JLfest 2024 | The 17th Annual Japanese Language Festival
JLfest 2024
eKAMISHIBAI
Picture Storytelling Competition
The competition aims to enhance Japanese language learners' narrative and creativity skills by cultivating their interest in reading and retelling stories as well as their appreciation for the language and the art of storytelling in KAMISHIBAI.
It also encourages the learners to visualise the scenes and the characters of the story they read by illustrating them.
This year, contestants will retell the story 「朝の市場」and make an interesting ending to the story.
RESULT ANNOUNCEMENT
As none of the entries meet the full requirements of the competition and the festival's common rules, we regret that the 1st prize will not be awarded.
2nd Prize Winner:
Team 1
1. Afinda Mutiara Nuzulul Ramadhani
2. Fatimah Rizana Naifah
SMP Progresif Bumi Shalawat, Indonesia
I think this was beautifully illustrated and the storyteller's language was very good. There were a few points where the images did not match the story. The mother was supposed to be next to the main character, but I liked the sense of excitement expressed at going to the market for the first time.
TARA M. MCGOWAN
明るく元気な発表で、絵が分かりやすいです。長音をもう少し練習したらもっと良くなりますね。
ONI HIFUMI
A wonderful family outing story. The illustrations were fabulous! The storyteller tried her best to narrate the story. However, the narration seemed to be a mouthful. Had the story development been much tighter, the sentences much shorter, and the choice of words used more naturally, I would have enjoyed the story more. For example, I find it more natural (at least in Asian societies) to say that parents bring their children along (連れてくる or 連れて行く) to a certain place, rather than invite them（誘う）.
EDWARD LEE
3rd Prize Winner:
Team 3
1. Ghina Imtiyas Ramadhani
2. Calista Rafania Al Mansur
SMP Progresif Bumi Shalawat, Indonesia
This story seemed to use original drawings and was very ambitious in terms of the relationships and feelings in the story. The grandmother and the mother's friend who ran the cake shop was an interesting touch, but I did find it a little hard to follow.
TARA M. MCGOWAN
絵が良くかけていますね。丁寧に発音すると聞きやすくなります。
ONI HIFUMI
The story developed into portraying family ties and human kindness leaving a tingling warmth in my heart. Perhaps she was too far from the microphone as I find it difficult to catch her words from time to time. Luckily her body language compensated for it. The simple illustrations were great but the same character was drawn differently in different scenes. Thus, it caused some confusion.
Overall, the story was overly developed with too many plots leaving me confused as I find it difficult to relate them to the main story. A simple end to the story with only one plot, be it the beggar or the grandmother would have made this a great story!
EDWARD LEE
Merit Prize Winner:
Team 4
1. Luqman Al-Hakim Khairul Anuar
2. Thariq Ziad Zarul Izwan
3. Muhammad Asyraaf Mohd Norazan
4. Aimuni Afiqah Iskandar Zulkarnain
SBP Integrasi Selandar, Malaysia
The storytelling was lively and clearly spoken. The images shifted back and forth between hand-drawn and computer generated, which can work when there is a reason for it in the story. I liked the surprise ending ..
TARA M. MCGOWAN
ゆっくりきれいな発音で話せましたね。絵を工夫すると紙芝居らしくなりますね。
ONI HIFUMI
This is how a good story should end - short with an interesting twist addressing the main issue in the story!
Scanning hand-drawn illustrations and enlarging them might be a good strategy when running out of time, but their low pixel was jarring and distracting. It would have been much better if they were redrawn by hand. And also I would have enjoyed the story more if it had been 'told' to me, rather than 'read' to me.
EDWARD LEE
PANEL OF JUDGES
Edward LEE
President
JAPANESE LANGUAGE SOCIETY OF MALAYSIA
ONI Hifumi
President
INTERNATIONAL JAPANESE CULTURE INSTITUTION,
CAMBODIA
Tara M. McGowan
Co-Director
WORLD KAMISHIBAI FORUM
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COMMENTS FROM THE JUDGES
" I never failed to be pleasantly surprised by my readers' rich visual interpretation of the stories I wrote. 「朝の市場」is one of them. Your illustrations gave me a glimpse of how my main characters appear in your mind and your image of a morning market. Thank you very much for sharing that with me!
The competition requires you to translate the story into visuals and retell them using KAMISHIBAI! It also involves story writing and video recording skills as you need to craft an interesting end to the story and record your performance on video! Hence, a team is required for this competition. I must say each team managed these tasks very well. My congratulations.
However, allow me to comment on your story writing. You were asked to craft an interesting end to the given story. However, many chose to develop it further. Although it is not wrong, most stories work well in a 3-act Structure, ie the Beginning, the Middle, and the End. The middle act of this story ends with the brother taking the egg and putting it into his mouth. Readers would be very anxious to know what would happen next - to the brother or the egg. Focus on what next would be the story's climax and would end the story well. Unless it is well crafted, a long-winded end will be an anti-climax."
EDWARD LEE
Organizer Note:
At JLfest, workshops were held to support some competitions, including this competition. Workshops like 'KAMISHIBAI Basics (organized in collaboration with World Kamishibai Forum), 'Storytelling thru' Short Movies' (which also touched on story development), and 'Text to Visual Workshop on Illustration'.
"Overall, I thought the students demonstrated an impressive grasp of Japanese language, and they told their stories expressively. Japanese has a lot of onomatopoeic expressions (擬態語、擬音語） that would also bring the images and characters more to life. Since kamishibai is a dramatic visual format, it would also have been fun to see more animation of the cards/images. I hope all the students involved will continue their studies of Japanese and travel to Japan one day to see live kamishibai performances at the kamishibai festivals there. I'm sure they would be inspired by the different animation techniques made possible by the use of a stage. But, within the limitations of the PowerPoint format, I thought the images expressed the ideas of the story beautifully. Well done, everyone!"
Dr TARA M. MCGOWAN
「みなさん、それぞれに絵を考えて、お話も覚えて表情豊かに発表していました。お話ですから、速すぎないほうが聞きやすいと思います。ビデオはよくできていました。」
ONI HIFUMI