Category: Features

September 11, 2020 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. In these days of cosplay conventions and K-drama and Chinese sci-fi blockbusters on Netflix, it is easy to forget how little access to – and, let’s face it, interest in – Asian popular culture the West had for the vast bulk of the twentieth century. Not so in the other direction, however, […]

September 9, 2020 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Early in the Production I.G crime series B: The Beginning, it’s revealed that a mark resembling the letter “B”, left by an elusive vigilante at his killing grounds, consists of multiple symbols overlaid on each other. Equally the anime feels like two, possibly even three different shows in messy but interesting collision. A […]

September 6, 2020 · 0 comments

By Roxy Simons. “It’s dangerous to know something you’re not supposed to,” Kazuhiko’s boss at the local bathhouse tells him in Seiji Tanaka’s Melancholic. Feeling nosy over what is going on late at night at his workplace, Kazuhiko (Yoji Minagawa) decides to stake the place out, but quickly realises that there’s something far more ominous […]

September 3, 2020 · 0 comments

By Shelley Pallis. As Golgo 13 was Japan’s nihilistic answer to both Bond and the master-thieves of many a crime caper, many elements of the score (now re-released on vinyl) echo the kind of 1970s action movies that would surely have been on the mind of the film’s producers. It’s baffling, in fact, listening to […]

August 31, 2020 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Broadcast in Japan from 2002, Gundam Seed was the first TV Gundam of the twenty-first century and yes, you can definitely start with it. A space adventure tailor-made for newcomers, Gundam Seed was a vital gateway Gundam for Western fans, second only to Gundam Wing. Seed is a “new” story in a […]