Recent posts tagged Japan
2021
My Road To Ichimonji Keep
How Akira Kurosawa's RAN changed my life.
Why The Force Isn't With Me Anymore
I didn't leave Star Wars. Star Wars left me. And not in the way you might think.
2018
Chaos Reigns
Akira Kurosawa's Ran is currently running on Mubi. See it.
2016
Aoi no Ue (Jōji Yuasa)
The first of a series of records by Edition Omega Point that explores the undeservedly unheard Japanese avant-garde.
2015
R100
Hitoshi Matsumoto's latest cinematic shaggy-dog story willfully goes up blind alleys, but that's no reason to follow along.
2014
Liberation and Ecstasy (Vasilisk)
Japan's underground tribal unit didn't record much, but the best of its moments are here in one convenient place.
2013
Bushido (Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai) (Bushidō zankoku monogatari)
The cruel cost of the samurai code, across the generations.
Samuraiera (Various Artists / Kaoru Inoue)
A fistful of "lost grooves from the land of the Rising Sun."
Something I Never Knew I Wanted Dept.
Why, as a fan, sometimes it's best not to get just what you want.
Gate of Hell
One of the best films of 2013 appears to have been made in 1954, and has now been lovingly restored for the ages.
Paradise Kiss Vols. 2-3 (Ai Yazawa)
A genre-transcending romance reaches its conclusion and ennobles itself in the process.
Hara-Kiri (2012)
Takashi Miike's remake of this austere '60s samurai classic is well-made and watchable, but why remake perfection?
Death Of An Iconoclast Dept.
Nagisa Oshima (most notorious for In the Realm of the Senses) has died at the age of 80. I wonder whether or not someone of his cage-rattling importance will be able to step up to the plate in his absence....
Spice Of Life Dept.
Yasutaka Tsutsui's Paprika is now out domestically
2012
The 10th Level Dept.
Spontaneous creativity is a grail for creators, but what precisely is in that particular cup?
For The Girls (And The Boys, Too) Dept.
Let's see some live-action anime projects in the West that are shojo stories.
Flowers of Evil, Vol. 3 (Shuzo Oshimi)
A further tightening of the screws, and maybe the first step in the next direction for this story.
Paradise Kiss, Part One (Ai Yazawa)
What makes a story that's nominally a romance into something a little deeper and more insightful? The idea that the characters want to be more than overgrown children, for one.
Limit Vol. 1 (Keiko Suenobu)
The cost of conformity, explored in a ''Lord of the Flies''-style manga scenario.
Pro Bono (Seicho Matsumoto)
It all starts when near-penniless Kiriko makes the trip to Tokyo to enlist the help of lawyer Kinzo Otsuka. Kiriko is a hapless woman trying to scrape together a legal defense for her brother; he stands accused of a murder...
Sakuran: Blossoms Wild (Moyoco Anno)
The anti-"Memoirs of a Geisha". Moyoco Anno's manga, source for the film of the same name, is a brassy and sassy tribute to a milieu that often only gets the sleeve-wringing weepie treatment.
A Guru Is Born (Takeshi Kitano)
"Beat" Takeshi Kitano's novel about religion and hypocrisy is a quiet little masterwork that invites multiple readings and interpretations.
The Flowers of Evil, Vol. 2 (Shuzo Oshimi)
Further adventures in antisocial dating, in this sharp little psych-thriller series.
Enma the Immortal (Fumi Nakamura)
What seems at first glance like a "Blade of the Immortal" clone is anything but.
The Flowers of Evil, Vol. #1 (Shuzo Oshimi)
First installment in this diabolical manga series about a high schooler's psychological torment at the hands of a female classmate.
