Category: Features

January 10, 2023 · 0 comments

By Shelley Pallis. Teenager Tom is determined to impress Harmony, the queen of the class at his school, and the only way he can do so is by beating her at chess… which he first has to learn how to play. What could possibly go wrong? So begins Blitz, a light-hearted manga introduction to the […]

January 7, 2023 · 0 comments

By Shelley Pallis. As Japan is rocked by a series of grisly murders, the Tokyo police set up a specialised task force to take down murderers that they come to believe to be super-powered aliens. The Gurongi, in fact, are antediluvian beings cast in the Predator mould, intent on advancement through a hunting ritual that […]

January 4, 2023 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. In his lively new book Monster Kids: How Pokémon Taught a Generation to Catch Them All, Daniel Dockery talks us through the original plans in Japan for a game called Capsule Monsters, subsequently renamed and refashioned when it proved impossible to trademark. Along the way, he has time out for asides about […]

December 31, 2022 · 2 comments

By Andrew Osmond. When this blog last presented a rundown of anime streaming titles this time last year, Crunchyroll had been recently acquired by the Funimation Group. Well, what a difference a year makes. Crunchyroll’s the name now, baby. In March, it was announced that Funimation’s animation library would be transferring to Crunchyroll en masse, […]

December 28, 2022 · 0 comments

Yuji Nunokawa, who died on Christmas Day, was not a well-known name among Anglophone anime fans, but he was  a powerful figure in the Japanese cartoon business, instrumental in many of its international successes. Born in Sakata City, Yamagata, into a family of tailors, his initial career direction was in graphic design – even later […]