Yōji Kuri (久里洋二)
Filed under: People, Animator, Artist, Cartoonist, Director, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, black-and-white ink, Color, Japan, Technicolor, Yōji Kuri,
Full Name:Yōji Kuri
Occupation / Title:Animator, Artist, Cartoonist, Director
Date of birth:09/04/1928
Date of death:24/11/2024
Birthplace:Sabae, Japan
Associated studios:1950s Toei Animation (東映アニメーション株式会社)
1950s Mushi Production (虫プロダクション)
1960s-1980s Kuri’s Laboratory of Experimental Manga (Kuri Jikken Manga Kobo)
Biography
Yōji Kuri is a Japanese animator, painter, and cartoonist. He was one of the most active and internationally prominent independent artists known for his satirical reflection on Japanese society through surrealist and extreme images of violence, death, and sex, “metamorphosis and physiological functions” (Novielli 84-85).
Kuri entered the Bunka Gakuen Art School in Tokyo while working as a cartoonist and painter (Ibid. 48; Small). After graduation in 1956, he worked in established animation studios such as Toei Animation and Mushi Production (Small). In 1958, along with two of his friends, illustrator Yanagihara Ryohei and painter Manabe Hiroshi, Kuri founded the Animation Group of Three to promote and make art movies (Ibid. 48). Two years later, the three artists initiated the Sōgetsu Animation Screening festival (Ibid.). In 1961, Kuri founded his own independent studio, Kuri’s Laboratory of Experimental Manga, to create animated shorts targeting adult audiences (Ibid. 49-50).
Starting in the 1960s, Kuri produced multiple animations that won multiple international awards, including two of his most iconic works, Human Zoo (1961) and Love (1963). The former received the Bronze Medal at the Venice Film Festival in 1962, the Special Jury Prize at the Annecy International Animation Festival in 1962, and the Lion of San Marco Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1963, establishing Kuri’s fame as an independent animator (“Yoji KURI”). The latter, Love, received the Grand Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in Germany and the Golden Dragon at the Krakow Film Festival, Poland, in 1964 (Ibid.). Other Kuri’s works produced during the 1960s include Stamps Fantasy (1961), Locus (1963), Aos (1964), Discovery of Zero (1963), The Man Next Door (1965), The Room (1967), and Two Grilled Fish (1967) (Small; Novielli 49–50).
Kuri received the Asifa Prize at the Annecy International Animation Festival in 1993 for his lifetime contributions to independent Japanese animation, and in 2006, he participated in the Image Forum Tokyo Loop Project with his comic Rolling Excrements (Novielli 85).
Yoji Kuri passed away of natural causes on November 24th, 2024 (Robinson).
References:
Novielli, Maria Roberta. Floating Worlds : A Short History of Japanese Animation. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.
Robinson, Chris. “Yōji Kuri, Pioneering Japanese Indie Animator, Dies at 96.” Cartoon Brew, 18 Dec. 2024, www.cartoonbrew.com/rip/yoji-kuri-pioneering-japanese-indie-animator-dies-at-96-244524.html.
Small, Edward S. “Kuri, Yoji.” International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers, vol. 4, 2000, pp. 487–88.
“Yoji KURI.” ASIFA-JAPAN, asifa.jp/en/member/yoji-kuri.html.
External Links:
Yoji Kuri on Imdb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0475696/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
Jason Douglass, In Search of a “New Wind”: Experimental, Labour Intensive and Intermedial Animation in 1950s and 60s Japan (winner): https://oldjournal.animationstudies.org/jason-douglass-in-search-of-a-new-wind-winner/