TOKYO, JAPAN – Masahito Kobayashi, Director of dwarf studios, a business unit of TYO Inc. (Head Office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Kazuyoshi Hayakawa; hereafter, “TYO”), has been nominated for the Best Direction – TV/Media category at the 47th Annie Awards for the Netflix Original Series “Rilakkuma and Kaoru”.
Launched in 1972, the Annie Awards, which are organized by the International Animated Film Association, are referred to as “the Academy Awards of the animation world.” The 47th Annie Awards will be held on January 25 next year in UCLA’s Royce Hall, located in Los Angeles, USA, where the winners for each category will be announced.
Masahito Kobayashi was born in 1972, in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. He studied Scenography at Musashino Art University. After graduating, he pursued his studies abroad, at the London College of Communication. He joined TYO Inc. in 2013, then dwarf studios in 2019. Masahito Kobayashi has been active as a director, working on a broad range of content such as TV programming, online videos, and stop-motion animation.
“Rilakkuma and Kaoru”—starring voice actress Mikako Tabe, written by Naoko Ogigami and music by Shigeru Kishida—is the first stop motion animation series to feature the character Rilakkuma, character owned by San-X Co., Ltd. The series is currently available worldwide, exclusively on Netflix. The story follows Kaoru, a somewhat absent-minded thirty-something woman, who is an ordinary office lady who works for a small trading company in the city. She finds herself living with Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma, as well as Kiiroitori, who loves cleaning. This is a colorful tale about the 12 months that Kaoru—who has a minor complex about people telling her she’s too serious—spends with Rilakkuma and company, who lead carefree and lazy lives.
