Author: Jonathan Clements

January 16, 2017 · 0 comments

By Roxy Simons. 2015 marked the 50th anniversary of the mystery writer Ranpo Edogawa’s death. Taking his pseudonym from Edgar Allen Poe (as in “Edoga Waran Po”), one of his many influences, Ranpo Edogawa wrote many novels, short stories, and essays over his 42-year career. He changed the face of Japanese mystery fiction, and his […]

January 13, 2017 · 0 comments

By Hugh David. In the bustling future city of Metropolis, Japanese detective Shunsaku Ban and his nephew-assistant Kenichi arrive in search of fugitive scientist Dr Laughton. They find themselves embroiled in a family affair with wider repercussions for all across the city, for Laughton is working on a secret project for premier wealthy industrialist Duke […]

January 10, 2017 · 0 comments

By Raz Greenberg. Legend of the Galactic Heroes is one anime phenomenon that took its time to reach western anime fans. Starting as a long-running series of space-opera prose novels by the prolific Yoshiki Tanaka (who also wrote the equally popular Heroic Legend of Arslan fantasy series), it went through several anime adaptations – the most famous being […]

January 9, 2017 · 0 comments

The best Irish-Matt-Damon-fighting-space-lizards movie you will ever see, says Jonathan Clements. In the 11th century AD, the last survivors from a group of European mercenaries finally reach their destination – Imperial China. Amid the rainbow-coloured rocks of China’s arid north-west, Irish brawler William (Matt Damon) and Spanish tough-guy Tovar (Pedro Pascal) surrender to the Nameless […]

January 7, 2017 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. There was a time in the late-1990s when director Shunji Iwai possessed near celebrity status among young movie fans in Japan, the poster boy for a new breed of filmmaker who emerged neither from the moribund studio system, nor the uncompromisingly raw-edged counterculture of the 1980s independent scene, but from the image […]