Category: Features

March 8, 2024 · 0 comments

The manga creator Akira Toriyama, who died on 1st March, was cited by the editor-in-chief of Weekly Shonen Jump as being the prime catalyst in driving the magazine to its six-million circulation in the 1980s. The antic humour of his Doctor Slump (1980-84) and the sprawling, brawling sci-fi saga Dragon Ball (original series 1984-95) made […]

March 5, 2024 · 0 comments

By Amelia Cook. Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It is a comedy about two intense postgraduate students who develop feelings for each other in their research lab. Before the first set of opening credits, elegant and confident Himuro states her feelings for her aloof intellectual rival, Yukimura. He is stunned, and […]

March 2, 2024 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Somali and the Forest Spirit is mostly soft and enchanting, the story of a little girl’s journey through a wondrous world, under the protection of her indefatigable non-human dad. And yet bits of the series are really tough. Anime often plays merry hell with Western expectations of animation and children’s media. The […]

February 28, 2024 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. The subtitle of Jinying Li’s new book, “Geek, Otaku, Zhai” alludes to the rise of fandom and fans as movers and shakers in modern media and culture, tracking the Rise of the Nerds from a period, say, when only “losers” read comics in the eyes of the mainstream, to an age where […]

February 25, 2024 · 0 comments

By Zoe Crombie. As far as creators of anime go, Mari Okada has experienced one of the strangest rises to power from her humble origins to her current position as one of the most well-known writers and directors of the mode. There are only a handful of prominent female directors in anime, with Okada and […]