NAKAJIMA Shinya(Entertainment Division Head Jury)

The establishment of the Entertainment Division opened the way for the entry of "Commercial Videos", which occupies a space at then very opposite end of "art". ShibauraIsland is a CG image, but it still retains an impressive and airy feeling. WAMONO, which was one of the final contestants for the Grand Prize, is a very high quality work, both in character designs and screen construction. It is a merit of Commercial Videos that they tend to be self - contained and complete. The winner of the Grand Prize Flipbook！ is a website, which elicited some discussion as to whether it could truly be considered a work. However, it was agreed that the piece gives us a fresh impression and advanced perception of "the future of the media". A commercial website, Vodafone Design File, has also received recognition this year. In the game category, nintendogs, which introduces a new style of gaming, was awarded a prize; it was the degree to which it made us spontaneously think "cute" that was most impressive, but with regards to games generally, I am anticipating more fresh sensation in the future.

Game, Electronic Play Equipment, Character, Others Critique/ISHIHARA Tsunekazu(Game Producer)

I thought a lot of the applicants should have used their brain a little more this year, or should at least have given more active presentations, as is appropriate for entries to the Japan Media Arts Festival. Most of the products entered by major companies were presented as a series of TV commercials strung together or else the same video clips made for computer game shows. For the individual works, there seemed very little understanding of the theory of presentation; they were mostly very ungenerous in their explanations, assuming that we could understand immediately what we were being shown. It was like torture for the juries. I am not saying that they should spend more money on their presentation videos, only that the artists should explain their work's concept and intention with their own words. This is a simple thing that we would like to ask of future applicants. As for the tendency of the works, although we expected that there would be attempts to utilize the most recently introduced platforms, we found them to be mostly just transplants from existing works. The award-winning works, on the other hand, displayed originality and that was chiefly why they were chosen.

Visual Image Critique/NAKAJIMA Shinya(Director of TV Commercials)

The entries for this category used to be mainly dominated by opening videos for games or VFX for theater movies, but there has been increasing diversification in recent years with "Commercial Videos", "Music Videos" and CG works of individual artists. We take this as proof that "creativity doesn't choose the media"; it doesn't mean that visual images have lost their position, but it does mean that they have different areas, which are becoming increasingly clear, and that have given rise to this pleasant diversity.

Web Work Critique/MIYAZAKI Mitsuhiro(Art Director)

This year, we received a lot of high quality web based applications for the Entertainment Division and the diverse nature of the work required extensive debate during the judgments. As a result of the rapid distribution of broadband internet access, it is now increasingly possible to view visual contents, which used to be very difficult to access, with minimal stress. As a result of this technological progress, many entries no longer limit themselves to the simple presentation of images, but are now able to incorporate interactive elements. There was also an experimental work, which takes existing information as its contents and by using the renewal information on the internet, and all together, it became a form of entertainment. There was more than one tendency among the entries; this has meant that there was a great deal of interesting contents and clever use of the environment created by the internet, which was welcome. If this tendency continues, we can expect some surprising new web work next year.

ISHIHARA Tsunekazu (Game Producer)

Born in 1957. Completed a Master's Program in Art and Design at the University of Tsukuba. Founded Creatures Inc. in 1995 and later produced Pokemon Red and Pokemon Green. In 1998, at the same time as the founding of PokemonCenter (current the Pokemon Company), he became the president. At present, he is in charge of the entire Pokemon brand management such as Pokemon Card Games, TV animation films and feature films adapted to Pokemon software.

SAITO Yutaka (Game Designer)

Born in Tokyo, 1962. Graduated from WasedaUniversity, School of Science and Engineering, majored in architecture. In 1993, released the simulation game Tower for which he received many prizes at home and abroad such as the best Simulation of the Year of Software Publishers Association. In 1998, established VIVARIUM Inc. and is presently the president. In 1999, released the simulation game, Seaman Dreamcast for which he received the Excellence Prize in the Digital Art Interactive Division in the Japan Media Arts Festival, 1999 and other prizes.

SUZUKI Yu (Game Creator)

Born in Iwate, 1958. After graduating from Okayama University of Science, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, entered SEGA Enterprises (now SEGA Corp.). Two years later, introduced the first sensory arcade game, HANG-ON in the world. Has created several popular games such as the 3-D CG fighting game, VIRTUA FIGHTER (1993), a family game, SHENMUE(1999), and the R&D Creative Officer also in charge of Second NE R&D Division for SEGA Corp. at present.

MIYAZAKI Mitsuhiro (Art Director)

Born in Tokyo, 1957. Graduated from TokyoZokeiUniversity, majored in Arts. After that was engaged in the art direction of a fashion magazine and entered AXIS in 1986. Has been involved in CI, art directions of a design magazine AXIS and various projects mainly in graphic design. Now, he works on many multi media designs together with paper media designs.