National university to set up anime graduate course
(Posted on Thursday, 6 December 2007 by Dragon)
Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music will establish an animation major course at the Graduate School of Film and New Media in Yokohama from April to nurture young artists in the field of animation, which is popular overseas and an influential element of Japanese culture.
According to the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, it will be the first national university to set up a department or course bearing animation or cartoon in its name.
The course will be a two-year master's program, matriculating 16 students annually. It will welcome students from a variety of backgrounds, including students who learned animation at other, private universities and people working in the animation industry. The course aims to give students sufficient knowledge and skills to allow them to produce two or three works in the course's two-year time frame.
Four professionals will serve as full-time instructors, including animation cartoonist Koji Yamamura, who received the grand prize for independent short animation at the Ottawa International Animation Festival 2007 by his "Kafka Inaka Isha" (Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor), clay animation artist Yuichi Ito and film critic Takehito Deguchi.
The university says it will urge students in the course to submit their works to competitions.
University President Ryohei Miyata expressed his enthusiasm at a press conference. "Japanese animation is sweeping the globe. We would like to nurture young people who will be leaders in the industry," he said.
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