Japan 492
I Want to Eat Your Pancreas
By Andrew Osmond. Let’s get the obligatory disclaimer out of the way. Despite its alarming title, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas has nothing to do with gut-munching cannibalism. (If you want that kind of thing, we’d direct you to the Edinburgh SLA screening of Calamity of a Zombie Girl.) Pancreas is actually one of […]
B: The Beginning
By Shelley Pallis. The Royal Investigation Service calls in their top man, Keith Flick, to investigate a crime with a difference. A murderer is on the loose, targeting only the worst of criminals. But even criminals are under the protection of the law, and Flick is tasked with assembling the paltry evidence: the letter “B”, […]
Cyber City Oedo 808
By Raz Greenberg. In the last two decades of the 20th century, Yoshiaki Kawajiri was the king of exciting, ultra-violent action mixed with the erotic. His urban and historical fantasies – Wicked City, Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (and to some extent also the later Highlander: Vengeance) oozed with style, and at the same time, were also shamelessly […]
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 […]
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 […]