August 28, 2025
Japanese professor inspires creative learning
In Spring 2025, JCCC hosted the 1st Annual Japanese Shorts Festival (JSF). The event was brought to life by Japanese professor Yosei Sugawara, who has taught at JCCC for three years and has been teaching Japanese for over 30 years.
“Out of all the places I've taught, I've most enjoyed teaching at community colleges,” he said. “I enjoy the diversity of students—their ages, ethnicities, life experiences, and motivations. The students at JCCC are wonderful people. It's a great school.”
Learning a language the creative way
Learning Japanese can be an exciting challenge to native English speakers. According to Sugawara, it’s a very different experience from learning a romance language.
“To be literate in Japanese, you have to learn three new ‘alphabets’ and a number of kanji,” he said. “It takes courage, determination, and a lot of interest in Japan for a student to put in that kind of work. I respect and admire that.”
Sugawara emphasizes that, while grammar and vocabulary skills are important factors in learning a language, successful communication also includes nonverbal components. This philosophy sparked an idea he began to cultivate before arriving at JCCC.
Several years ago, he put together a language contest for students. Rather than determining who was “best” at syntax and semantics, Sugawara wanted it to be an event that encouraged students to have fun with the language.
When COVID-19 took the contest online, Sugawara had his students submit their speeches on video, encouraging them to add whatever visuals and audio they wanted.
“What that did was completely erase stress and stage fright,” he said. “The student presentations just blossomed.”
When Sugawara came to JCCC, he decided to take this contest to the next step.
“I encouraged the students to work in teams, and asked them to exercise their creativity by writing, acting, editing, and adding their own music and visuals,” he said. “This way they can see that communication is more than conjugating verbs, memorizing vocabulary, and taking quizzes.”
What resulted was the 1st Annual Japanese Shorts Festival.
Lights, camera, action!
With virtually no limits on topics or forms, 14 teams, with students from JCCC, the Kansas City Art Institute, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University, put their creativity to work and entered their short films.
Topics of the shorts included a historically factual samurai assassination, the adventures of a team of ghost hunters, an unsuccessful cloning experiment, magical teleporting bedroom slippers, an illustration of Kawaii girl culture, the renewed inspiration of a music student, a murder by a demon cat, the guilt of a careless pet sitter, talking horses in the news, a magical teleporting doorway, a skeletal clothes salesman who upsets a witch, a parody of the JSF itself, an original love song, and a philosophical lesson about stoicism.
And the winner of the 1st Annual Japanese Shorts Festival is…
Nine teams were awarded at the ceremony, with shorts taking home the prize for Best Script, Best Acting, Best Special Effects, Best Anime, Best Camera Work, Best Soundtrack, Best Original Music, and Most Original Short.
2025’s Best Short Award went to JCCC’s own team, J.A.A.M., for their hilarious news short about talking horses. John Lubianetsky, one of the team members, has been studying Japanese for a year at JCCC and was excited to further his language skills while working with his classmates.
“Participating in the festival gave me a reason to learn new vocabulary and apply what my teammates and I had learned in our Japanese class during production,” said John. “Collaborating with other people to film something is always fun, but seeing all the shorts that everyone put a lot of work into to make feels like a reward by itself.”
The success of the first Japanese Shorts Festival means Sugawara is already setting the stage for 2026. He is thrilled to see how participants gained confidence and an appreciation for the creativity that arises from communication.
“At the Awards Ceremony screening, participants communicate their own messages to their audiences,” he said. “In response, they hear the laughter and applause from friends, family, and classmates. Even though some of the teams don't win, none of them lose.”
Your story starts here
Eager to join next year’s festival? If you’re going to be a Japanese language student in the Spring 2026 semester at any secondary or post-secondary school in Kansas or Missouri, start forming a production team!
Entry forms for the 2nd Annual Japanese Shorts Festival will be posted on the Festival website on January 26, 2026.