Obits 22
Asei Kobayashi (1932-2021)
Asei Kobayashi, who died on 30th May from a heart attack, was an unlikely candidate for musical composer, or actor, or game-show champion…. Pushed by his parents into studying to be a doctor, he transferred without telling them to the department of economics at Keio University, where his classmates included another future composer, Isao Tomita. […]
Kentaro Miura (1966-2021)
“When you’re a cartoonist and working at home you sit at your desk pretty much all day,” Kentaro Miura once said in an interview. “You get most of your information about the world from the news on TV. I think that’s how most cartoonists spend their days. And then I start to see the whole […]
Yasuo Otsuka (1931-2021)
The animator Yasuo Otsuka’s death today at the age of 89 was announced by Toshio Suzuki, the former president of Studio Ghibli. That felt only fitting, for while Otsuka had no credits on Studio Ghibli’s films, he was fundamental to the anime leading up to them over more than two decades, from Lupin to Chie […]
Amy Howard Wilson (1955-2021)
It was the day of the big university oral examination, and the unnamed student was understandably flustered when the phone rang. When she picked up, there was a deep, sonorous voice at the other end, a woman she had never met but who still somehow sounded familiar. She introduced herself as Amy Howard Wilson, the […]
Nobuhiko Obayashi & Hanagatami
By Jasper Sharp. Hanagatami (2017) has to be among the most important Japanese films of the last 20 years. This sweeping, emotive and flamboyant tale of love and friendship among a group of six college-age teenagers whose lives are about to be changed irrevocably by WW2 is an undisputable masterpiece for Nobuhiko Obayashi, a filmmaker […]