Author: Jonathan Clements

December 26, 2015 · 1 comment

By Andrew Osmond. Pictures by Carlos Nakajima. Anime tourism is big business in today’s Japan. Around the country, local governments are savvy to the fact that if you can link your neighbourhood to a popular comic or cartoon, then the fan tourists will come. One way is to present your hometown in an anime, so […]

December 22, 2015 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. Ask anyone what Japan’s greatest contribution to the world of film is, and few would offer “film itself” as an answer. Nevertheless, by the end of the twentieth century, one of the country’s best-known brands, Fujifilm, had successfully managed to corner the global market for raw print and negative stock with its […]

December 19, 2015 · 3 comments

By Andy Hanley. Never mind sales figures or live-action adaptations – the real way to know that you have a successful series on your hands is when it starts spawning spin-offs at an alarming rate. Neon Genesis Evangelion has seen Shinji Ikari serve as everything from a harem protagonist in need of “raising” to a […]

December 16, 2015 · 0 comments

By Justin Sevakis. Back in the 1990s Japan’s local TV industry churned out a number of interesting directors who have since become big names among Japanese film aficionados. Some of them, like Hirokazu Kore-eda (After Life, Nobody Knows), have become perennial favourites of festivals and film buffs all over the world. Others, such as Yukihiko […]

December 13, 2015 · 2 comments

By Andrew Osmond. So you love Japanese animation, and want to make yourself an expert. Of course you use Google and Wikipedia to broaden your knowledge, but web sources are reliably unreliable, especially when discussing a medium rather older than the internet. Sometimes there’s no alternative to hitting the books.