A couple who met briefly in Manchuria are reunited in Kobe but find their joy short-lived amid the vagaries of the post-war society in Kon Ichikawa’s tragic romance.
Dec 26, 2023 • Subscribe
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365 Nights (三百六十五夜, Kon Ichikawa, 1948)
A noble architect’s life is ruined by an obsessive stalker in Kon Ichikawa’s stylish though improbably post-war melodrama.


The Phoenix (火の鳥, Kon Ichikawa, 1978)
The people of early Japan contemplate different visions of immortality in Kon Ichikawa’s sprawling adaptation of the first chapter in Osamu Tezuka’s manga series.


Tokyo Lullaby (東京夜曲, Jun Ichikawa, 1997)
A meditation on lost love and middle-aged regret, Jun Ichikawa’s Tokyo Lullaby weaves a melancholy path through a lonely city but finds in it a sense of comfort…


Being Two Isn’t Easy (私は二歳, Kon Ichikawa, 1962)
A wise child critiques the post-war society in Kon Ichikawa’s charmingly surreal familial drama.
Junpaku no yoru / 純白の夜/ (‘Pure White Nights’, 1951)
Obscure Japanese Film #161 Michiyo Kogure Ikuko (Michiyo Kogure) is a young woman happily married to Tsunehiko (Seizaburo Kawazu), a banke...


The House of Hanging (病院坂の首縊りの家, Kon Ichikawa, 1979)
A legacy of familial trauma engulfs a once noble house in Kindaichi’s final and most complicated case


Mari and Mari (彼女来来, Tatsuya Yamanishi, 2021)
A self-involved casting director experiences romantic and existential crisis when his girlfriend is replaced by another woman in Yamanishi’s eerie indie drama
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Mari and Mari 彼女来来 (2021) Director: Tatsuya Yamanishi [Japan Cuts 2021]
Mari and Mari 彼女来来 (2021) Director: Tatsuya Yamanishi [Japan Cuts 2021]


Otakon-kon-kon: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for August 2021
For better or worse, I’ve decided to attend Otakon 2021 this year. And barring an even more devastating report about COVID-19 and the delta variant than what’s already…


Brief Thoughts On: Luger Code 1951
Luger Code 1951 is an alternate history action anime with design work by Medaka Box creator Akira Akatsuki.


Repast (めし, Mikio Naruse, 1951)
An unhappily married woman fed up with the drudgery of her existence considers other options but finally concludes there are none in Naruse’s bleak melodrama


Kaikisen by Kon Satoshi
Right now, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art and the Japan Information & Culture Center are doing a “virtual film festival” of Satoshi Kon’s groundbreaking …
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Once a year Baltimore opens her arms wide to welcome the Otaku of the world. This year, on the 20th anniversary Otakon, her arms were open even wider.…
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Storyboarding Like Satoshi Kon
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OPUS by Kon Satoshi
I got my final schedule for the Chicago WorldCon and squeed a little bit when I found out that I made it on to the Satoshi Kon retrospective…


Away to A-Kon!
Convention season is in full swing! That means we’ll be heading out as a staff to cover several of the conventions (and a film festival, too?) this summer…


No Life King (ノーライフキング, Jun Ichikawa, 1989)
The real and the virtual begin to blur for a generation of “new children” raised as digital natives in Jun Ichikawa’s prescient childhood adventure.


Thousand and One Nights (千夜、一夜, Nao Kubota, 2022)
Two women are united by the search for answers in the disappearances of their husbands but take very different paths in Nao Kubota’s melancholy tale of unanswerable longing.


Stone Flower
Stone Flower Manga Chapter 15-4 Manga Chapter Summary: The chapter begins with an old man sitting by a pool of water; a…
Oni to Yoake Yuzikiyo (鬼と夜明け 夕月夜)
While shopping in random bookstores in Japan at the end of last year I kept seeing book,s with girls in school uniforms wielding swords. I did that thing…


It Comes (来る, Tetsuya Nakashima, 2018)
The “perfect” life of a superficial salaryman is disrupted by vengeful spirits in Tetsuya Nasahima’s anarchic horror movie.


The Idiot (白痴, Akira Kurosawa, 1951)
A pure soul is destroyed by the selfishness and duplicity of the post-war society in Kurosawa’s snowbound adaptation of the Dostoyevsky novel.


Don't Be Like E-kon.
Time to kick things into high gear. Link to video I'm talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eCRLuIpg1w Discord Server: https://discord.gg/w7kQBdV Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uzcPESjbfw Otogizoushi OP2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI4QXh2eIYo Ghost Slayers Ayashi OP1
PROJECT L-KON June 1994
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Tokyo Godfathers and Satoshi Kon
While it may not have the same strange atmosphere of his other acclaimed works, “Tokyo Godfathers” is still a fantastic film.


Review: Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist
French director Pascal-Alex Vincent found himself with a difficult question. What more is there to say that hasn't already been said about a director whose work stands as…


Convention Adventures: Naka-Kon 2021!
Today’s post is a little different than what I usually post! This time around I applied to be part of the press at Naka-Kon, an anime convention located…


夜神月 (Yagami Light)
Who is Yagami Light? Yagami Light is a highly intelligent and ambitious high school student who discovers the Death Note, a supernatural notebook that allows its user to…
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Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist (Satoshi Kon, l’illusionniste, Pascal-Alex Vincent, 2021) [Fantasia 2021]
Pascal-Alex Vincent paints an enigmatic picture of the late Perfect Blue director


Flower and Asura
Flower and Asura is currently streaming on HIDIVE on Tuesdays.....


It Comes 来る (2018) Director: Tetsuya Nakashima
It Comes 来る Director: Tetsuya Nakashima


World Apartment Horror by Kon Satoshi
World Apartment Horror was a weird one, and that’s saying a lot for Kon Satoshi-sensei. SPOILERS . . . . World Apartment Horror is an anthology of shorts,…


How Satoshi Kon Storyboarded 'Millennium Actress'
Ambition on a tight budget.


The Lost Projects of Satoshi Kon
Unmade animation, a video game and more.


A-Kon 31 (2022): Remembering Community
Anime conventions aren’t about the guests, bands, contests, merch, or even cosplay. They’re about relationships. While the festivities are the impetus in bringing otaku together, servin…


Seiyuu Highlights: Wakato Matsumoto 松本 和香子
Otherwise known by her stage name as Kujira (くじら) She's a really well known voice actress who portrays many roles of middle aged women in anime. Support me through…


True Mothers (朝が来る, Naomi Kawase, 2020)
Adoptive parents face a moment of crisis after receiving a message from a woman claiming to be their son’s birth mother in Kawase’s hugely empathetic family drama


Miss Oyu (お遊さま, Kenji Mizoguchi, 1951)
Oppressive social codes and repressed desire provoke a tragic love triangle in Mizoguchi’s adaptation of the story by Tanizaki.


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“A ‘seductive’ nihilistic masterpiece that explores the unescapable subjective problems created by the rhythmic capitalistic machinery.”
Phoenix: Reminiscence of Flower
By Jonathan Clements. On a distant, desiccated planet wistfully named Eden, colonists George (Yosuke Kubozuka) and Romi (Rie Miyazawa) play at being Adam and Eve. They have a…


Kana Hanazawa as Red Blood Cells 花澤 香菜
When 'Cells of Work' Seiyuus cosplaying as their 'Cells of Work' characters. Credit: TikTok @aniplex_official@AniplexUSA


Love After Love (第一炉香, Ann Hui, 2020)
A naive young woman’s path from besotted teen to tortured yet masterful courtesan amid the colonial realities of pre-war Hong Kong is elegantly charted in Ann Hui’s stately…


A-Kon 2022 Lolita Fashion Tea Party
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It Walks By Night / 夜歩く
It Walks By Night is an awful book that no one should read. This isn’t going to be a roast, because it’s not that kind of awful,…


Nanayo (七夜待, Naomi Kawase, 2008)
A young woman travels to Thailand in search of herself but discovers the traumatic legacies of colonialism and the inefficiency of language as a tool for communication in…


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Learn Japanese with Me - https://bit.ly/4drmyU2


Uyanotsuki, Volume 1 ( 雨夜の月)
Saki loves piano. Or does she? She loves taking lessons with her teacher, she’s sure of that. But her teacher is leaving… In Uyanotsuki, Volume 1 ( 雨夜の月),…