A talking balsam flower asks an elderley yakuza to weigh up a life of violence and kindness in Baku Kinoshita’s quietly contemplative taleAn original story from director Baku Kinoshita and writer Kazuya Konomoto, this is the kind of quiet, contemplativ…
Takeshi Koike’s latest take on Monkey Punch’s vintage manga thief is beautifully animated, but the gossamer-thin plot and characterisation mean it’s one for superfans onlyCreated by manga artist Kazuhiko Katō, AKA Monkey Punch, Lupin the IIIrd has live…
Dazzling rotoscoped running sequences make up for a lack of narrative subtlety in Kenji Iwaisawa’s filmMuch has been written about the act of running, a therapeutic exercise with the potential for cathartic release. Within the context of professional s…
In the first of a film trilogy, teenage Tanjiro seeks vengeance for his murdered family in what is a great taste of things to comeThe first part of a trilogy that will conclude the massively popular anime series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, this lat…
Melancholy documentary follows the owner of a ‘night moving’ business in Japan, helping people abandon their own lives‘Johatsu” means evaporation in Japanese, and is used to refer to those people who choose to disappear, severing all ties with their pa…
Three adolescent misfits form a band in this luminous feature from Liz and the Blue Bird director Naoko YamadaAs sensitive as ever to teenagers’ growing pains, animator and director Naoko Yamada paints an exquisite rainbow of adolescent blues in this g…
The latest outing for the high school sleuth sees him join forces with his arch enemy, a master thief. Despite some flashes of brilliance, the script soon becomes convolutedWith its ingenious murder mysteries and thrilling solutions, Case Closed – also…
Popular manga characters receive their first film adaptation as they seek out a villainous colonel and an elusive dessert, brought off with great style by director Takashi KatagiriAfter a successful TV adaptation, the popular characters of the bestsell…
A sublime score from Hiromi Uehara drives this coming-of-age-anime, which brings three young jazz musicians to life with spectacular imageryIs jazz dead? Yuzuru Tachikawa’s Blue Giant certainly begs to differ. Following three 18-year-old boys who dogge…
Existential quandaries meet expressionist monsters in Takahide Hori’s dystopian worldEnvisioning a dystopian future where humans inch closer to immortality while losing the ability to procreate, Takahide Hori’s stop-motion adventure journeys through a …
Director Ayumu Watanabe navigates the growing pains of a young girl, coping with life on a houseboat with her mother and the tragicomic dramas of school lifeCompared to the cosmically grand anime Children of the Sea, Ayumu Watanabe’s new film is a more…
Two grandees of Japanese animation adapt a Nahoko Uehashi fantasy novel that covers too much ground to take flightA key animator on numerous classics including Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Your Name, Masashi Ando teams up with Masayuki Miyaji, …
A laboured recap and unsettling romance frustrates a potentially engrossing plot in a coda that might be offputting to newcomers and the fanbase alikeA coda to a hugely popular manga and anime series, Fruits Basket: Prelude steps away from the supernat…
Takayuki Hirao’s animated feature is set in the fictional Nyallywood, where a B-movie producer in pigtails and a sailor dress takes on a serious-minded film about ageing, art and lossBoth the glamour and the difficulties of film-making are covered in T…
This masterful coming-of-age tale sees the process of coming to terms with past traumas through a horror-fantasy lensIn a world where malicious thoughts and dark memories can morph into fearsome monsters that wreak havoc on society, the future of the h…