Black Mirror to Anime
By Andrew Osmond.
One of the surprise media talking-points over this Christmas was the new episode of the acclaimed anthology series Black Mirror. Called “Bandersnatch,” it was released on Netflix on 28th December, written by series creator Charlie Brooker. It’s a story about multi-choice, branching narratives. The twist is that it’s a multi-choice, branching story itself. At frequent points in the action, two choices pop up at the bottom of the screen, and you have a few seconds to pick one with your remote or mouse… and the drama continues smoothly down whichever branch you pick. Sugar Puffs or Frosties? It’s your call. Bury a body, or chop it up? Likewise.
You may wonder why we’re talking about “Bandersnatch” on AllTheAnime. The reason is it has some fascinating potential for Japanese media. Continue Reading
Books: Sound! Euphonium
By Andrew Osmond.
Concert bands were a special place. The ratio of girls to boys was usually around nine to one, but strictly speaking, it was often even more lopsided than that. So it was not uncommon for girls to end up idolizing someone of their own gender. The objects of such infatuated gazes – gazes that were much too fervid to be interpreted as simple envy – tended to either radiate pure femininity or possess a boyish stylishness. Unfortunately, the boys in concert bands were rarely seen as actual boys and so were never the object of such idolization. Kumiko had decided that this was why boys in the band never seemed to have girlfriends, despite being surrounded by girls.
This blog has already run an article on the TV anime version of Sound! Euphonium, which is now available as a sumptuous Collectors Blu-ray from Anime Limited. By any standards, the anime has been well received. Anime UK News gave it 10/10, most ANN voters rated it “Very good”, “Excellent” or “Masterpiece”; and – ahem! – my own Neo review described the show as “amazingly good, exceptional in its production, writing and characters.” Continue Reading
One Cut of the Dead
By Jasper Sharp.
One Cut of the Dead, the ultra-savvy horror comedy that has been the talking point Japanese film of 2018, is getting a UK release in January to a handful of indie cinemas across the country courtesy of Third Window Films, which is also making it available on home video and VOD from 28th January 2019. Continue Reading
Books: Miyazakiworld
By Andrew Osmond.
In the recent book Interpreting Anime, Christopher Bolton quoted a barbed comment by director Isao Takahata about his Ghibli colleague. “With Miyazaki, you have to totally believe in the world of the film,” Takahata said. “He is demanding that the audience enter the world he has created completely. The audience is being asked to surrender.”
Bolton built on that comment, arguing that the immersive qualities of Miyazaki’s works reject the approach of much literature and also of “politically productive” anime directors such as Oshii, Otomo and Kon. What Miyazaki does not do, Bolton argues, is “move us in and out of the story in a way that makes us critically consider how language, fiction and media shape our experience of the world.” Whereas other directors may risk cynicism, relativism or confusion, Bolton fears Miyazaki’s films run “the risk of certainty, the loss of critical distance.” Continue Reading
Millennium Actress
By Jasper Sharp.
Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress (2001), uses its heroine to explore themes of subjectivity and spectatorship, with a topic that might at first seem better suited to live action. In all those elements, it bears some similarities with his debut feature Perfect Blue (1997), which pitched the viewer into the fragmenting worldview of a retired teen pop idol, haunted by her former stage persona. Both films played with audience expectations as to what was permissible or appropriate within the medium, while blurring the boundaries between the illusory and the real through a labyrinthine series of flashbacks, shifting character perspectives, films within films and dream sequences. The crucial difference with Millennium Actress, however, is its marked lightness of tone. Continue Reading