1955–1977: Early career and House In 1955 Obayashi, at the urging of his father, began procedures to enter medical school and become a physician. However, he abandoned the prospect of a career in medicine in favor of following his artistic interests at
Seijo University. In 1956 he was accepted to the university's liberal arts department, where he began to work with
8 and
16 mm film. Toward the end of his stay at the university Obayashi began working on a series of
short experimental films. Together—with
Takahiko Iimura,
Yoichi Takabayashi, and
Donald Richie—Nobuhiko Obayashi established the Japanese experimental-film group Film Independent, or "Japan Film Andepandan," who were awarded at the 1964 . Along with works by other filmmakers such as
Shuji Terayama and Donald Richie, Obayashi's films would develop the tone of Japanese experimental cinema through the 1960s. In these early experimental films Obayashi employed a number of
avant-garde techniques that he would carry into his later mainstream work. Though these films tended to be of a personal nature, they received public viewership due to distribution by the
Art Theatre Guild. Following his departure from university, Obayashi continued to work on his experimental films. Dentsu, a TV commercial project in Japan looking for new talent, asked members of Film Independents if they would like to direct commercials; Obayashi was the only one from the group to accept the offer, and thus began earning a living as a director in the new field of television advertisements. Obayashi's TV commercials had a visual appeal similar to that of his experimental works. In the 1970s he began a series of Japanese ads featuring well-known western stars such as
Kirk Douglas,
Charles Bronson and
Catherine Deneuve. During the course of his career, Obayashi directed around 3,000 television commercials. He made his feature film
directorial debut with the comedy horror film
House, released in 1977. The film employed a mixture of trick photography and avant-garde techniques to achieve its distinctive, surreal visuals, and has gone on to be considered a
cult classic. It earned Obayashi the
Blue Ribbon Award for Best New Director.
1980s–2010s: Further mainstream success Through the 1980s and onwards Obayashi continued to make feature films and broadened his mainstream appeal. He directed a number of
coming-of-age films such as
I Are You, You Am Me (1982),
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (1983), and
Lonely Heart (1985)—which together form his "Onomichi trilogy", named after the town where he was born—as well as ''
Chizuko's Younger Sister'' (1991). His 1988 film
The Discarnates was entered into the
16th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1998 film
Sada, based on the true story of
Sada Abe, was entered into the
48th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the
FIPRESCI Prize for "its unique combination of innovative style and human observation." In 2016, Obayashi was diagnosed with stage-four terminal
cancer Despite this, he started production on
Hanagatami, a passion project of his which had been over 40 years in the making. The film was released in 2017 and was met with acclaim, winning prizes such as the
Best Film Award at the 72nd
Mainichi Film Awards. It is the third installment in a thematic trilogy of modern anti-war films by Obayashi, along with
Casting Blossoms to the Sky (2012) and
Seven Weeks (2014). He shot and edited his final film, titled
Labyrinth of Cinema, while receiving cancer treatment. ==Death==