Japan 595
Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk
By Helen McCarthy. The Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk exhibition is impressive – so impressive that since I left the Victoria and Albert Museum I’ve worn nothing but kimono. I’m writing about it, right now, dressed entirely in kimono. Of course that’s nothing new. My crew-neck knit kimono and my straight leg Levi’s stonewash kimono are […]
Dragon Dentist
Kazuya Tsurumaki on his film. Kazuya Tsurumaki is known for FLCL, Gunbuster 2, and the Rebuild of Evangelion series, among others. He got involved with The Dragon Dentist (streaming now on All4) after meeting the original writer Otaro Maijo on Japan Animator Expo in 2014. Using the short pilot film screened at that time, this […]
Interview: Tomihiko Morimi
By Andrew Osmond. Penguin Highway, The Night is Short, Walk on Girl, The Tatami Galaxy, The Eccentric Family… All four stem from the imagination of Japanese author Tomihiko Morimi. Until recently, fans who didn’t read Japanese could only know him through the wonderful anime adaptations of his work. In 2019, however, Morimi’s original novels Penguin […]
Penguin Highway
By Jonathan Clements. Suddenly, there are penguins everywhere. And then there aren’t. Aoyama and his fellow townsfolk are confused by the infestation, but it may have something to do with that big silver sphere out in a meadow near the woods. Shouldn’t someone be doing something about that? So begins Penguin Highway, animated by director […]
Hisashi Katsuta (1927-2020)
Hisashi Katsuta, who died yesterday, provided one of the most recognisable voices in anime, but only came to that career after a decade in radio. He was one of the teenagers drafted to work in military factories in the last, desperate days of the Second World War, but was just young enough to avoid military […]