We Are Aliens wins Sitges' Anima't prize, making 30-year-old Kohei Kadowaki the youngest Japanese director to take it
The debut feature from film label NOTHING NEW was named best animated feature in the Anima't section of the 59th Sitges festival, after Cannes, Annecy and an Ottawa grand prize. In Japan it has passed 315 million yen.
Kohei Kadowaki turned 30 on October 14. Days later, his first feature film gave him a record at Sitges, the Catalan festival devoted to fantastic cinema. We Are Aliens (Wareware wa Uchuujin) took the top feature prize in Anima't, the festival's animation section, which makes Kadowaki the youngest Japanese director ever to win it.
The festival
The 59th Sitges ran in Spain from October 8 to 18, 2026. Hugh Welchman, Chelo Loureiro and Mary Yanko made up the Anima't jury, and Joachim Hérissé's The Flesh Dress won the section's short-film prize. Marion Le Corroller's Sanguine took the festival's overall Best Feature Film award. Earlier Japanese winners in the animated feature category include your name. in 2016, Mirai in 2018 and Seven Days War in 2020. Kadowaki appeared on stage at the festival in Spain.
A year on the festival circuit
Sitges is the latest stop on a long run for the film. Its world premiere came in May at Cannes, where the 79th edition's Directors' Fortnight sidebar selected it, and it played in the feature competition at Annecy in June. In September, the 50th edition of the Ottawa animation festival handed it its feature-film grand prize.
The film
The story follows Tsubasa, a reserved boy in the third grade. He and Gyotaro, a classmate the other kids look up to, grow close, until a small incident drives them apart. Ryota Bando voices Tsubasa and Amane Okayama plays Gyotaro. Ten Yamazaki of Sakurazaka46 and Kemuri Matsui of Reiwa Romance are also in the cast. Kadowaki did far more than direct: he planned the project, wrote it, storyboarded it and edited it. Yaffle composed the music, and adieu performs the theme song, "Sasakure." It is the first feature-length animated film from NOTHING NEW, a label founded in 2022, and French studio Miyu Productions co-produced it.
At the Japanese box office
The film opened across Japan on September 25. By October 18, roughly 195,000 people had bought tickets, bringing its gross to around 315 million yen. On October 16 it expanded to 92 theaters nationwide. From October 24, theaters will hand out a limited-run postcard featuring an illustration of the two boys drawn by Kadowaki himself.
