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| Congratulations to all the award winners! I've heard that 80% of all the animation made for Japanese TV today is exported overseas. When you compare that to the percentage of works by Japanese Nobel Prize winning authors that are read overseas, you realize how important animation is as a Japanese cultural export. We live in an age where someone who never went to Tokyo University himself can become a professor at that august institution by devoting himself to animation studies. So if you want to study animation today, all you have to do is get into Tokyo University! (audience laughs) The most significant thing about the Animation Kobe Awards is that the judges have a very good eye, and select works that ought to be handed down to posterity. Other important aspects are that these awards leave a record of Japanese animation, and that they are presented in anticipation of the recipients' subsequent works. I hope, along with the many animation fans in the audience today, to see this year's award recipients in Kobe again next year. My congratulations once more!
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