A Young Animation Director’s Ongoing Journey: Yuri Kurihara on What Lies Beyond The Hen Lays Its First Egg

We, KYOTO CMEX, consistently profiles individuals and works active across various sectors of Kyoto’s content industry. For this feature, we reached out to Yuri Kurihara, whose animated film The Hen Lays Its First Egg was an awarded entry at the 27th Kyoto International Student Film & Video Festival (KISFVF, 2025), for a follow-up interview.

A year has passed since her recognition at the film festival, during which the director has embarked on new creative endeavors. How has her mindset evolved during this time? In an environment that changes day by day, we spoke in depth with Director Kurihara about her ongoing commitment to the craft of creation.

Before reading

Read the interview from when Director Kurihara’s work was selected: Exclusive Interview with Director Yuri Kurihara on The Hen Lays Its First Egg
Watch The Hen Lays Its First Egg on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m238ZW70Kf0

Two years since the production of The Hen Lays First Egg

Two years have passed since Yuri Kurihara created her animated film, The Hen Lays Its First Egg (affectionately known as Niwahaji in Japanese). Originally produced as her graduation project at Tokyo University of the Arts, the film went on to win an award at the KISFVF in 2025.

In our previous interview, Kurihara said that the film was born out of her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, more than six years after those formative experiences in 2020, how have her feelings toward the work changed?

— It has been a year since the festival and even longer since the film’s production. With the passage of time and the changing environment surrounding the work, has your perspective on The Hen Lays Its First Egg shifted?

Kurihara: At the time, my strongest emotion was a sense of frustration regarding the pandemic, but I feel like I am finally able to move past that. Perhaps by creating the work and confronting that frustration head-on, I was able to find some resolution.

Kurihara: However, because of that, I’ve started to think about other things. I’m beginning to wonder if the conclusion I prepared for the film—that “everything has a meaning”—was truly correct. While finding meaning can be a form of salvation, I want to explore the idea that “we can live even if things don’t have meaning” in my future work.

— Since Niwahaji, you have challenged yourself with various projects. What position do you think this film, which serves as your starting point, will hold for you in the future?

Kurihara: I think it has become a place I should always return to. It represents a lack of compromise in quality, something I poured my best into as a graduation project. It is also filled with the messages I wanted to convey and the kindness I intended to show others after my difficult experiences. When I feel like I might forget those values, or when I start a new project, I look back at it. It reminds me: I worked this hard back then, so I must create something even better now.

Participating in the Shoji event at Kiyomizu-dera Temple

Director Kurihara, center-right, speaking at the Shoji event

KISFVF organizes various events leading up to the main festival every February. In 2026, as part of these efforts, a pre-event titled Shoji (life and death) was held at Kiyomizu-dera Temple. KYOTO CMEX covered the event as a partner.

The Hen Lays Its First Egg deals with themes related to life and death, the very title of the event. Kurihara was invited as a past winner to participate in a screening inside the temple hall and a subsequent talk session.

— This must have been a fascinating experience for you. Could you share your thoughts?

Kurihara: There are very few people who can say they’ve screened their own film in front of the deities at Kiyomizu-dera. It was a rare and incredibly fruitful experience. I realized that while Niwahaji does deal with life and death, I might not have been thinking about it as deeply as I thought. Speaking with Mori-san and Takagi-san gave me a new perspective on my own work. I also received some very probing questions from the audience. It was an interesting experience that forced me to re-examine how I should portray death.

Discussing Cosmic Princess Kaguya! as an animation director and virtual singer fan

Cosmic Princess Kaguya! is a feature-length animated film that has been streaming on Netflix since January 22, 2026. It has garnered explosive popularity, particularly within internet culture. The film features covers and original tracks by famous virtual singers producers, and its unique VR-like worldview and breathtaking visual beauty have captivated audiences.

— As a member of the “virtual singers generation” and an animation director yourself, how did Cosmic Princess Kaguya! look through your eyes?

Kurihara: It was fantastic. Yachiyo’s character design is just too good. Regarding the content, I felt it was a work filled with respect and trust for the viewers. It’s very “easy to watch”. Film projects inevitably reach a wide range of people, and it is incredibly difficult to craft a script and worldview that is clear and accessible to everyone. Of course, I was also stunned by the fact that a two-and-a-half-hour film was entirely with animation. Truly a Netflix-level achievement.

— It certainly fuels our dreams. If you had an infinite budget and staff, what kind of project would you want to pursue?

Kurihara: I’d like to create an immersive work. I’m interested in experiences like the “Sphere” in Las Vegas or “Soarin'” at Tokyo DisneySea, where the visuals are synchronized with physical movement to make you feel as if you’ve entered the screen. I’m wondering if that can be adapted not just as an attraction, but as a cinematic experience. I’m considering this direction for my graduate school project, but since it involves hardware development, the budget is a major hurdle.

Facing film after a leave of absence

New animation: Geikotsugai

After our last interview, Director Kurihara chose to take a leave of absence from graduate school. Stepping away from student life to engage in filmmaking offers a different perspective on things. What has she been focusing on during her time away?

— Since distancing yourself from your status as a student, has your mindset regarding filmmaking changed?

Kurihara: I’m feeling both the difficulty and the joy of having to set my own themes. Without the backup of a university graduation project, I have to handle everything from securing galleries to attracting an audience myself. I belong to the school of thought that a work has no meaning unless it is seen, so while my passion for the work is at 100%, I strive to put 300% of that energy into promotion.

Kurihara drew the illustration of the girl on the right

— We’ve seen you active outside the university. Could you tell us about the exhibition you held last year, Shinkai-Suzumi?

Kurihara: It was a group exhibition I held last summer with Shafura Kafusha, a colleague from the same lab. The theme was the deep sea, and the idea was to help people cool down during a hot summer by looking at deep-sea-themed works. For the exhibition, I created a four-minute animation titled Geikotsugai. It’s a story about a girl living in a town built on whale bones at the bottom of the sea, who takes a step toward confronting and healing her own trauma.

Kurihara: Many people came saying they were fans of Niwahaji. I was happy that people who discovered me through YouTube or my graduation exhibition could see my new work. Since the production period was short, I had some anxieties about whether I met expectations, but it was a great experience that will lead to my next project.

Closing

At Shinkai-Suzumi, visitors were given hand fans

Director Kurihara mentioned that after graduating from graduate school, she is considering finding employment at a general company. However, she isn’t planning to stop creating; rather, she wants to gain social experience as a person of expression. Indeed, to create a massive work like Cosmic Princess Kaguya!, we must involve many stakeholders, and management skills become vital.

The journey for Director Kurihara to bring what she truly wants to create into the world has only just begun. With The Hen Lays Its First Egg as her foundation, we cannot look away as she spreads her creative wings. I have been captivated by the gentle, delicate, and fantastical world she portrays—in Niwahaji, it felt as if one were trapped in time—since our interview last year. We’re very much looking forward to what kind of work will be born from her next event and her graduate school graduation project.

Director Kurihara’s SNS

X: https://x.com/kastanie_works
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kastanie_works/