Category: All Posts
October 17, 2023 · 0 comments
Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom
By Shelley Pallis. After a millennium of warfare, the rival kingdoms of Alhamit and Balkari have finally fought each other to a standstill. In a frankly ill-conceived plan to create dynastic harmony, Alhamit agrees to send its most beautiful princess to marry a prince of Balkari. Balkari agrees in return to send its cleverest prince […]
October 14, 2023 · 1 comment
Komada: A Whisky Family
By Jonathan Clements. Thirty-something Rui Komada (voiced by Saori Hayami) is torn between pursuing her personal dreams and turning around her ailing family business, a whisky distillery that has been struggling to cope with declining drinking habits and supply-chain issues in the aftermath of a natural disaster. After her father’s death, she inherits a company […]
October 11, 2023 · 0 comments
Macross Plus: The Movie
By Andrew Osmond. Released twenty-eight years ago, Macross Plus: The Movie still dazzles now, a film that somehow manages to combine plane dogfights and space duels (think Star Wars meets Top Gun); a melancholy drama about former friends tormented by their ruined past; and an AI pop-goddess who seems far less fantastical in the age […]
October 8, 2023 · 3 comments
Osamu Tezuka’s Metropolis
By Jonathan Clements. Detective Shunsaku Ban and his nephew-assistant Kenichi arrive in Duke Red’s city of the future on the trail of an organ-trafficking doctor. But the city is coming apart, with Duke Red’s adopted son Rock leading a predatory police force, and the enslaved robot population scapegoated as the cause of all ills. Meanwhile, […]
October 5, 2023 · 0 comments
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
By Andrew Osmond. Dolls, dogs, gods, children and their relationships with neurotically self-conscious humanity come under philosophical investigation in Mamoru Oshii’s sequel to his film, Ghost in the Shell. Rendered in a blend of drawn and computer animation, the sequel’s first half looks like a sleekly beautiful variant on the future-noir aesthetic of Blade Runner, […]