Nobuhiro Aihara
Directing
Biography
Nobuhiro Aihara was born in Kanagawa prefecture in 1944, where he studied at the design school. He began his career in television animation in the 1960s and started producing his own independent animation in 1965. His aesthetic is distinctive for his use of flowing lines, highly complex drawings, and his love of psychedelic colours. He was a prolific artist who often produced several animated shorts a year either on his own or in collaboration with his friend and fellow artist the Keiichi Tanaami. Nobuhiro died on April the 30, 2011 and left behind 85 animated works.
Known For
A young boy named Takeshi steals an origami crane from his friend Nobu. To Takeshi's surprise the crane begins talking to him and offers to take him and his friends to an amusement park in space where children from many planets play. While riding an attraction designed to test the children's courage, Akiko is sucked into a black hole, leaving Takeshi and his friends to save her.
Fairground in the Stars
A series of 16 "short stories" created by the creator's group Images Forum.
Tokyo Loop
A compendium of independent Japanese animation, featuring a wide range of experimental techniques from drawn animation to pixilation.
Japanese Independent Animation, Volume 1
An abstract animation with a motif of a dragonfly, and a complex multi-exposure landscape of a field and a woman's naked body overlap.
Dragonfly
No description available.
Shunga
Experimental short by Nobuhiro Aihara.
Hikari
Abstract forms animated in drawings.
Water Ring: Karma 2
An experiment concerning the attempts at creating a ‘moving image’ long before the invention of cinema. A re-experiencing of the history of ‘magic with light’ unfolds through the use of various devices and techniques, including flip-book animation and Muybridge’s photographs in motion zoopraxiscope. (IFFR)
Noise
As with "SPIN", an abstract animation with delicate line drawings. There are single color and color versions. Nakamura Shigenobu is in charge of the music used in the work like the previous one.
MOVING
Quiet images of statues and fire, followed by animation on drawing paper sinking into the ocean.
Wind Erosion
The experimental animated short is a collaborative work between Keiichi Tanaami and Nobuhiro Aihara.
10 Nights' Dreams
Set in a cave imagined as an air-raid shelter, images of the surrounding trees are painted over directly on the film. Vivid colors intermixed with the sound of wartime radio communications and bombing create a harmonious composition of documentary and animation.
Shelter
The scenery of the forest in Ogawa and the city of Kyoto and the abstract animation conceived from there are juxtaposed.
LINE
No description available.
Landscape
A documentary style animation of an apiarist at work in combination with scenes of a seaside village, overlapped with images of a boy trying to escape from fetters.
Honeybee Season Has Passed
Vivid, chromatic animation.
Lotus
The experimental animated short is a collaborative work between Keiichi Tanaami and Nobuhiro Aihara.
Scrap Diary
A tense abstract animation with delicate line drawing. Contemporary musician Nakamura Shigenobu is in charge of the music used in the work.
SPIN
The experimental animated short is a collaborative work between Keiichi Tanaami and Nobuhiro Aihara.
Walking Man
Circles printed on white paper. Animation frenzy as music becomes more erotic/erratic.