Godzilla 5
Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters
By Andrew Osmond. Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters is the thirtieth Japanese film to feature the country’s (unquestionably) biggest film star. But amazingly, it’s only the first Godzilla film to be made in animation. It’s written by a star scribe of anime, Gen Urobuchi, who was the twisted genius behind PSYCHO-PASS and Puella Magi Madoka […]
Books: Ishiro Honda
By Jasper Sharp. Ishiro Honda is an easy filmmaker to ridicule. Here is a man whose name, more by accident than design, looks set to be forever identified with a certain giant fire-breathing lizard, and by extension Japan’s entire home-grown strain of giant monster movies that followed in its wake, featuring men in rubber suits […]
Shin Godzilla
By Jasper Sharp. The world’s favourite movie monster returns to British screens this August in Shin Godzilla, which sees Japan’s legendary fire-breathing lizard once more rising from the cold blue depths of the Pacific to lay waste to huge swathes of Tokyo. Released in July of last year, Toho’s latest reboot of a franchise that […]
Kurosawa’s Ran
Andrew Osmond revisits a restored classic. In 1985, Akira Kurosawa released his last epic film, Ran (meaning “Chaos”). The Japanese-French co-production was inspired by Shakespeare’s King Lear but it transposed the tragedy to the lost Japan of many Kurosawa classics, of violent swordplay, doomed heroes and harsh morality. Such films – Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne […]
The Holy Land of Nerima
By Andrew Osmond. Pictures by Carlos Nakajima. Anime tourism is big business in today’s Japan. Around the country, local governments are savvy to the fact that if you can link your neighbourhood to a popular comic or cartoon, then the fan tourists will come. One way is to present your hometown in an anime, so […]