Tag: Japan

December 9, 2021 · 3 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Boogiepop Phantom is a teenage Twilight Zone. Contrary to popular anime depictions, being an adolescent in Japan isn’t all comedic love triangles, eccentric school clubs and wild beach vacations. It can be numbing, depressing, achingly lonely and aridly meaningless. In the deepest funk of teenage night, where everything seems weird and alien, […]

December 8, 2021 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Look out! You’ve just been whisked to a far-off planet peopled by exotic beauties, where magic really works and alien invaders threaten paradise. Now’s your chance to right wrongs, fight mighty battles and smite your enemies before winning the hand of a beautiful princess. So what’s the catch? Well, some bright spark […]

December 5, 2021 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. The paradox of Masaaki Yuasa’s series Kaiba is that for much of the time, it’s a sad story, and yet there’s something joyous about it. What lies behind that joy would be expressed succinctly in a more recent Yuasa anime. At the start of his 2020 series Keep Your Hands of Eizouken!, […]

December 3, 2021 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Cardcaptor Sakura shows how the biggest, most wonderful adventure can start from the smallest of things. In the show’s first episode, Sakura Kinomoto, a happy, lively grade school girl, returns from school to find she’s the first home. She hears a funny rustling sound coming from her dad’s basement study. Worried it […]

November 30, 2021 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Inuyasha is an adventure; it’s both an action show and a romcom, and it’s one of the most successful anime to cross male and female demographics. It’s also a monster show, bursting with slimy beasties and dark sorcerers, though its main characters are a heroically unflappable schoolgirl and a peppery boy with […]