The Ōfuji Noburō Award (大藤信郎賞, Ōfuji Noburō shō) is an animation award given at the Mainichi Film Awards. It is named after Japanese animator Noburō Ōfuji.
History
Following the death of pioneering animator Noburō Ōfuji in 1961, Mainichi established a new award in his honour to recognise animation excellence. A specialist in silhouette animation, Ōfuji was one of the earliest Japanese animators to gain international recognition, winning accolades at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival and the 1956 Venice Film Festival. This award was first presented in 1962 for Tale of a Street Corner (ある街角の物語, Aru Machi Kado no Monogatari) by Osamu Tezuka.
With the growth of the animation industry in Japan in the 1980s, the award came to be dominated by big budget studio productions, over the work of the independent animators for whose efforts it was originally established. To address this concern, the Animation Grand Award was established to reward large scale cinematic animation, enabling the Ōfuji award to focus on shorter pieces again. Th Animation Grand Award was first presented in 1989 for Kiki's Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便, Majo no Takkyūbin) by Hayao Miyazaki.
