Features 512
Little Witch Academia
By Paul Browne. For trainee witch Akko Kagari, things never appear to go as planned. Inspired at a young age by the spectacular public shows hosted by professional witch Shiny Chariot, Akko enrols at the Luna Nova Magical Academy in a bid to emulate her idol. But the fledgling witch struggles to keep up with […]
Books: Another Balse
By Motoko Tamamuro. Hayao Miyazaki was initially unaware of the phenomenon of the “Balse Festival” that broke out on social media. The Balse was the spell of destruction, cast by the protagonists Pazu and Sheeta in Studio Ghibli’s first official production, Laputa: The Castle in the Sky. Over the years, fans in Japan began tweeting […]
Japanese Box Office in 2018
By Jasper Sharp. The Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (Eiren) has just released its annual overview of the financial facts, figures and trends for the Japanese film industry for last year. For filmo-watchers, the 2018 statistics yield few surprises, but still merit further contemplation.
Books: Law & Justice
By Jonathan Clements. Reading the contributor biographies for the collection Law and Justice in Japanese Popular Culture: From Crime-Fighting Robots to Duelling Pocket Monsters, one gets the sense that this book was put together by a bunch of young, ardent scholars determined to have some fun. I see a lot of PhD candidacies and associate […]
Before We Vanish
by Jeremy Clarke. Part relationship drama, part love story, part comedy, part science fiction, Before We Vanish is the latest movie by Japanese auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa to hit UK Blu-ray and may be his strangest ever film. This is saying a lot for a director whose filmography includes horror movies like Pulse (2001), ghost stories […]