Author: Jonathan Clements

October 13, 2015 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements It’s 24 April 2072 and you’re listening to Radio Free Mars, a pirate radio station broadcasting in ten languages to independent operatives all over the red planet. Our mad European-accented DJ Mr Martian is at the ready with traffic reports, complaints about the chair-warmers at city hall, some old-time tunes and handy […]

October 10, 2015 · 0 comments

By Andy Hanley. Some people are quite happy to enjoy whatever it is they’re into without a second thought, while others will hunger to know more about “how the sausage is made”. The same applies to fans of anime, with many simply watching the shows without ever pondering how they come into being while others […]

October 7, 2015 · 0 comments

By Meghan Ellis. If you’ve ever touched a games console there’s a good chance you’re at least familiar with Shigeru Miyamoto, one of the industry’s genius game designers and the man responsible for everyone’s favourite athletic plumber, Mario. But did you know that his design process comes from a thoroughly Japanese appreciation of nature; and […]

October 4, 2015 · 0 comments

By Hugh David. If there are two live-action English-language movies of the early 1980s that had an enduring effect on Japanese animation beyond all others, they would be Blade Runner (1982) and Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981). Of course, Blade Runner was already influenced by the look of Tokyo of the period, but […]

October 1, 2015 · 0 comments

by Jonathan Clements. There are, famously, more Christians in Iraq than there are in Japan. That’s in spite of a flourishing of interest among the samurai lords after 1549, some of whom converted to Christianity, took Christian names like Francisco and Augustin, and welcomed the exotic foreign contacts of “barbarian” missionaries. For a time, Nagasaki […]