The ruins of a firebombed city become a purgatorial space haunted by the tortured souls who cannot escape the traumatic wartime past in Shinya Tsukamoto’s eerie voyage through post-war Japan
Feb 25, 2024 • Subscribe
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Vital (ヴィタール, Shinya Tsukamoto, 2004)
An amnesiac medical student attempts to rediscover the path to life while dissecting death in Shinya Tsukamoto’s raw examination of grief and loss.
A Shinya Tsukamoto Release Double-Bill Courtesy of Third Window Films on September 30th: “Tokyo Fist” and “Shadow of Fire”
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Hiruko the Goblin (ヒルコ／妖怪ハンター, Shinya Tsukamoto, 1991)
A professor and his nephew battle ancient evil deep underground in Shinya Tsukamoto’s anarchic genre romp adapted from the manga by Daijiro Morohoshi
Ashima (Kenji Tsukamoto, 2023)
A teenage rock climber wrestles with the pressures of parental expectation and early fame in Kenji Tsukamoto’s probing documentary.
Image of a Mother (母のおもかげ, Hiroshi Shimizu, 1959)
A little boy’s difficulties in accepting his new stepmother express an anxiety about the changing nature of the family in Hiroshi Shimizu’s familial melodrama.
I Am What I Am (そばかす, Shinya Tamada, 2022)
A young woman uninterested in sexual relationships struggles to find acceptance in a conservative society defined by marriage in Shinya Tamada’s empathetic drama.
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Hoyaman (さよなら ほやマン, Teruaki Shoji, 2023)
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You sure about that? - How to Japanese - September 2024
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When I reviewed Volume 6 I said of that volume that it was like a fever finally breaking. “You don’t feel “good,” per se, but you feel better,…
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Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana, Volume 6 (付き合ってあげてもいいかな)
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A middle-aged man tries to make up for lost time by becoming more of himself but is more often than not rebuffed in a gentle character study from…
The Eminence in Shadow – 04 – World of Shadow
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Shinya Shokudou / Midnight Dinfooder by Abe Yaro
A friend of mine recently reminded me of the Netflix live-action show Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories that I watched years ago.When we were chatting I expressed surprise that…
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light Switch Port: My Raw Random Thoughts
Editor’s Note: This is a collection of notes I’ve written down in my notebook about my thoughts of the Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of…
Yuri Manga: Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana, Volume 3 (付き合ってあげてもいいかな)
2020 marks an interesting new phase for me in regards to Yuri manga. Because there are so many more comics about adult women, written for adults, my specific…
Is This Heaven? (天国か、ここ？, Shinji Imaoka, 2023)
A middle-aged couple ponder loss and regret on a surreal odyssey into the afterlife , or something like it at least, in Shinji Imaoka’s cheerfully absurdist dramedy
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A young woman named Kiyose was recently promoted to the position of manager at an independent café. She devotes her love and attention to the business, but all…
Melting Sounds (ほとぼりメルトサウンズ, Kahori Higashi, 2021)
Displaced youngsters begin to find a new sense of place thanks to a warmhearted young woman and an old man’s ambient sound obsession in Kahori Higashi’s quirky drama
Yamato 2205 Concept Advisor Shinya Ogura’s Chapter 2 commentary
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A new recruit has arrived at Special Fire Force Company 8 and it’s one of Shinra’s old rivals, Arthur Boyle who calls himself the Knight King! Hinawa is…
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With a production career spanning over three decades, Hiroe Tsukamoto ushered in fan-favorite series to the home video market and held the door open for aspiring talent and…
The Various Forms of うかがう
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An attempt to recreate the “real” in the “virtual” causes a rupture between this world and another in Takashi Shimizu’s high tech horror.
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The job of the trickster is not to passively lament negative trends, but to seek to exploit them for one’s own gain even if they are terrible. This…
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