Tag: Jonathan Clements

September 12, 2023 · 0 comments

The manga artist Buichi Terasawa, who died on 8th September, enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame in the 1980s, becoming popular just as his particular brand of lurid, violent sci-fi formed the fuel for the early 1990s boom in adult anime. He was born plain Takeichi Terasawa in Hokkaido – he would use the alternate […]

August 22, 2023 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. In a bold move that you could only get away with in the days of video, the final episode of Gunbuster is shot in stark black and white, coming across like an old war movie. Depending on which version you’re watching, you might also miss the sudden switch to widescreen… after all, […]

August 20, 2023 · 0 comments

The background artist Nizo Yamamoto, who died on 19th August, spent his whole life working in the Japanese animation sector. Born on the Goto islands in Nagasaki Prefecture, he developed an interest in painting and architecture at school before studying at the Tokyo Designer Gakuin. He was not yet out of college when he found […]

August 12, 2023 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. The title of the fifth episode of Gunbuster derives directly from Robert Heinlein’s 1973 novel Time Enough for Love, which ironically had very little to do with time dilation. It was, in fact an exploration of, among other things, immortality, longevity, incest, polyamory and time travel, but ultimately kept returning to romance […]

August 6, 2023 · 1 comment

By Jonathan Clements. There’s a moment in Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle (2021), early in the film, where his heroine is standing on a giant floating whale loaded with huge speakers, belting out a song as she drifts through a future city. It looks suitably iconic, and I was sure that it was a reference to Macross: […]