Masaaki Yuasa: An American Cinematheque Retrospective

In celebration of the critically acclaimed new film, INU-OH, the American Cinematheque and GKIDS are proud to co-present this retrospective for one of the most visionary artists in all of animation, Masaaki Yuasa.

Masaaki Yuasa’s life-long interest in drawing led him to work in Japanese television, where he began his career on the popular series CRAYON SHIN-CHAN in the early 1990s. While he has continued to break new ground in episodic TV ever since (as in his Netflix series DEVILMAN CRYBABY in 2018), Yuasa made his big screen debut in 2004 with MIND GAME. With its wildly inventive visual style, this story of a loser who manages to escape the afterlife soon became a cult favorite.

In 2013, Yuasa co-founded the animation studio Science SARU in Tokyo. The studio’s first feature was 2017’s LU OVER THE WALL; based on the filmmaker’s first fully original screenplay, it won the Cristal for Best Feature Film at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. That year also saw the release of THE NIGHT IS SHORT, WALK ON GIRL, which won the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year as well as the Grand Prize for Best Animated Feature at the Ottawa International Animation Festival – a first for a Japanese director. RIDE YOUR WAVE, a love story between a young firefighter and a surfer college student, followed in 2019.

An official selection at both the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals, Yuasa’s new INU-OH focuses on a 14th-century superstar (Avu-chan) whose dance moves take Japan by storm. The latest from one of animation’s singular talents is both a glam-rock ode to the power of music and a forceful statement on artistic freedom.