Japan 449
Makoto Ogino (1959-2019)
Makoto Ogino, who died of renal failure on 29th April, spent his whole life preoccupied with the wheel of karma. On the day of his very first sale, his father, an education officer responsible for censuring unsuitable books, pleaded with him not to become the sort of manga creator whose works would get denounced in […]
Books: Penguin Highway
By Jonathan Clements. “When I was in third grade, I spent September and October researching square things.” It is a typical statement from Aoyama, the super-serious pre-teen narrator of Tomihiko Morimi’s Penguin Highway. It is a comment of simple truth, but hints at statistical obsessions, an eidetic memory, and an inadvertent hint of recursive SF, […]
Kon on Perfect Blue
By Andrew Osmond. “Perfect Blue is a very twisted film. Please keep in mind that (this) will be my personal interpretation and it is not necessarily the right way to interpret the film.” So begins the video talk by director Satoshi Kon included on the Perfect Blue Ultimate Edition. Recorded around 2007, the video shows […]
K: Return of Kings
By Meghan Ellis. The colourful romp that is K project’s first series is a tough act to follow. But K: Return of Kings takes the task seriously, continuing the story from prequel movie K: Missing Kings and moving the conflict of the universe into its second stage. And with this escalation comes a bigger understanding […]
Kazuo Koike (1936-2019)
Kazuo Koike, who died on 17th April, was a man of many names. Born Yuzuru Tawaraya in what is now Daisen, Akita Prefecture, he died as Seishu Tawaraya, a Buddhist name, and wrote song lyrics as Fumihiko Azuma. But as a writer, it is the Koike pen-name that found him the greatest fame, in a […]