Andrew Osmond 63
Gundam 00
By Andrew Osmond. The first thing to stress about Gundam 00 is that newbies can most definitely start here. While it’s technically part of the venerable Gundam franchise, it’s also a “new” series, with a new world and characters. Indeed, 00 was perhaps made deliberately to draw in viewers, Japanese and foreign, who hadn’t seen […]
Weathering with You
By Andrew Osmond. By most counts, Weathering with You may be Makoto Shinkai’s seventh film – and his fifth to run over an hour – but you might also call it his difficult “second” album. In 2016, Your Name’s stunning commercial success catapulted Shinkai as if he’d been struck by that film’s rogue comet. Before, […]
Sinners of the System
By Andrew Osmond. PSYCHO-PASS envisions a world where Japan is a socially-ordered utopia, thanks to the Sibyl System – a surveillance giant that tabulates everybody’s “Crime Coefficient” data to make sure nobody is even planning on committing a crime. Its drama revolves around the nature of freedom and criminality in that future world – heavy […]
Children of the Sea
By Andrew Osmond. Young people are learning how to be people, how to be human; small wonder they’re drawn to the vast world beyond humanity, to the myriad other forms of life. That applies particularly to youngsters troubled in their “normal” lives, fractious with their peers and parents, longing for connection. It’s a subject explored […]
Books: Princess Mononoke
By Andrew Osmond. Princess Mononoke: Understanding Studio Ghibli’s Monster Princess functions as a 20th anniversary collection on one the most important anime of the late 20th century… but “important” to whom? Twenty years ago, Hayao Miyazaki’s film became an anime blockbuster, at least in Japan. In America and Britain, it had extremely limited cinema releases […]