One of the features of this year's Entertainment Division entries was that many were entertaining and amusing. Although the experimental pieces that make use of the latest technologies are valuable, it is necessary to utilize general technology in bold ways to satisfy people through entertainment. From such a point of view, this year's award-winning works indicate that we live in an age in which …

I went to see the movie THIS IS IT between the first screening and the final screening sessions. In this posthumous Michael JACKSON film, there are scenes in which Michael was persistently modifying the music arrangement during a rehearsal in order to make it sound closer to what the audience was expecting to hear, rather than what the band wanted to play. I saw the pride of the King of …

I believe that, in the Entertainment Division, awards should be given to works that have combined the potential of each media and entertainment quality in order to stimulate people in some way, and offer them challenge and innovation. Although the game domain certainly displayed a kind of impressive maturity compared to the visual image and web works, which had taken a daring and challenging …

Japan Media Arts Festival may sound rather serious, but in fact, the entries are a veritable parade of unique and fun pieces. We encountered numerous works during the screening sessions, and as a result, were able to see the current trends of the art scene clearly. In that regard, we are fortunate as jury members to have been given such an opportunity. As with last year, few games were selected …

It is, of course, a difficult task to evaluate games within a limited time (and budget), and probably there is no single procedure or criteria that everyone can agree on. What I did for the screening of the games was to try to capture them as games, and not as visual images, and for those that I found interesting, I actually played them myself as much as I could. The fact that the award-winning …