Film
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Cosmic Princess Kaguya! review – trippy anime adapted from Japanese folk dives into virtual reality popworld
Emojis explode all over the screen in this hyperactive adaptation of a Japanese folk tale about a princess who…
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Rental Family review – Brendan Fraser seeks meaning in pointless Japanese role-play drama
Fraser plays a hapless Tokyo-based actor working for a firm that offers bespoke therapeutic role-play services…
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Escape review – notorious Japanese revolutionary tells story of country’s most wanted criminal
Director Masao Adachi – formerly of the Japanese Red Army – on the infamous Satoshi Kirishima, who went on the…
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Demon Slayer economics: how the anime juggernaut became a saviour
Once underground art form now props up slumped box office sales and is used by governments to build soft power…
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Moving: an elegant portrait of 90s Japan through tweenage eyes
In this hypnotic, meditative film, a family’s breakdown sets a 12-year-old girl’s coming-of-age in motion as s…
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Tatsuya Nakadai obituary
One of the greatest actors of Japanese cinema best known for Ran, the 1985 film adaptation of King LearThough …
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Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution review – spectacular if baffling anime is out to thrill and bewilder
Remix of old and new material from TV series includes tremendous battle sequences but there’s an awful lot of …
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Tatsuya Nakadai, Japanese actor of Ran, Yojimbo and Harakiri, dies aged 92
Star of Japan’s cinematic golden age, who collaborated with Kurosawa and played the lead in Kobayashi’s Human …
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100 Meters review – mesmerising anime of young athletes in search of physical and spiritual high
Dazzling rotoscoped running sequences make up for a lack of narrative subtlety in Kenji Iwaisawa’s filmMuch ha…
- Japan, MANGA, Comics and graphic novels, Science fiction and fantasy films, World news, Asia Pacific, Books, Anime, Culture, Animation in film, Film
Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc review – gore-soaked demonic anime squats in the manopshere
Tatsuki Fujimoto’s coming-of-age saga continues with a surreal encounter with a chainsaw-wielding demon living…
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Detective Conan: One-Eyed Flashback review – anime sleuth wades through a bamboozling bureaucratic maze
A labyrinthine but lively 28th instalment of the hit manga series juggles byzantine intrigue, spies and cop ri…
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Happyend review – Orwellian Japanese high-school drama is brilliantly dystopian
Teen romance and paranoid surveillance collide to dysfunctional effect in Neo Sora’s beguiling debut future se…
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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle review – battle anime brings the visual flair
In the first of a film trilogy, teenage Tanjiro seeks vengeance for his murdered family in what is a great tas…
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Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing review – candy-haired popsters put on a show
A garbled story of metaverse musicians based on a mobile game leaves its audience little to grasp hold ofEven …
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Wolf Children review – Mamoru Hosoda’s tender werewolf fable is a minor masterpiece
Childhood, single motherhood and the call of the wild converge in Hosoda’s most emotionally resonant film – a …
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Summer Wars review – Mamoru Hosoda’s birthday party anime puts the world at risk from AI baddie
This thriller-cum-family drama is a cut above genre anime with narrative complexity, bravura imagery and a met…
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Super Happy Forever review – glowing love story in reverse with echoes of Before Sunrise
In this beautifully acted film, a man returns to the Japanese seaside town where he met and fell in love with …
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Ghibli’s midlife crisis: as beloved Japanese studio turns 40 will the magic fade?
Much of Studio Ghibli’s success is down to one man: 84-year-old Hayao Miyazaki, a master animator whose presen…
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Vampire Hunter D review – head-popping visuals offset very pre-MeToo erotic anime
Regarded as pioneering on its release in 1985, this sleazy tale’s sexual politics are long past-it, but the vi…
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‘I had a chance to pass my mum’s story on’: Kazuo Ishiguro on growing up in shadow of the Nagasaki bomb
The film version of A Pale View of Hills, the Nobel-winner’s tale of loss, exile and a pregnant radioactive br…