Article Archives: 2016

How to film Yoshiharu Tsuge's landmark work of surrealist comics? Leave it to master of weirdness Teruo Ishii, albeit with mixed results

Live-action adaptations of anime are arriving at a head-turning pace. Is that great news for fans, or a portent for a flood of mediocre cash-grabs to come?

Having a city slicker hit the sticks isn't an innovative story by itself, but 'Barakamon' has heart, humor, and some surprising insight into what makes creative people tick

Kazuo Koike's perennial manga classic was adapted for the big screen in this cycle of six pop-pulp masterpieces, where father and son slash, stab, shoot, and slice their way through hell

This riotous 19th-century memoir of a ne'er-do-well samurai's life and times, available in English, would lend itself wonderfully to an anime treatment

Few anime intended for mainstream consumption are this avowedly experimental; fewer still pull it off to the degree this one does

Japan has three pictures in the running for Best Animated Feature Film in this year's Oscars, with two others influenced by Japan. It's a shame none of them are likely to win

The looks: check. The action: check. The questions of identity: check. Now let's see how the rest holds up

How I almost folded Ganriki.org's tent, and how I decided against it

As an introduction to the newest FF universe, it's perfectly adequate; as drama and storytelling, it's serviceable; as a technology demo, it's a triumph - much like the other FF films before it

Covering an ongoing series can become an exercise in minutiae or futility. Here's the strategy I chose to keep my involvement active without also having it eat me alive

The follow-up from the director of 'King Of Pigs' is both more artistically accomplished and more emotionally scarring, an attempt to get us to care about someone who would otherwise never warrant our sympathy

This wild, stylish marriage of Gerry Anderson-style marionettes, wuxia cinema, and gnarly anime plotting may be tough to take in at first, but we all complained about big eyes and small mouths once upon a time

The return of Kentarō Miura's violent fantasy epic to the little screen brings with it a fidelity to its strong characterization and powerful story -- and a renewed appreciation of all that was problematic the first time

Steven Savage and Bonnie Walling's study of 'Sailor Moon' fandom documents the way the show transformed a generation of young women, and how they transformed it right back

Natsume Sōseki's unsentimental, heart-wrenching classic still hits hard a hundred years later; its Aoi Bungaku anime adaptation restructures it to intriguing if unsuccessful effect

A few short snippets won't provide us with the whole flavor of the live-action 'Ghost in the Shell' project, but they have given us some tea leaves worth reading

Twice filmed, and twice flawed in the filming, maybe the wise way to bring Frank Herbert's space (and spice) saga to the screen would be via an anime adaptation

Project Itoh's 'medi-pocalypse' dystopia is all the more poignant in the wake of the author's untimely death, with a glossy (if also icy) anime adaptation now to accompany it

When an anime title vanishes from streaming services, it hurts the works of the little guys far more than the big ones -- and it's often the little guys whose work most needs preserving

Ango Sakaguchi's classic story, a mix of 'farce, fable, and mystery' (and horror) is brought to life with outlandish style and color -- and always with one eye cocked towards its heart of darkness

If you're leery of shelling out tons of money for artbooks devoted to only Yoshitaka Amano's 'Final Fantasy' or 'Vampire Hunter D' work, you now have an affordable starting point for understanding the man's entire career

Tsutomu Nihei's debut manga is all industrial hellscapes, sudden violence, and science-fiction gloom -- and in those few things it's everything it needs to be

The second installment in Japan's foundational space opera de-emphasizes space war for civil war -- and for struggles within the spirits of the two main characters

Leiji Matsumoto's pulp action / space opera stories are really a kind of SF-tingled mythology; his 'Captain Harlock' successor, now out in English, is a fine example

Under the hood, we've been remaking Ganriki by way of an entirely new software platform, the basis for what we hope will be a faster, more immersive, and more engaging site

Label anything 'steampunk' and the label tends to take over, but this fantasy from the late lamented Project Itoh is about more than just clockworks and longcoats

Restored to its original psychedelic glory, this mad masterwork from Osamu Tezuka's studio goes from chic porn to feminist parable and everything in between

Unseen in English since its original 1991 release, this Isao Takahata/Studio Ghibli production was more than worth the wait, and not just for its name recognition

The new 'Berserk' is a welcome extension to the original TV series, but it doesn't come at the expense of the '97 original -- what could?

GAINAX's satire/mockumentary is fascinating as a time capsule from its moment in fandom history, but most of its insights are inadvertent -- that is, when it's not just being downright cruel

Mamoru Hosoda's new film starts as a predictable story of irreconcilable opposites forced to work together, but becomes something more ambitious and challenging -- and worth sticking with despite its narrative bumps

The first of the 'Aoi Bungaku' animated adaptations of classical Japanese literature is a keen, well-devised adaptation of Osamu Dazai's novel of downfall and decadence

Sion Sono's freeform rap-stravaganza adaptation of the hip-hop turf-war manga splits down the middle between being silly fun and being too mindless for its own good

Edogawa Rampo's 'erotic-grotesque' horror stories are remixed for the (post)modern day in this sinister, surreal, and colorful adventure

After 'Knights of Sidonia', Netflix and Polygon Pictures aim -- sucessfully -- for darker and harder-hitting territory

With all the anime/manga projects out there to choose from, why does Hollywood insist on choosing the ones that give it the biggest cultural difficulties?

In the end, all the 'Ghost in the Shell: ARISE' continuity has done is lead us right back where we started

Competent but ultimately tame, 'Dimension W' squanders an intriguing premise on a story that's more off-the-shelf than off-the-rails

You heard right - a Japanese live-action version of the now-classic manga and anime property is coming our way, with all kinds of interesting implications in tow

Mamoru Oshii's live-action project is a sad misfire -- ponderous, pretentious, and worst of all, nothing he hasn't done before (and done better, too)

Available at last in English after decades of anticipation, this broad-gauge space opera doesn't require the justification of its fans to be considered worth the wait

A sprawling anime answer to 'Watchmen', with all of the ambition -- and all of the shortcomings -- implied by such a thing

Used properly, Kickstarter can benefit big and small outfits alike, and Funimation's project for a new 'Escaflowne' dub is using crowdfunding in an intelligent and targeted way

This one-shot side project from Kentarō ('Berserk') Miura promised an entirely different universe from that magnum opus. It's a shame we probably won't ever seen any more of it

The animated version of Kenji Miyazawa's fable isn't just a Classics Illustrated; it finds a voice of its own with which to tell its story of eternity and afterlife

What kind of story is best told in a short form versus over the long haul?

After his samurai body-horror epic 'Blade of the Immortal', Hiroaki Samura now gives us a Nikkatsu-style, pulp-inflected action fable

A new animated version of 'AKIRA', one that treats the entirety of the original story, would be far more welcome than a misconceived live-action version -- and wouldn't ding the reputation of the original movie, either

Osamu Tezuka's beloved creation was more than just kid's stuff; it was machine-age mythology for young and old alike

On the benefits of anime featuring adult characters -- even if it isn't anime for an adult audience

A pivotal inspiration for Tarantino's 'Kill Bill', this violent revenge tale brings us an anti-heroine who's as much of an outsider for being a woman as she is for being an assassin

Freshly translated into English, Nisioisin's novel of vampires and hapless human thralls is catnip for fans of his 'Monogatari' series, but everyone else faces an uphill climb