The Tale of Kaho, out in July, will be 16th novel by Japanese author who has faced criticism for portrayal of womenThe Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami will publish his first novel to feature a woman as the main character this summer.The Tale of Kaho …
Kei Ishikawa’s take on Ishiguro’s first published work is frustrating and bland, undermining its fascinating characters’ emotional truthsKazuo Ishiguro has long been a subtle and potent figure in the movies, with his distinctively Anglo-Japanese melanc…
The normally great director misses the mark with a wonderfully animated but narratively clunky retelling of the Shakespearean stapleFilm versions of Hamlet are the new buses; you wait for ages for one, then three come along all at once: first Hamnet, t…
Those not up to speed on the Miss Kobayashi manga may struggle with the full nuance of this dimension hopping anime, but the visuals are stunningly to look atYou know fantasy has a different constituency these days when, at a pivotal point in this cand…
New version of the sci-fi day-on-repeat sees a perplexed duo repeatedly battle monstrous plants but leaves you feeling as bored as the protagonist appearsThe second film adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s 2004 eponymous novel, this new one is considera…
Based on a 2000 novella, this sweet animation follows a young girl who wakes from a vegetative state on the verge of feral, but begins to bond with others after an intervention by her grandmother This tender and sweet animation from film-makers Maïlys …
Based on a real-life case of a teacher charged with abusing a child, Japan’s master of the extreme doesn’t sit on the fence in this two-sided retellingTakashi Miike, Japan’s maestro of the extreme, now takes on a relatively sedate and mainstream genre:…
Remix of old and new material from TV series includes tremendous battle sequences but there’s an awful lot of lore for new viewers to catch up withHere’s an unusual proposition: a film that opens with a kind of super-edit, cutting together chunks culle…
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…
Tatsuki Fujimoto’s coming-of-age saga continues with a surreal encounter with a chainsaw-wielding demon living in a teenager’s soulShortly after last month’s Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle – confirmed last weekend as the highest-grossing anime feature o…
A labyrinthine but lively 28th instalment of the hit manga series juggles byzantine intrigue, spies and cop rivalries with stylish flairBy the time a suave law enforcer from the Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center turns up near the end to join collea…
Sympathy Tower Tokyo attracted controversy for being partly written using AI. Does its author think the technology could write a better novel than a human?“I don’t feel particularly unhappy about my work being used to train AI,” says Japanese novelist …
This summer will mark 80 years since the attacks stunned the world. Today, every one of the crew members who carried out the bombings is dead. Here, one of the last writers to interview them reopens his files‘It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shi…
The film version of A Pale View of Hills, the Nobel-winner’s tale of loss, exile and a pregnant radioactive bride, is about to premiere at Cannes. The writer explains why this story is so personal to himKazuo Ishiguro still remembers where he was when …
A Japanese prayer scroll dating back more than 1,250 years has been acquired by the State Library of Victoria and will feature alongside other rare books items in an exhibition later this monthGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailOne of the world…
The Convenience Store Woman author is renowned for challenging social norms in darkly weird near-future fiction. She discusses sex, feminism and her struggles to be an ‘ordinary earthling’“I have had relationships with humans, but I’ve also loved a&nbs…
He gained fame in Japan posting surreal videos of meat, veg and even ears. Then he tried writing – and soon had three bestsellers in the Top 10. As one now reaches the English-speaking world, we meet the faceless phenomenonHidden behind a white papier-…
In striving to understand Japanese books and comics, I’ve adopted the habits of a weightlifter: I find my comfort zone then push beyond itMind your language: how learning French helped me remove the condom from the wineI’d been learning Japanese on and…
The poet also wrote the lyrics for the Astro Boy theme song and translated Peanuts into JapaneseShuntaro Tanikawa, who pioneered modern Japanese poetry, poignant but conversational in its divergence from haiku and other traditions, has died aged 92.Tan…
Almost every day for the past five years, the Kanagawa-born artist Lito has drawn an image on to a leaf – usually a jaunty scene from the animal world involving, say, a biker-dude rabbit or a frog in a phone box – and carved it out with a scalpel befor…