As has been mentioned, getting rid of the frame of “JAPAN ANIME” in system of commercialism, Japanese
animation tends to become a kind of total visual art. The Book of the Dead (⅏㗙ȃ Shisha no Sho),
KAWAMOTO’s second feature length stop motion puppet animation, after Rennyo and His Mother (㫂བǽDzȃ↡
Rennyo To Sono Haha) in 1981, recently completed. It had its world premiere as a part of a Special Retrospective
Tribute at the 40th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (July 1-9, 2005, Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic) to get
reputation. We can find some possibility of internationalization of animation product that is fairly different from
globalization, which is nothing but another name of Americanization, such as the spread of Disney animations. The
future of these kinds of artistic animation will be promising, if it can keep distance from both Americanization and
narrow-minded economical nationalism.