This year's Animation Kobe is the fourth one in as many years, and I am delighted to hear that the event is becoming a fixture in the animation industry. This is of course thanks to the unstinting efforts and warm support of a great many people: the members of the Animation Kobe Organizing Committee, headed by Mr. Masaki Hamano, the judges and the numerous animation industry people involved in the event, not to mention all the companies that generously provided assistance in support of the event's aims. Moreover, starting this year we had private-sector participation in the form of related events such as a Fanzine Market and Celluloid Art Exhibition that are expanding the scope of Animation Kobe. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in making this year's event the great success it was.
Animation Kobe is a core project of the Kobe International Multimedia and Entertainment City plan, known as KIMEC, which we are promoting as a leading project in realizing the city's revival after the earthquake of January 1995. Centered around Japan's first annual awards event for commercial animation, and featuring forums such as the one just concluded in this venue, as well as intensive two-day workshops taught by leading professionals in the animation industry, Animation Kobe is growing every year, with this year seeing the introduction of Open Workshops and various related events such as those I mentioned earlier.
Turning to the Animation Kobe Awards, these are being presented on the basis of careful consideration by a Judging Committee comprising the chief editors of leading animation-related magazines and other connoisseurs of the art form, and I am firmly convinced they will go to artists and works whose achievements are worthy of recognition not only in Japan, but all over the world. I greatly look forward to the further achievements of the award recipients, and would like to voice my hope that these awards open the door to their establishing a continuing relationship with the city of Kobe.
We hope they will come back to help us unearth and develop new talents in the animation field, and to provide guidance and cooperation with regard to establishing a concentration of new industries such as digital imaging in this city.
Although Kobe will soon be marking the fifth anniversary of the devastating Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, there are still many areas in which recovery has not been achieved. Meanwhile, however, we have started construction of Kobe Airport and are preparing to meet the challenges of the dawning 21st century.
Through Animation Kobe and various other projects and events, we intend to continue nurturing exciting new forms of world-class culture here in Kobe together with the people of this city, and to keep moving forward actively towards full recovery and revival.
