Features 554
When the Wind Blows
By Andrew Osmond. “They say it’s the correct thing to wear white. People in Hiroshima with patterned clothes got burned where the patterns was and not so much on the white bits. Even the buttons showed up.” “Yes, but they were Japanese.” In the late 1980s, two unusual animated films were released aimed at adults; […]
Assassination Classroom S2
By Andy Hanley. Assuming you’ve made it through to the end of Keiji Gotoh’s Assassination Classroom’s first series in one piece, you’d be forgiven for needing some time to regain your composure after the tumultuous events that closed it. Having seen the octopus-like alien Koro-sensei come close to defeat at the hands of his students, […]
Books: Yoko Kanno
By Jonathan Clements. “I think it’s time we blow this scene. Get everybody and the stuff together. Okay: 3-2-1, let’s jam.” Admit it, you’re already hearing those brass notes as the theme song kicks in. As Rose Bridges argues in her lively, smart and revealing book Yoko Kanno’s Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack, it’s the music that […]
Grimgar: Ashes and Illusions
By Andy Hanley. Although it was hardly the first of its breed, the success of Sword Art Online in both its original light novel and later anime adaptation form has seen an explosion of stories based around a similar concept – being trapped in a video game world, usually based around the settings and mechanics […]
Books: Promiscuous Media
By Jonathan Clements. Hikari Hori’s new book Promiscuous Media: Film and Visual Culture in Imperial Japan 1926-1945, examines the first phase of the Showa Era, from the enthronement of Emperor Hirohito through to the end of World War Two. She offers an enthralling narrative of Japan’s first mass-media sovereign, but also the theories and critical […]