Japan 449
Manga at the British Museum
By Andrew Osmond. The case against putting a Manga exhibition in the British Museum was made in three papers – The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Times – on the morning I visited it. Actually, one argument was effectively made before the exhibition was announced. In 2017, the Independent newspaper ranted against the British Museum […]
Kokkoku: Moment by Moment
By Shelley Pallis. What if you could stop the world? What if you had the ability to freeze time for everyone else, but had the power to stay in motion yourself? You could catch that bus. Actually, come to think of it, you could ignore the bus altogether and just walk to work, knowing that […]
Twin Star Exorcists 2
By Shelley Pallis. Grotesque monsters known as Impurities reside in Magano, a realm parallel to the present day. Exorcists purify these evil apparitions to protect the people. Rokuro Enmadou is opposed to becoming an exorcist, even though he has the talent to be one, but an oracle gives him the title of “Twin Star Exorcist,” […]
Books: African Samurai
By Jonathan Clements. The temple is on fire. The warlord Nobunaga makes his last stand against the henchmen of a traitorous underling. Hearing someone kicking open a side-door, three attacking samurai rush in to execute an escapee, only to face a terrifying, ash-smeared demon. “In person they had never seen before a shadow so tall, […]
Blue Spring
by Jeremy Clarke. Teenage high school movie Blue Spring (2001) centres on the leader of a violent boys’ gang in their final year at school. The nonchalant Kujo (Ryuhei Matsuda) has befriended Aoki (Hirofumi Arai in his debut role) since the latter first joined his class in their infancy: these days Aoki is Kujo’s number […]