Fellow collectors alerted me last month about the second boxset of Yonetani Yoshitomo's anime Food Wars!, saying it looked outrageous. It did, so I started collecting the series. So far, it's been very amusing. I could have done without all...
Ah, Evangelion... sigh. Its series and films are rightfully the stuff of legends. I tried to write a short overview of the franchise's history, when the first of the fou... Wait. That's what I wrote over two years ago already....
There is little in the way of nostalgia, or classic video game tropes on display in this Kaiju-infused Japanese key art for Rampage. I cannot tell if it is hand-painted or digital mimicry, but it seems quite fitting for the...
The animated series A.I.C.O.: Incarnation, which premiered on Netflix worldwide on March 9, 2018, is terrific. Produced by Japanese studio Bones, directed by Murata Kazuya, and written by Nomura Yuuichi, the series is filled with nicely-choreographed action, while also taking...
Recently, I've been sampling a few non-English series from the past year or so that are available on Netflix. Are any sufficiently intriguing to justify the time investment to binge-watch them in their entirety? Have you seen any less-heralded shows...
Here's one fantastic way to avoid charges of whitewashing: just don't do it. A film adaptation of Arakawa Hiromu's Fullmetal Alchemist, directed by Sori Fumihiko, was released in Japanese theaters on December 1, 2017. Now it's arrived as a "Netflix...
When one mentions Iranian cinema, the names that most often come to mind are such directors as the late Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, and Asghar Farhadi. More knowlegedable aficionados may also be able to mention such filmmakers as Mohsen Makhmalbaf,...
Curated by its esteemed editors, Film Comment magazine's 18th edition of Film Comment Selects returns to Lincoln Center. A great mix of old and new cinematic gold, this year's lineup includes Ildikó Enyedi’s Berlinale Golden Bear-winner On Body and Soul;...
Blood in the snow and negative space are on order for this quad-style Japanese poster for adaptation of Misumisou (or its floral english title, Hepatica Nobilis). The manga was published from 2007 to 2009 and essayed a hyper-violent horror-revenge story...
The Year of the Dog doesn’t kick off until this Friday, so technically it is not yet the end of the year, and I’m prepared to argue this point until I’m blue in the face. But who am I kidding?...
Also: Jack Black's serio-comic The Polka King and must-see Irish thriller Bad Day for the Cut. Is it just me, or do January's new offerings on streaming services feel ... er, kinda non-essential? Expectations may play a bigger role this...
Another year over, and what an annus horribilis it proved to be in so many ways. But away from the political atrocities that took place in pretty much every country you care to mention, and the sexual harassment scandals that...
(Stacked... get it? Hurhur...) Hanging somewhere between mainstream anime and hardcore pornography "hentai" is the large grey area called "ecchi", which has timid fan-service on one side and full-out softcore sex on the other side. And like with their live-action...
Between Christmas and New Year's Eve, it is a slow news cycle, and few film companies are debuting their key art. So, at the risk of hijacking Mack's wonderful one-sheet posts on our Instagram feed, here is the colourful Thailand...
Over the past decades, the animators at Studio 4˚C have been cultivating a reputation for releasing anime which is often edgy, arty, and risky. Ten years ago, the Studio facilitated "Project Genius", an anthology of short anime films by a...
Last September saw the Camera Japan Festival arrive in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and as usual it brought good food, good films, good music and a good atmosphere. As with many festivals, audiences were allowed to rate the films, and a...
(And it looks great enough to jump out of a bath for...) Scottish distributor Anime Limited has made a habit out of releasing pimped editions of several beloved older anime series (cough) (COUGH), and recently they announced they'd give Kyōda...
A year-and-a-bit ago, Shinkai Makoto's Your Name was released in Japan. It struck the box office like a meteorite, sending financial shockwaves all over the world. Depending on which (ac)counting method you use, it is either ONE of the highest-grossing...
To call Japanese director Miike Takashi prolific can be considered an understatement; in a slow year he'll just make perhaps 3 films and a television series. When he's on a run he'll make as many as seven films in a...
While the anime industry seemed to be in a rut for the last few years, desperately looking for new star directors to emerge, recently there has been no shortage of great adult-oriented films. Shinkai Makoto's Your Name broke all records,...
