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Gundam Thunderbolt
By Andrew Osmond. Gundam Thunderbolt: December Sky may be the closest that anime has ever come to producing a full-blown Vietnam film. The Gundam franchise has always been about war, but Thunderbolt suggests its makers were marathoning films like Apocalypse Now and Born on the Fourth of July. Thunderbolt makes a “gritty” Hollywood franchise film […]
Calamity of a Zombie Girl
By Andrew Osmond. Calamity of a Zombie Girl is a horror film. If we’re being more precise, it’s a schlocky horror picture show, and it doesn’t pretend otherwise. It’s a film in which college-age students investigate an occult mystery, uncover something they shouldn’t, and then start dying messily. There will be blood. Heads will be […]
March Comes in Like a Lion
By Andrew Osmond. March comes in like a lion resists obvious categorisation. You could call it a “slice of life” anime, but that’s a pretty useless heading these days; Wikipedia’s list of such anime covers everything from Azumanga Daioh to A Centaur’s Life via From Up on Poppy Hill. Pinpointing March more, I’d say it’s […]
Interview: Mamoru Hosoda
By Andrew Osmond. In the run-up to the cinema release of Mamoru Hosoda’s eagerly awaited Mirai on 2nd November (subtitled) and 4th November 4 (dubbed), I interviewed Hosoda himself about his new film. Mirai revolves around the adventures of Kun, a four year-old boy in Japan, who magically encounters family members from the past and […]
Amanchu!
By Andrew Osmond. Amanchu! is a portrait of female friendship; or, if you prefer, it’s one of the sub-genre of anime depicting “cute girls doing cute things.” It should be said that the first category of anime doesn’t collapse into the second, even if anime fans sometimes speak as if it does. You can like […]