On February 12th, a preview for the press of the 2012 (16th) Japan Media Arts Festival Award-winning Works Exhibition, which opens the following day on the 13th, was held at the main venue, the National Art Center, Tokyo.

The exhibition features approximately 120 works, including award-winning works selected from 3,503 entries from Japan and abroad in the four categories of Art, Entertainment, Animation, and Manga, as well as works recommended by the jury and works that have received Special Achievement Awards.

The winners from each category attended the preview and posed for interviews and photographs. We spoke to Daito Manabe of the creative group Rhizomatiks, who worked on the Entertainment Category Grand Prize-winning "Perfume "Global Site Project," about the concept of this work and his thoughts on winning the award. "What's unique about this site is that it makes choreography motion capture data and audio data publicly available, encouraging free derivative works. This has resulted in over 500 derivative works from around the world featuring dancing Hatsune Miku and robots. While the site cannot showcase all of these works, a compilation site by Perfume fans has emerged. I believe this phenomenon is connected to the aims of this project. Rather than creating idols in a top-down manner from a powerful director, we wanted to create a participatory system in which fans can create idols together. We are honored that this process and system have been recognized." Other international award winners in attendance included Mamoru Hosoda, director of "Wolf Children" in the Animation Division, Sayo Yamamoto, director of "LUPIN the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine," the Décosterd brothers in the Art Division, and Benoît Peeters and François Schuiten in the Manga Division. The Japan Media Arts Festival Award-Winning Works Exhibition runs until the 24th.



[Event Information]
2012 [16th] Japan Media Arts Festival Award-winning Works Exhibition
Main Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo (Also held at Tokyo Midtown, Cinemart Roppongi, and Super Deluxe)
Address: 7-22-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Dates: February 13th to 24th, 2013
Hours: 10:00 to 18:00 (until 20:00 on Fridays / last admission 30 minutes before closing)
Closed: February 19th
Admission: Free