We Are Aliens won the Anima't Award for best feature-length film at the 59th Sitges Film Festival, following a Grand Prize at Ottawa. The film opened in Japan on September 25 and has been screening on the festival circuit since Cannes.
We Are Aliens began as a debut feature from director Kohei Kadowaki, made with NOTHING NEW and a mostly inexperienced animation team over five years. The film was announced for a September 25 Japanese opening through TOHO NEXT and NOTHING NEW, with international sales handled by CHARADES. Before that release it had already screened at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight and at Annecy, and Kadowaki described a hybrid rotoscoping method developed to capture natural movement.
The marketing built outward from the leads. Mid-summer trailers revealed the cast and the theme song, adieu's "Sasakure," and a late August trailer framed the story around its Heisei era setting. A September trailer and visual shifted attention to the heroine Konatsu, voiced by Sakurazaka46 member Ten Yamasaki. Ryota Bando and Amane Okayama play Tsubasa and Gyotaro as young adults, with Yuto Maki and Tasuku Nakagome voicing the characters as children, and the supporting cast includes Gaku Sano, Reika Ozeki, Arisa Sasaki and Edo Harumi.
The festival run continued after the Japanese opening. The film screened at the Ottawa International Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival and the New Zealand International Film Festival, and was named to the Animation Section of the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival, which runs October 26 to November 4. In October it won the Anima't Award for best feature-length film at the 59th Sitges Film Festival. Kadowaki, who turned 30 on October 14, is the youngest Japanese director to win that award, and the film is the first Japanese title to take it since Yuta Murano's Seven Days War.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the cited Yomimono stories below, each itself sourced, then editorially reviewed. Every fact links the story it came from.
Structured graph also available as JSON at /public/entities/we-are-aliens.
CC BY 4.0.
When a claim about We Are Aliens was confirmed, debunked, or disputed against open-web sources. The record stays even after a claim drops off the facts list.
Kohei Kadowaki and NOTHING NEW's We Are Aliens won the Anima't Award for best feature-length film at the 59th Sitges Film Festival in Catalonia. It is the first Japanese film to take the award since Yuta Murano's Seven Days War six years ago; Makoto Shinkai's your name. won in 2016 and Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai in 2018. Kadowaki, who turned 30 on October 14, is the youngest Japanese director to win it.
The 39th Tokyo International Film Festival will screen Masanao Kawajiri's Cherry and Virgin, Shingo Natsume and Madhouse's ghost - end of night, Atsushi Nishigori's Grotesqqque, and NOTHING NEW and Kohei Kadowaki's We Are Aliens in its Animation Section. The festival runs October 26 to November 4 in the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Marunouchi-Ginza area. A separate Women Directors section includes three anime films.
Director Kohei Kadowaki's feature "We Are Aliens" opens September 25, following Tsubasa, a shy boy, and Akitaro, a class idol, across a 30-year friendship in a rural Heisei-era town. Kadowaki, born in 1996, wrote and directed the film. He says roughly 20 to 30 percent of its episodes come from his own experience, including a first-love episode.
NOTHING NEW released a new trailer and visual for the We Are Aliens anime film on Tuesday, both built around the heroine Konatsu, voiced by Sakurazaka46 member Ten Yamasaki. Ryota Bando and Amane Okayama play Tsubasa and Gyotaro as young adults, with Yuto Maki and Tasuku Nakagome voicing the characters as children. Kohei Kadowaki wrote, directed, storyboarded, and edited the film, which opens in Japan on September 25.
NOTHING NEW began streaming a theme song trailer for its We Are Aliens anime film on Tuesday, featuring adieu's song 'Sasakure' (Split). Director Kohei Kadowaki helmed the video, which previews part of the theme song not previously made public. The film opens in Japan on September 25. It stars Ryota Bando as Tsubasa and Amane Okayama as Gyotaro as young adults, with child actors Yuto Maki and Tasuku Nakagome voicing the younger versions.
NOTHING NEW began streaming a trailer on Thursday for the We Are Aliens anime film. The trailer highlights the Heisei era, the time period when the main characters meet. The film, directed by Kōhei Kadowaki, stars Ryōta Bandō as Tsubasa and Amane Okayama as Gyōtarō as young adults. It opens in Japan on September 25.
The We Are Aliens anime film announced four new cast members on Thursday. Gaku Sano plays Seiya Toda, Reika Ōzeki plays young Seiya, Arisa Sasaki plays Elmo Matsushita, and Edo Harumi plays a calligraphy teacher. The film opens in Japan on September 25.
The official website for the We Are Aliens anime film released a full trailer and visual on Monday, revealing two new cast members and the theme song. Ten Yamasaki and Kemuri Matsui join the cast, and adieu performs the theme song "Sasakure." The film opens in Japan on September 25.
The We Are Aliens anime film will screen at the Ottawa International Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, and New Zealand International Film Festival in 2026. The festivals also announced screenings for Mononoke the Movie: Chapter 3 and the live-action film The Samurai and the Prisoner.
Director Kohei Kadowaki discusses his debut feature 'We Are Aliens,' which premiered at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight and screens at Annecy. The film follows two boys over 20 years and uses a hybrid rotoscoping approach to capture natural movement, developed over five years with a mostly inexperienced animation team.
TOHO NEXT and NOTHING NEW announced that Kōhei Kadowaki's anime film We Are Aliens will open in Japan on September 25. The film, which follows two estranged childhood friends, stars Ryōta Bandō and Amane Okayama as the adult leads. It previously screened at Cannes and Annecy.