At this point if one spends enough time poking around on MyAnimeList—not that one necessarily should—they eventually reach the pit of shame where the very few works with scores under 3 waste away in obscurity. Almost all are a few minutes in length, and some are actually very well regarded in experimental anime circles, most notably the nonsensical line-art works from Kuri Yoji and Wada Makoto. But one that never fails to come up eventually, and one that fully deserves its place, is Oyama Kei's Nami, a choppy film involving sardines and a naked woman. It barely counts as animation, with the only line dividing it from live action is the discontinuity of the frames. It certainly exemplifies a common image of surrealism and abstract film, which is being shocking and devoid of any meaning for the sake of being shocking and devoid of any meaning. I have very few points to give for something that's physically revolting with little artistic statement behind it.
Unsurprisingly, he was part of the Tokyo Loop omnibus, and his cold Yuki-chan is both right at home allongside other directors like Wada Atsushi and Yamamura Koji, and right at home alongside his other three major shorts, Hand Soap, The Thaw, and his graduation thesis Consultation Room. What we find in common between all four is the color white, pervasive and cold. It's not the white that stands for the plain paper background of Kuri and Wada, but rather a color meant to freeze all movement and happiness in the world on screen. The grey and black which define the objects in the frame are always shifting a little bit, which we see a lot in experimental works to create movement in an otherwise still screen, but the pace is languid, just as frozen. In fact, if there were no movement it would simply feel lifeless; as is it feels like the life on screen is dying a slow and quiet death. Once again, the imagery we get against this is physically revolting, from pimples to rotting skin. His style is intriguing but depressing, and his topics are certainly enough to make want to stay clear. If that's his purpose, then well done.
Outside Nami, there's not a lot of his work that's been watched in the West, even though Oyama is a well-established member of the animation community in Japan. Watching his bleak silent works it's clear that he has a niche, but whether that's worth the accolades they've gotten is a tricky question for those of us outside the film festival circuit. Looking back to old Noburou Prize winning animations like Kuri's Clap Vocalism is enough to get us wondering how that circuit operates, but there's certainly something to be said for people like Oyama creating animation that the rest of us wouldn't even dream of. It's an “experiment” for a reason, even if most of us would consider them better left on the cutting room floor.