Taichung City Government devotes to the promotion of movie and television industry and holds Taichung International Animation Festival (TIAF) for consecutive four years. It is the only city film festival with theme of animation. To borrow the experiences of animation development in Japan, deputy mayor Chang, Guang-Yao leads the team to visit the organizer of Tokyo Animation Fair (TAF) today (24). Both parties exchange aiming at the animation industry in Japan and Taiwan and share the animation film festival experiences.

Deputy mayor Mr. Chang visits the Association of Japanese Animation situated in Chiyoda Ku, Tokyo today. The director of TAF, one of indicative animation film festival Takeuchi Koji greets us in person. He introduces the operational model, current conditions and plans of the Association.

According to deputy mayor Mr. Chang, it is hoped to bring more cooperative opportunities to TIAF, continuously promote exchanges between Japan and Taiwan and enhance the energy of animation industry in Taichung through this exchange.

The director of TAF Takeuchi Koji indicates although animation industry is prosperous in Japan, many production companies are small to mid enterprises. Therefore, the Association of Japanese Animations integrates the resources and organizes TAF to promote remarkable domestic and foreign works, provide more extensive platform for young filmmakers as well as art exchange among people.

According to director Takeuchi Koji, TAF would appraise the works from uniqueness, originality, popularity and technology such four perspectives and focus on the past, present and future of Japanese animation industry. The Association invites international scholars from all countries of Asia, Europe, and America to serve as judges. According to the investigation results, the works winning TAF may not only increase the visibility, but also mostly may earn the opportunity to run public in Japan.

He also says that the “On Happiness Road” assisted by Information Bureau of City Government is the first long animation from Taiwan participating TAF competition and won the Best Film in TAF at first participation. He believes that the animation exchanges between Japan and Taiwan will be getting closer.

According to the Information Bureau, TIAF has been held for four sessions, which is the city film festival taking theme of animation. The great film festival for 6 days from October 11 to October 16 was ended successfully a few days ago.

Information Bureau explained that there were short films from 92 countries and total 2006 films signed up for the competition. The number of works was historical high, 241 domestic and foreign long and short films were selected and in a run 72 plays at Kbro Cinema, Showtime Cinema alternatively with audiences reaching 9000 persons.

Information Bureau explained that there were more than 50 domestic and foreign animation producers came to Taichung meeting and sharing creation experiences with audiences. Among them, the director Hiroyasu Ishida, Kitarō Kōsaka, producer Masahiro Saitoh, Yuta Hori all interacted with audiences and animation workers on site, sharing their thoughts of creation to promote the exchange of animation industry and consumer market between Japan and Taiwan. came to the scene

The Association of Japanese Animation is an organization consisting of companies in related with animation production, issuance and promotion. It was established in May 2002 and total 78 companies join (36 official member and 42 quasi members). Most members are small to mid size companies and mostly the companies producing widely loved films such as One Piece made by TOEI, Ghost in the Shell made by PRODUCTION I.G, Cells at Work made by ANIPLEX. There are also large activities organized periodically such as Tokyo International Animation Fair and Asia Pacific International Animation Meeting.