April 1, 2024 · 0 comments

By Zoe Crombie. Anime has taken inspiration from Western cultures throughout much of its history, from Astro Boy’s Disney-inspired aesthetics to the gorgeous European locales of films like Howl’s Moving Castle, and one of the most important productions in this vein is the World Masterpiece Theater series of adaptations of Western children’s books. Bringing new […]

March 29, 2024 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. Unlikely as it might be, the late Yasuharu Hasebe is one of Japan’s best-represented filmmakers overseas, with several of the director’s works making their way west over the past twenty or so years. Radiance Films continues the trend of bringing Hasebe’s trademark action movies to Blu-ray with the release of his electrifying […]

March 26, 2024 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Lina is rushed to the infirmary at the edge of life, her body terribly battered and sliced by an encounter with a lethal dragon, surrounded by wizards chanting healing spells and administering stasis commands. It is only as she slowly recovers, her memories of the battle mercifully lost, that her carers start […]

March 23, 2024 · 0 comments

by Jeremy Clarke. Deriving its odd title from a literal translation of the leads’ surnames, Katsuhito Ishii’s highly original gangster movie from 1998 is based on a familiar plot: a man runs off with the mob’s money, and a lady companion. Or, as pioneering French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard once put it: all you […]

March 20, 2024 · 0 comments

By Zoe Crombie. Genius detective Sakurako Kujo is constantly surrounded by death, regularly finding the bones of murder victims that aid her constant study of skeletons and forensics. Accompanying Sakurako on her deadly excursions is high school student Shotaro Tatewaki, a grounding influence who keeps some of Sakurako’s more questionable impulses in check. Together, the […]

March 18, 2024 · 1 comment

The artist Mutsumi Inomata, who died on 10th March, has been a ubiquitous presence in the anime world for the last forty years, even though she distanced herself from actual animation in the late 1980s. When interviewed about her character designs on Weathering Continent in 1993, she admitted that she already had left much of […]