These two awards are considered broadly as the highest honor in the world in the field of "Science, Peace, Literature" and "Motion Pictures" respectively.
Many Japanese were awarded the Nobel Prize as we entered 21st century. And last year we achieved a great success of having four "Japanese" awarded the prize in the field of science (i.e. Drs. Nanbu, Kobayashi, Masukawa, and Shimomura. Although a question remains on the definition of the "Japanese"-how do we define or categorize them; by "Nationality?" "Blood?" "University they graduated?" or what?...).
As for this year's Academy Award, a Japanese film "Departures" won the foreign language film award and "La Maison En Petit Cubes" won the short film (animated) award. This is fabulous. I am very pleased and happy.
The "Departures" received many other prizes in Japan and was well known throughout the nation. "La Maison En Petit Cubes" is a 12 minutes animation short film and had been highly evaluated internationally.
The "Diamond weekly," a Japanese business magazine, set up a series of "Nobel Prize and Academy Award" and planned to have Koichi Tanaka at Shimadzu Corporation (Ref.), a Nobel Laureate, and Kunio Kato, director of "La Maison En Petit Cubes," at ROBOT join in a dialogue. This is a unique idea. And it so happened, though I don't know why, that they named me to host the event and believe it or not I actually accepted the offer.
I have seen Dr. Koichi Tanaka a number of times before and am well informed about his research achievements but this time I gathered quite a volume of information about the two people, especially Mr. Kato's works, before challenging this task of hosting the dialogue. At the event, I urged them to talk about similarities and differences between each other etc. It was quite an enjoyable time.
Now, how would the outcomes be? I shall introduce it to you once the magazine is released. (The magazine was published. Click here for my report on this.)
Editors, "yoroshiku onegai shimasu (I trust the matter in your good hands)".
