Tag: books

June 27, 2020 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Hot on the heels of The Japanese Cinema Book, Bloomsbury puts out a new edition of The Chinese Cinema Book, edited by Lim Song Hwee and Julian Ward. Perhaps reflecting smaller returns, both citationally and financially, The Chinese Cinema Book is half the size of its Japanese stablemate, despite China being one […]

June 15, 2020 · 1 comment

By Jonathan Clements. Reframing Disability in Manga by Yoshiko Okuyama is a well-timed integration of the study of Japanese comics and portrayals of the disabled, powerfully conceived as an off-the-peg classroom text. It could readily function as a textbook on a dedicated course, but is formatted in a smart topical manner throughout that would lend […]

June 12, 2020 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Matt Alt’s Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World is a work of startling originality. Like the dozen inventions and creations it profiles, it takes already-familiar technology and repurposes it to new and innovative ends, using everyday objects as springboards to discuss the peculiarities of Japanese culture and the global […]

May 25, 2020 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. “Asked to be the voice of an angry 900-pound, twelve-foot-tall wolf god, Gillian Anderson did pretty well and handled the recording session with considerable grace.” It’s all in a day’s work for Steve Alpert, the American executive hired to sell Studio Ghibli to the world. Originally part-released as a long-gone online diary, […]

May 15, 2020 · 2 comments

By Jonathan Clements. It’s not hard to see what Bloomsbury are up to with their Japanese Cinema Book. Assembling a who’s-who of big names in Japanese film criticism, editors Hideaki Fujiki and Alastair Phillips have come up with a chunky introduction to multiple aspects of an entire national cinema, ready not only for the Olympics […]