsored MEXT Scholarship student and entered the Osaka University Graduate School of Human Sciences in 1999. She became a researcher at the 21st Century Center of Excellence Program in 2002 and an assistant professor in the Faculty of Manga at Kyoto Seika University in 2006. In 2007, she completed her Ph.D. She became a researcher at the Kyoto Seika University International Manga Research Center in 2011, a junior associate professor in the Ryukoku University Department of Intercultural Communication in 2014, and an associate professor in the Ryukoku University Faculty of International Studies in 2017.

Born in Akita City, 1954. KURATA studied under CHIBA Tetsuya after graduating from high school. After working as an assistant for five and a half years, he struck out on his own. He won the 4th Shogakukan New Face Comic Award and made his debut with the prize-winning Moeizuru… (Start Sprouting…). KURATA won the 44th Shogakukan Manga Award in 1999 for Aji ichi monme (A Pinch of Seasoning), which he’d begun drawing in 1984. His Aji ichi monme series is currently ongoing. KURATA began teaching at Otemae University in 2009. He presently holds workshops in Japan and throughout the world, including China, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Paris, Seattle, Mongolia, and Ukraine. He is a member of Manga Japan, and a director of the Japan Cartoonists Association. He has served as a judge for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan International Manga Award, the Japan Cartoonists Association Manga Award, the Golden Dragon Award in Guangzhou, China, the Malaysian New Face Comic Award, and more.

Began submitting to girls’ manga magazines as a junior high school student and made her debut in the Shueisha girls’ manga magazine Bouquet in her first year of senior high school. In 2012, she won the New Face Award in the Manga Division of the 16th Japan Media Arts Festival for Kori no Te Siberia Yokuryuki (Frozen Hands: Tales of a Siberian Prison Camp Survivor), a manga based on her father’s experience in a Siberian internment camp. In 2015, she won the Grand Prize at the 44th Annual Japan Cartoonists Association Awards for Kori no Te Siberia Yokuryuki and Atokata no Machi (City of Traces), a manga based on her mother’s wartime experiences. In 2018, her manga Sanju Mariko (Mariko at 80) serialized in the Kodansha magazine BE LOVE won Best General Manga at the 42nd Annual Kodansha Manga Awards.

Born in Iwate Prefecture in 1961. He is a Doctor of Medicine who completed his Ph.D. in medicine at the University of Tsukuba. He currently serves as a professor of social psychiatry and mental health in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tsukuba. He specializes in the psychopathology of puberty and adolescence and the treatment of as well as support and education surrounding the hikikomori problem. He has extensive knowledge of manga, film, and general subcultures and has written a wide range of books ranging from paperback pocket editions to full-blown art and literary criticism.
His collaboration with contemporary artist KAIHATSU Yoshiaki, titled “Otaku Room,” was featured as part of the “OTAKU: persona = space = city” exhibition at the Japan Pavilion in the Venice Biennale: International Architecture Exhibition in 2004. His published works include “A Psychoanalysis of Beautiful Fighting Girls” (Ohta Publishing, 2000), “If the World Were a Saturday Night’s Dream” (Kadokawa Shoten, 2013), winner of the Kadokawa Foundation Art and Science Award, and “Is It Wrong to Be Mentally Ill? A Prescription for a Depressed Society” (coauthored by YONAHA Jun, Shincho Sensho, 2020), winner of the Kobayashi Hideo Prize.

Born in the town of Ikeda in the district of Nakagawa in Hokkaido Prefecture, and lives in the city of Sapporo. His real name is TEZUKA Hidehiko. He debuted in 1982 with Hissatsu no tenkosei (Killer Transfer Student), and his most important works include Blazing Transfer Student, Gyakkyo Nine (Nine in Adversity), Moeyo pen (Burn, Pen), Hoero pen (Roar, Pen), Chokyuu! Kido buto den G gundam (Heavyweight Mechanical Militant Legend G Gundam), and Anime tencho (Animation Store Manager). His ongoing serial manga include Aoi Hono (Blue Blaze) and Hero Company. Aoi Hono won an Award in the General category at the 60th Shogakukan Manga Awards, and the Excellence Award in the Manga Division at the 18th Japan Media Arts Festival. He presently serves as the president and representative director of Aibic Co., Ltd.