Features 745
Battle Royale
By Tom Wilmot. Of the thousands of films released every year, few are subjected to a high level of controversy, critical acclaim, or commercial success, let alone all three. Yet with Battle Royale, director Kinji Fukasaku was dealt a full house. Even those unfamiliar with Japanese cinema are sure to have at least heard of […]
Books: The History of Sushi
By Jonathan Clements. Eric C. Rath observes that in the anime series Sushi Police, fish are portrayed weeping at the injustices done to them by culinary criminals. Luckily, a three-man team travels the world “armed with wasabi machine guns, a vacuum to collect illicit sushi and chopstick nunchaku.” Sushi Police is, or course, bonkers, but […]
Belladonna of Sadness
By Jonathan Clements. Stolen from her betrothed, raped by the lord of the manor and his men, medieval European peasant girl Jeanne loses her faith in God and turns to the Devil. Cast out by the baron’s jealous wife, she embraces witchcraft and leads a peasant rebellion. That, at least, is the basic plot of […]
Interview: Yuhei Sakuragi
By Andrew Osmond. The film The Relative Worlds may be made in CGI, but otherwise it’s a traditional SF anime adventure. Two ordinary present-day teenagers find themselves at the centre of a war involving an “alternative” Japan, whose leaders plan to invade our reality. At first there are just a few strangers on the streets, […]
Books: Terminal Boredom
By Jonathan Clements. “There is something wrong with our present society,” Izumi Suzuki once wrote, “and I can’t stand SF written by people who don’t understand that… Even when you’re talking about some future society, if you write with full faith in our present world, then nothing changes, you just end up with the same […]