Tag: books

October 7, 2015 · 0 comments

By Meghan Ellis. If you’ve ever touched a games console there’s a good chance you’re at least familiar with Shigeru Miyamoto, one of the industry’s genius game designers and the man responsible for everyone’s favourite athletic plumber, Mario. But did you know that his design process comes from a thoroughly Japanese appreciation of nature; and […]

October 1, 2015 · 0 comments

by Jonathan Clements. There are, famously, more Christians in Iraq than there are in Japan. That’s in spite of a flourishing of interest among the samurai lords after 1549, some of whom converted to Christianity, took Christian names like Francisco and Augustin, and welcomed the exotic foreign contacts of “barbarian” missionaries. For a time, Nagasaki […]

August 25, 2015 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. In the 13 years since I curated a season of Chinese animation at the Udine Film Festival (the programme is reprinted in Schoolgirl Milky Crisis), I still occasionally get asked about it. Producers, who fret that the Japanese mother lode has been mined out, want to know if I am sitting on […]

July 5, 2015 · 0 comments

By Meghan Ellis. One man eats Japan. That’s the basic premise of Michael Booth’s book (and, now, anime series) Sushi & Beyond. In fact, it’s called British Family Eats Japan in translation; as far as travel/cookery literature goes, there are few better places to visit if you’re a veteran foodie with a knack for writing. […]

June 4, 2015 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Fresh out of prison after serving three months for a fake diploma scam, wide-boy Dunhuang falls in with the lonely, sex-starved Xiaorong, a girl who sells pirate DVDs. Unable to trace his old colleagues, off the radar among millions of illegal Beijing residents, he starts selling films on the streets, just another […]