How does the world, or perhaps the cosmos, attempt to communicate with us? As Douglas Adams once did, August in the Water (水の中の八月, Mizu no naka no Hachigatsu) suggests it maybe through the dolphins…
Aug 22, 2024 • Subscribe
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August in the Water (1995) [Film Review]
August in the Water; or, Melancholic Blue Sometimes I become uncertain if it was… real, dream or just memories, and whether I'm alive o...
Rhapsody in August (八月の狂詩曲, Akira Kurosawa, 1991)
Three generations reckon with the wartime past after receiving news from estranged relatives in Hawaii in Kurosawa’s humanist drama.
The Moon (月, Yuya Ishii, 2023)
A writer overwhelmed with grief takes a job at a care home, but it is shocked by what she finds in Yuya Ishii’s hard-hitting drama.
Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom (金の国 水の国, Kotono Watanabe, 2022)
After centuries of conflict, two feuding countries finally begin to put the past behind them to work for a common future in Kotono Watanabe’s animated fantasy romance.
Labyrinth of Dreams (ユメノ銀河, Sogo Ishii, 1997)
“If both held their courses they would collide in nine seconds, and catastrophe would be inevitable” according to the voiceover which opens Sogo Ishii’s ethereal psychodrama Labyrinth of…
Electric Dragon 80000v (エレクトリック·ドラゴン 80000V, Sogo Ishii, 2001)
A supercharged free spirit clashes with an electric Buddha man at war with himself in Sogo Ishii’s cyberpunk fever dream.
Crazy Thunder Road (狂い咲きサンダーロード, Sogo Ishii, 1980)
A perpetual outsider seeks direction but discovers only nihilistic despair in Sogo Ishii’s apocalyptic biker movie
Manga Mania Mondays – August 1995
NEWS Upcoming Releases (titles that got a news feature in bold) Manga Video – Tokyo – The Last Megalopolis, Macross Plus 3, Angel Cop 4, New Dominion Tank…
Angel Cop, Dominion Tank Police, Macross, Macross Plus, New Dominion Tank Police
A Hen in the Wind (風の中の牝鶏, Yasujiro Ozu, 1948)
A wife makes a fateful choice to save her child while her husband is away at war only to be resented for it on his return in an…
Girls in the Orchard / 花の中の娘たち / Hana no naka no musumetachi (1953)
Obscure Japanese Film #109 Mariko Okada Toho’s first feature film in full colour concerns the Ishii family, who live in the rural area of ...
The Asian Angel (アジアの天使, Yuya Ishii, 2021)
The lonely souls of Japan and Korea are brought together by angelic intervention in Yuya Ishii’s wistful drama
Dead in the Water
detective fiction, 推理小説、games, mystery, murder, locked room, Japanese, translations,
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Type: Wow, this is pretty Synopsis: The future is controlled by horrible robots!!! Good, I got that out of my system. Ghost in the Shell (1995) is a…
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Although Mamoru Oshii is one of the greatest anime directors of all time, his reputation among anime fans remains divisive. He’s perhaps the only anime director to have…
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),…
Prison Boss (獄中の顔役, Yasuo Furuhata, 1968)
A noble-hearted gangster finds himself at odds with an increasingly corrupt society in Furuhata’s manly yakuza drama
Doing Time (刑務所の中, Yoichi Sai, 2002)
A mild-mannered middle-aged man sent to prison for a firearms violation treats his time inside as an anthropological expedition in Yoichi Sai’s quirky dramedy.
She is me, I am her (ワタシの中の彼女, Mayu Nakamura, 2022)
A gentle sense of haunting echoes through four tales of pandemic-era Tokyo in Mayu Nakamura’s ethereal anthology.
Bohachi Bushido: Code of the Forgotten Eight (ポルノ時代劇 忘八武士道, Teruo Ishii, 1973)
A nihilistic ronin falls into the hellish trap of the Yoshiwara in Teruo Ishii’s dazzlingly psychedelic period drama, Bohachi Bushido
Samurai Kids (水の旅人－侍KIDS－, Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1993)
A small boy grows closer to the natural world while guiding a tiny samurai on his journey to the sea in Nobuhiko Obayashi’s charming family adventure.
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 2 ( 雨夜の月)
In Volume 1, we met Saki, a high school student who plays piano, and her classmate (and piano teacher’s daughter), Kanon, who is hard of hearing. Kanon is…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 4 ( 雨夜の月)
Well, wow. A whole lot of story happened in this volume. First, Saki finds Kanon’s former best friend – the one Kanon feel betrayed her – and learns…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 5 (雨夜の月)
In my fevered anticipation for The Moon on a Rainy Night, Volume 1 coming from Kodansha next week, I was thrilled to have the newest volume of the…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 6 (雨夜の月)
Do you remember Morinaga Milk’s series Girl Friends? It was an incredibly popular and influential Yuri manga in the early 2010s, so more than a decade ago. The…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 7 (雨夜の月)
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 7 (雨夜の月) is absolute perfection. It was so good, that the moment I finished it, I started from the beginning and read it again.…
Throwback Thursday: 三月のライオン (Sangetsu no Lion)
As we close out 2020, and complete our 10th year anniversary celebration, we’ve been posting a final series of Throwback Thursday posts from writers, past and present, revisiting…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 3 ( 雨夜の月)
2022 has been an absolute celebration of amazing Yuri manga licenses and releases. Almost everything I wanted to have been licensed has been. Of the two remaining that…
Rumble in the Bronx (1995) [Film Review]
Rumble in the Bronx; or, A Fish Out of Water That’s my uncle’s car! Fresh after the success of Police Story 3: SuperCop (1992) and Pro...
Episode 171 - Ghost in the Shell (1995)
This week; Shaun thinks it’s time for a throwback to some classic anime films, and because the world is quickly becoming a sci-fi dystopia, what better movie than…
The Last-Minute New Gundam: X-EX01 Gundam Calibarn #水星の魔女 #G_Witch
The following may contain spoilers for the latest episode of Gundam the Witch from Mercury. One of the things Mobile Suit Gundam the Witch from Mercury did quite…
#OshiiOct Ghost in the Shell (1995): Blue Transcendence
There has been a lot of things that I’ve been worried to write about. Anime like Evangelion, FLCL, Utena, and Kyousougiga. That last one is one I’ve finally…
Ghost in the Shell (1995) | Retro Anime Recommendations
#shorts #retroanime #animeshorts Full video here: https://youtu.be/8j-WFhpr_Mw
Gundam Aerial Rebuild: Anime and Gunpla Full Reveal! #水星の魔女
The following may contain spoilers for episode 12 of Gundam the Witch from Mercury. I just got off watching the first part finale for Gundam the Witch from…
Gundam Aerial Rebuild: Anime and Gunpla Full Reveal! #水星の魔女
The following may contain spoilers for episode 12 of Gundam the Witch from Mercury. I just got off watching the first part finale for Gundam the Witch from…
Manga Kodomo Bunko (まんがこども文庫) August ED (8月の歌) - The Fountain (ふんすい)
Sung by (歌): Koorogi '73 (こおろぎ'73) Lyrics (作詞): Futabako Mitsui (西條ふたばこ) Composition (作曲): Takekuni Hirayoshi (平吉毅州) Arrangement (編曲): Nozomi Aoki (青木望) Very special thanks to PopKorn Kat for transferring and scanning this…
Theory Confirmed! “Gundam the Witch from Mercury” #14 Plot Reveals #G_Witch #水星の魔女
The following will obviously contain spoilers for the latest episode of Gundam the Witch from Mercury. Read at your own risk. We are just two episodes into the…
A Hole of My Own Making / /自分の穴の中で / Jibun no ana no nakade (1955)
Obscure Japanese Film #134 Rentaro Mikuni, Mie Kitahara and Jukichi Uno Tamiko (Mie Kitahara) is a young woman living at home with her s...
Katsuhito Ishii as Animator
By Tom Wilmot. For those clued up on modern Japanese cinema, the name Katsuhito Ishii is sure to ring a bell. Renowned for his surreal imagery and off-kilter…
Today on Suletta Sunday: Gundam Aerial Upgraded Form Tease! #水星の魔女
Mobile Suit Gundam the Witch from Mercury has delivered a special Christmas present as it returns from a one-week break to deliver what would be the start of…
Funky Forest: The First Contact (ナイスの森 The First Contact, Katsuhito Ishii & Hajime Ishimine & Shunichiro Miki, 2005)
“Thinking is too scary, so I’ll forget about it” according to one young woman in this surreal series of sequitur skits
Ghost in the Shell (1995): Motoko Kusanagi’s Identity in the Information Age
“When the advent of computers made the externalization of memories possible, you should have taken its meaning more seriously.”
3 Reasons To Watch: Ghost in the Shell (1995)
For years, even decades, Ghost in the Shell served as an icon of the cyberpunk genre whose visual style inspired countless other media.
Social change in fandom: Armadacon 07, 1995
From the historical point of view this is interesting for the very limited view we had of nascent anime world fandom, and the social change it documents.
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – 19 – Mana in the Water
As Frieren sits by the fire, her party-mates fast asleep, she recalls another fire long ago when Heiter told Himmel to be himself, rather than pretend he’s not…
Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (春江水暖, Gu Xiaogang, 2019)
Intergenerational conflict and familial strife unfold in the manner of a scroll painting in Gu Xiaogang’s beautifully lensed social drama.
The Net is Vast and Infinite: Ghost in the Shell (1995)
“There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure…
Party 7 (Katsuhito Ishii, 2000)
A series of strange events bring a collection of lonely souls to Hotel New Mexico in Katsuhito Ishii’s zany crime comedy.
Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995) — Anime Movie Review
For the past few months, I’ve been sporadically reviewing my way through the labyrinthine Ghost in the Shell (GitS) franchise. Faithful…
The Creators of FGO Babylonia #04: Toshimasa Ishii
As explained in an earlier post, it’s not that uncommon to find production-related people climbing to a higher position such as episode director or even series director. Even…