Film
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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 …
- Japan, Science fiction and fantasy films, Family, Life and style, World news, Asia Pacific, Anime, Culture, Animation in film, Film
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…
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Cloud review – bizarre internet action thriller descends into hail of bullets
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s baffling crime farrago follows a cyber fraudster pursued by an angry gang of disappointed s…
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Kaiju No 8: Mission Recon review – the fury and rawness of battle as monsters keep coming
A high school-style training academy is the setting for Tomomi Kamiya and Shigeyuki Miya’s punky anime tale of…
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The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru review – British wartime tragedy told with potent empathy
This enthralling Chinese documentary about the torpedoing of a Japanese freighter carrying 1,816 British PoWs …
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Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods review – classic anime has cosmic charm
An anniversary edition of the 2013 martial arts animation is light on bombast, funny and mischievousHere is a …
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Johatsu review – poignant account of Japan’s ‘voluntarily disappeared’
Melancholy documentary follows the owner of a ‘night moving’ business in Japan, helping people abandon their o…
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Cottontail review – life lessons are learnt in tender, Beatrix Potter-inspired tale
A Japanese man journeys to the Lake District to honour his late wife, testing his relationship with his son in…
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The Colors Within review – musical teen anime is a synaesthetic joy
Three adolescent misfits form a band in this luminous feature from Liz and the Blue Bird director Naoko Yamada…