In 1958, as a deadly typhoon approaches, a young boy embarks on a perilous journey to a haunted mountain pool, determined to calm a sorrowful spirit whose grief has cursed the village with devastating floods.

River Returns

"The Albino's Trees", my second feature film, focuses on an animal of rare appearance that is hiding in the deep forest. This animal is believed to be a god of the mountain by the local village people, who are trying to preserve a perspective on nature that they have held since ancient times. On the other hand, the people of the larger neighbouring town have embraced modern life and they see the animal as evidence of contamination that needs to be eradicated. Should we revere and protect that which lies beyond common sense and knowledge, or should we exterminate an unknown which might cause us harm? It is not easy to answer definitively, and in any given period of history, humans find themselves on either side of this divide, fighting and even hating one another in order to protect their positions and their way of life. In this movie, amidst the conflict over the life and death of an animal that is the heart of the drama, I tried to express the importance of thinking about others. This is something that I think we're losing sight of, living in societies full of confrontation, rejection and intolerance caused by differences of culture or ideology. I would be glad if people who watch this movie feel a sense of the profundity and abundance in nature and in human life.

The Albino's Trees

In central Tokyo, a young man, Sosuke, aspires to be a manga artist. His current work is about a battle between a hunter and a Japanese wolf. He can’t draw the extinct wolf well and struggles to develop the story. One winter’s day, Sosuke finds an animal’s skull while digging foundations at a construction site and takes it home. Is it a Japanese wolf’s skull?