November 5, 2021 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. The family drama is a staple of Japanese cinema and has been for many years. From the shōshimin-eiga (lower middle-class films) of the 1930s to the many masterpieces of Yasujiro Ozu, Japan has a proud lineage of reserved and moving melodramas. Funuke Show Some Love You Losers! is no such film. Based on the […]

November 2, 2021 · 0 comments

By Jeannette Ng. Interviews with Monster Girls by PETOS starts off more or less as its title promises. Tetsuo Takahashi is a biology teacher who has long been fascinated by the existence of demihumans. Some combination of narrative contrivance and fate has resulted in him sharing a school with four of them — Hikari Takanashi […]

October 30, 2021 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. The height of the tokusatsu (special-effects) era in 1960s Japan is best remembered for the slew of giant monster movies that dominated cinemas. Studio Toho’s titanic Godzilla franchise topped the box office, while competitor Daiei found success with the Gamera and Daimajin series. However, while kaiju made the headlines, this period also saw the production of many, more modestly budgeted tokusatsu films […]

October 26, 2021 · 0 comments

When asked by an interviewer why he became a manga creator, the late Sanpei Shirato answered bluntly: “I needed to eat.” This seemingly simple reply encapsulated much of his own gritty, materialist attitude towards storytelling. He was always aware of the big picture, of the great weight of history as it marched along, but focussed […]

October 24, 2021 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. And then a pile of books fell on top of her, and she was dead. That can’t possibly be the beginning of a tale, can it? But Miya Kazuki’s fantasy series Ascendance of a Bookworm wastes little time describing the humdrum, Earthbound life of its heroine, Urano, before it kills her off […]

October 21, 2021 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. As the 1960s wore on, Japanese filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura survived in a studio system in decline. Financial strictures meant that the director’s projects had scaled down in recent years, though the cinematic explorations at the core of his work remained in sharp focus. A prime example of this is his 1969 film, Blind […]