Category: Features

July 31, 2023 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. This August, Makoto Shinkai’s film The Garden of Words – soon to have a new Blu-ray/CD Steelbook – will be adapted as a London stage play. It runs at the Park Theatre at Finsbury Park from 10th August 10 to 9th September; if you want to know more, I interviewed director Alexandra […]

July 28, 2023 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Here’s a funny thing; there aren’t many out-and-out anime comedy films. Of course, there are plenty that have comedy – some of anime’s best comic characters are from films, like the indomitable trans heroine Hana in Tokyo Godfathers and the clingy BFF Tomohiro in A Silent Voice. But these films aren’t comedies; […]

July 25, 2023 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Even though Gunbuster was released across three video cassettes, two episodes a time, its format preserved the two-part structure of TV anime, with a little “eyecatch” bumper at the halfway mark to imply that the show was just about to break for commercials. The chorus of voices that sings “Gunbuster~~~!” in the […]

July 22, 2023 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. In the spring before her first year of high school, the shy Yuna feels lost when her best friend moves away. However, it isn’t long before she’s thrown into the company of Akari, a spritely girl who has moved into the same apartment building. To begin with, the two couldn’t be more […]

July 19, 2023 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. In 2008, The New Yorker ran an epic article on Hayao Miyazaki to accompany the release of Howl’s Moving Castle. Beautifully written by Margaret Talbot, it was a celebration of the director. But one criticism in it was telling, made by Ghibli’s other legendary director. “With Miyazaki, you have to totally believe […]