Category: Features

February 20, 2017 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Funimation has released the second half of Yona of the Dawn, the fantasy adventure from a girls’ manga by Mizuho Kusanagi, about a bold red-haired princess-in-exile and the handsome male protectors that she gathers around herself. It’s been a while since the first anime volume (it came out last July), so if […]

February 19, 2017 · 1 comment

By Andrew Osmond. In Japan, mobile games are big business. Blame it on the commute – on Tokyo trains, the jam-packed passengers are asked not to talk on their phones, and remarkably nearly all of them don’t talk. So instead they use their phones and tablets for browsing, texting and playing games. And they can […]

February 15, 2017 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Vacationing in Washington DC, college grad Saki meets an extraordinary youth with no memories, killer rivals and a “magic” phone that can provide anything. Adopting the name Akira Takizawa, our unexpected hero slowly learns he’s in the middle of an incredible game. Its goal: to transform Japan forever… Like much Japanese animation, Eden […]

February 12, 2017 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. It was only last year that the Japan Foundation UK began including documentaries in its annual touring film season, with Aya Hanabusa’s intimate depiction of a family of butchers descended from the stigmatised buraku class, Tale of a Butcher Shop (2013), the first to be included in the line-up. This year, we […]

February 9, 2017 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Pieta in the Toilet is the oddest-titled film in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme, now running in selected cinemas through February and March. No, it’s not a gross-out comedy; instead, it’s a very human drama about an extremely sombre topic, but shot through with humour and low-key spirituality. While Pieta’s not […]