Tag: Japan

November 11, 2020 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. One of the many mysteries in Promised Neverland, based on a bestselling Shonen Jump manga nearer Death Note than Naruto, is the enigmatic title. It might be a Peter Pan reference; after the first episode, you could understand the child characters not wanting to become grown-ups. Or you may see “Neverland” as […]

November 8, 2020 · 0 comments

By Shelley Pallis. I am, above all, envious of Christopher Harding for coming with the idea for his new book in the first place – writers struggle to find ways to make history palatable and digestible for the general reader, and the very idea for The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives, is deceptively simple. […]

November 5, 2020 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond Demon Slayer’s hero is a boy, Tanjiro, in Taisho-period Japan – in other words, the reign of the Taisho Emperor (1912-26) – Japan’s “Edwardian” era. However, Demon Slayer often feels like a story of a much older Japan – centuries older, even. Tanjiro is visiting town to sell charcoal, which his humble […]

November 2, 2020 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Surely nothing could be less animated than a statue? But if there is anything notable in 2020 beyond pandemic and politics, it must be the power that statues have in daily life: to be ignored, to be toppled, to be replaced with images more fitting of who we want ourselves to be? […]

October 29, 2020 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. “For its emotional effect and its deep meaning, its polish and its heart, the jury confers this year’s Judges Award on Ride Your Wave by Masaaki Yuasa.” Not a sentence that I ever expected to be reading out to an Edinburgh crowd, who gasped with surprise, and then burst into applause. And […]