This year's Tokyo International Film Festival has already brought an assortment of sound bites, from John Lasseter's praise for Miyazaki, to Takeshi Kitano's issues with the Japanese film industry.

Director Hideaki Anno had some words about the state of the Japanese entertainment industry as well, at an event honoring his work.

Said Anno, "the Japanese animation industry has hit a dead end—it will be tough to escape unless we can make animation without commercial considerations... It may even be too late."

Anno's answer to this is Animator Expo, a project spearheaded by Studio Khara and media company Dwango that aims to showcase up-and-coming animators and other artistic minds.

Incidentally, Anno is not the first director this year to voice unhappiness with the current direction of Japan's animation industry. Just last month, Under the Dog producer and Creative Intelligence Arts fouder Hiroaki Yura hopped on Reddit's "Ask Me Anything" to concerns as well.

Source: Variety; image from Asahi Shimbum