Tag: books

September 20, 2017 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. Reference books have had to fight their corner harder than most in the internet age. For the subject of film in particular, online sources such as Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes or the IMDb (and dare I mention for Japanese film, Midnight Eye) allow instant access to facts or opinions about specific titles you […]

September 11, 2017 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. The most common symbols of Japan in the outside world include Mount Fuji, cherry blossom and the film star Toshiro Mifune (of Seven Samurai). In his new book A Brief History of Japan, author Jonathan Clements suggests a less obvious metaphor for the country – the game shogi, Japan’s version of chess. […]

August 17, 2017 · 0 comments

By Helen McCarthy . When I’m packing for a trip to Tokyo, the first book into the suitcase is my battered copy of the Kodansha bilingual Tokyo City Atlas. It has saved the day from my pidgin Japanese and poor spatial skills on numerous occasions.  But I usually know where I want to go in […]

July 24, 2017 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. If it weren’t for Donald Richie’s and Joseph L. Anderson’s invaluable The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (1959), the first book-length study on the subject in the English language, or Richie’s monographs The Films of Akira Kurosawa (1965) and Ozu: His Life and Films (1974), one wonders what the state of overseas appreciation […]

July 16, 2017 · 0 comments

By Raz Greenberg. Eric Reinders’ The Moral Narratives of Hayao Miyazaki often feels uncomfortably detached from the director’s position in the world of anime. Instead, it places these works in another context, one with which religious scholar Reinders is more at home. Devoting a chapter to each of Miyazaki’s films, from Nausicaa to The Wind Rises, Reinders examines their […]