Culture
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‘A force of nature who took no prisoners’: a tribute to Ninja Gaiden creator Tomonobu Itagaki
The driving force behind Team Ninja was a game development samurai who almost always won his battlesGame desig…
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Gary Karr obituary
Four years after retiring in 2001, the double bassist Gary Karr, accompanied by Harmon Lewis, added a farewell…
- Japan, MANGA, Comics and graphic novels, Crime films, Science fiction and fantasy films, World news, Asia Pacific, Books, Anime, Culture, Animation in film, Film
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…
- Teen movies, Japan, Drama films, Science fiction and fantasy films, World news, Asia Pacific, Culture, Film
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…
- Music, Pop and rock, Japan, World news, Asia Pacific, Anime, Games, Culture, Animation in film, Film
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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Author Rie Qudan: Why I used ChatGPT to write my prize-winning novel
Sympathy Tower Tokyo attracted controversy for being partly written using AI. Does its author think the techno…
- 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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Wild swimming and TikTok dances: Hiroshima today – in pictures
Aya Fujioka set out to shake the weight of history from her home city and capture her own relationship with it…
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What Happened at Hiroshima review – this rushed, flimsy look at a world-changing atrocity isn’t good enough
Thirty minutes simply isn’t enough time to do justice to such a colossal event. Let’s hope the BBC have someth…
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Kamikaze: An Untold History review – a bewilderingly brutal act of collective desperation recalled
Japan’s deployment of kamikaze pilots to bomb US ships in the Pacific during the second world war killed almos…
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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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‘Beautiful form isn’t enough’: National Ballet of Japan – picture essay
Photographer David Levene gained access to the ballet company as they prepared for Ballet Coffret, ahead of a …
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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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‘As thrilling as driving a sports car’: the Tokyo capsule tower that gave pod-living penthouse chic
They had portholes, cutting edge mod cons – and the ultra luxurious models even came with a free calculator. A…
- History books, Japan, Nuclear weapons, Asia Pacific, Second world war, Books, Weapons technology, Culture, US military, Science
‘You don’t brag about wiping out 60‑70,000 people’: the men who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
This summer will mark 80 years since the attacks stunned the world. Today, every one of the crew members who c…
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From Street Fighter to Final Fantasy: Yoko Shimomura, the composer who put the classical in gaming’s classics
With a four-decade career beginning at Capcom in the 8-bit era, Shimomura is one of the most acclaimed names i…
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Yoshitomo Nara review: cutesy terrors swear, smoke, play guitar and burn down houses
Hayward Gallery, LondonThe Japanese artist’s instantly recognisable delinquent infants fill a huge show that a…
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Embroidered silks to Adidas collabs: the evolution of the kimono – in pictures
Opening on 4 June, the National Gallery of Victoria’s (NGV) exhibition Kimono features hundreds of garments, p…
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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…