Oofuji Noburou was a Japanese film director and animator. One of the most notable auteurs of anime of the first half of the 20th century (one of the industry's most prestigious awards, the
Mainichi Film Awards' Oofuji Noburou Award, is named after him), he worked primarily with cutout and silhouette animation (though also made a number of films in traditional animation, using then-expensive, imported cels, and his earliest work known to have survived is a live-action/animated film) and is known for his employment of
washi, especially the coloured and patterned Edo
chiyogami, in both of these, giving his films a distinctively Japanese appearance.
