Obscure Japanese Film #147 Mikio Narita Kuramoto (Mikio Narita) is an ambitious salaryman working at a company based in a tower block sa...
Nov 10, 2024 • Subscribe
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The Pit of Death (怪談おとし穴, Koji Shima, 1968)
An ambitious salaryman murders his lover to marry the boss’ daughter only to find himself haunted by his transgression in Koji Shima’s eerie horror noir.
Snake Woman’s Curse (怪談蛇女, Nobuo Nakagawa, 1968)
A venal landlord is haunted by the legacy of feudal injustice in Nakagawa’s eerie Meiji-era ghost story
Curse of the Blood (怪談残酷物語, Kazuo Hase, 1968)
Vengeful ghosts in Japanese cinema usually originate from some kind of injustice. Generally, they’ve met a bad end through no real fault of their own while the person…
The Ghost of the Hunchback (怪談せむし男, Hajime Sato, 1965)
Morally compromised citizens of post-war Japan find themselves trapped in the purgatorial hell of a creepy old mansion in Hajime Sato’s gothic romp
YOTSUYA KAIDAN 四谷怪談 (1949) + NIJI OTOKO (THE RAINBOW MAN) 虹男 (1949)
YOTSUYA KAIDAN This is one of several film versions of Tsuruya Nanboku IV’s story, Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan. Nanboku wrote this tale...
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Episode #79 (S10E8) – Kwaidan [怪談] (1965)
Podcaster Mike Lund visits the show to discuss Kwaidan, an adaptation of four of Lafcadio Hearn’s Japanese ghost stories. We discuss our favorite stories from this anthology, some…
The Ghosts of Kagami Pond (怪談鏡ケ淵, Masaki Mori, 1959)
The ambitious manager of a kimono store gets a gets a ghostly comeuppance in Masaki Mori’s B-movie kaidan
Grown-ups (わたし達はおとな, Takuya Kato, 2022)
A young couple struggle to reorient their lives while dealing with an unexpected pregnancy in Takuya Kato’s intense relationship drama.
The Time of Reckoning / 不信のとき / Fushin no toki (1968)
Obscure Japanese Film #128 Jiro Tamiya and Ayako Wakao Asai (Jiro Tamiya) is an artist who designs advertising posters for a printing comp...
Crest of Betrayal (忠臣蔵外伝 四谷怪談, Kinji Fukasaku, 1994)
An ambitious samurai finds himself corrupted by the times in which he lives in Fukasaku’s etherial fusion of Yotsuya Kaidan and the Chushingura
Itoshii Koishi, Volume 3 (いとしこいし)
Hina is a high school senior with a secret -she’s dating an older woman. She wants very much to share that secret with her friends, she just needs…
Moving (お引越し, Shinji Somai, 1993)
A young girl struggles to come to terms with her parents’ impending divorce in Shinji Somai’s ethereal coming-of-age drama
Ori and the Will of the Wisps: A Beautiful, Death-Trap-Infested Game
I never played Ori and the Blind Forest, but I did watch Josh Jepson and ProtonJon play through it, hence my interest in the sequel: Ori and the…
Whirlpool of Flesh (おんなの渦と淵と流れ, Ko Nakahira, 1964)
A intellectual professor and his wounded wife find themselves trapped in a toxic marriage after returning from Manchuria in Ko Nakahira’s fatalistic drama
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What to Do With the Dead Kaiju? (大怪獣のあとしまつ, Satoshi Miki, 2022) [Fantasia 2022]
A fallen kaiju presents a new problem for the governing authorities in Satoshi Miki’s satirical comedy.
The Beauty and the Dragon (美女と怪龍, Kozaburo Yoshimura, 1955)
A clever princess takes advantage of a courtly crisis to save the kingdom and arrange her own marriage in Kozaburo Yoshimura’s adaptation of the well-known kabuki play Narukami.
Sun Above, Death Below (狙撃, Hiromichi Horikawa, 1968)
A top hitman dreaming of a New Guinean paradise faces an existential crisis when an old job comes back to bite him in Horikawa’s psychedelic B-movie noir
Gakkou no Kaidan
Plot: Ghost Stories follows Miyanoshita Satsuki, who moves with her family to the hometown of her deceased mother. On her first day of school, Satsuki, her brother Keiichirou (a first…
The Living Koheiji (怪異談 生きてゐる小平次, Nobuo Nakagawa, 1982)
An irresolvable love triangle between childhood friends seems set to echo through eternity in Nobuo Nakagawa’s haunting final feature.
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Grown-ups わたし達はおとな (2022) Director: Takuya Kato [New York Asian Film Festival 2022]
Grown-ups わたし達はおとな (2022) Director: Takuya Kato [New York Asian Film Festival 2022]
The Trap (罠 THE TRAP, Kaizo Hayashi, 1996)
Maiku investigates his strangest case yet when a man walks into his office and asks him to look for himself in the final instalment of Kaizo Hayashi’s noir…
Wild Ducks and Green Onions (カモとねぎ, Senkichi Taniguchi, 1968)
A gang of crooks find themselves in hot water after a mysterious woman steals their loot out from under them in Senkichi Taniguchi’s zany crime comedy.
Osaka Kaidan: Tanabe Seia
I’ve long known that Tanabe Seia hosts regular scary story sessions, but in the Before Times, these were held in Osaka, which is a bit of a trek…
Nanashi Kaidan Season 1
Plot: The collection of horror short stories center on those uneasy feelings of “something out there” that children sense in their lives. (Source: MAL)Story: Even though the tag…
Kaidan Kidan: Outani Akira
So obviously I’m going to grab this book off the shelf so fast that I knock my shoulder right out of its socket. It only needed the cover…
The Baited Trap
detective fiction, 推理小説、games, mystery, murder, locked room, Japanese, translations,
I Go Gaga, Welcome Home Mom (ぼけますから、よろしくお願いします。～おかえりお母さん～, Naoko Nobutomo, 2022)
In a followup to her hugely popular documentary, Naoko Nobutomo follows her parents as her mother’s health continues to decline.
Women and Miso Soup / 女と味噌汁 / Onna to misoshiru (1968)
Obscure Japanese Film #139 Junko Ikeuchi Chikako (Junko Ikeuchi) is a geisha who works under the name of Temari. Such an occupation gives ...
Belonging (とりつくしま, Kahori Higashi, 2024)
The recently deceased watch over their loved ones from the vantage point of a familiar object in Kahori Higashi’s wistful drama.
Stay Mum (かくしごと, Kosai Sekine, 2024)
On returning to care for estranged father, a woman finds herself taking care of a neglected little boy in Kosai Sekine’s maternal melodrama.
Nanami: The Inferno of First Love (1968) review
“Hani’s narrative is not only be the best film of Susumu Hani, but also one of the best films of the sixties.”
Madoka and Homura: The Trap of Selflessness
And here it is, our final panel from Anime Fusion 2021. This one was primarily J.C.’s work, so the format is slightly different. It’s also a re-versioning of…
Ora, Ora Be Goin’ Alone (おらおらでひとりいぐも, Shuichi Okita, 2020)
An older woman living alone is plagued by three strange sprites forcing her to confront the reality of her life in Shuichi Okita’s surreal meditation on loneliness and…
お久しぶりですね。 I was so disheartened by the untimely demise of my...
お久しぶりですね。 I was so disheartened by the untimely demise of my comment system that I couldn't bear to update this tumblr for almost a year. OK maybe my embarrassment…
Death of the Hit...
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Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 7 (おとなになっても)
In Shimura Takako’s Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 7 (おとなになっても) a lot happens. We left Akari and Ayano having been carefully not seeing one another for some time, as…
Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 5 (おとなになっても)
Previous volumes of Shimura Takako’s adult life drama have centered on three adults whose life has been thrown into turmoil by unexpected emotions. Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 5…
Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 1 (おとなになっても)
Shimura Takako’s work with gender and sexual minorities has been very influential and popular among western manga readers, and series like Sweet Blue Flowers and Wandering Son end…
Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 4 (おとなになっても)
In previous volumes of Otona ni Nattemo, we met Akari and Ayano, who met in a bar and spent the night together, Ayano’s husband Wataru, who has wondered…
Otona ni Nattemo, (おとなになっても) Volume 6
In Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 6, Shimura Takako has done something I’ve not seen before in a manga and I think I like it. ^_^ The main plot…
Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 8 (おとなになっても)
Akari and Ayano have moved in together. This fact fills this book with all sorts of tensions, both positive and negative. Sure, they have been through ” a…
Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 3 (おとなになっても)
Akari is ready to move on. She’s ready to reclaim her old career in the salon and stop running away from her life. She’s putting Ayano and her…
Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 9 (おとなになっても)
I am currently reading two Japanese series about adults in complicated relationships. Both series are, in equal part, compelling and interesting and annoying as heck. Today we’re looking…
Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 10 (おとなになっても)
There are a lot of lose strings to tie up here at Shimura Takako’s Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 10 (おとなになっても). And, while the final bow is a bit…
Onna Tomodachi to Kekkonshitemita, Volume 1 (女ともだちと結婚してみた。)
If you are a regular reader here, you probably know how much I like Usui Shio’s recent work in Comic Yuri Hime. I’ve been really happy with Kaketa…
Onna Tomodachi to Kekkonshitemita, Volume 2 (女ともだちと結婚してみた。)
People are complex systems. Relationships are complex systems made up of complex systems. Even with clear boundaries, even when sex is not an issue, relationships get messy when…
Episode 7: Kaidan—Japan’s Ghost Stories
An image of Okiku, the ghost who inspired The Ring, by Toyohara Kunichika (via Wikimedia Commons) Check out Episode 7 of the Read Japanese Literature podcast. In this…
To The Supreme! (もっと超越した所へ。, Santa Yamagishi, 2022)
Four women reassess their relationships with a series of terrible boyfriends on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic in Santa Yamagishi’s anarchic comedy.
Death of the Anonymous Author
Nisioisin is an enigma, and herein I try to untangle him, even just a little.
THE INGLORIOUS DEATH OF MIC
(First off, some GREAT belated news: my friend VF5SS is currently fansubbing Srungle, at the pace of about an episode or per week. He’s now over halfway through…
