A disaffected young man gets a fresh start in a utopian community but quickly becomes disillusioned in Shinji Araki’s slick dystopian thriller
Mar 13, 2021 • Subscribe
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After a prolonged trip across the ocean, a long-awaited doujinshi has finally arrived at my home. And, like clockwork, the Melonbooks website is down for maintenance, so I…
The Mannequin House Murders / 人形館の殺人
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Death Within the Evil Eye / 魔眼の匣の殺人
It’s difficult to succeed genius. Chrono Cross isn’t as good as Chrono Trigger , Bioshock 2 isn’t as good as Bioshock , and National Treas...
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“His dystopian ‘thriller’ does not only masterly highlight, in a chilling way, the various ills that marks contemporary society, but also shows, that within such dystopian world, a…
Three Women of the North (北の三人, Kiyoshi Saeki, 1945)
Three female radio operators become the backbone of a moribund war effort in the last propaganda film produced before the war’s end.
The Black Umbrella Mystery / 体育館の殺人
The Black Umbrella Mystery is a story with the soul of Ellery Queen and the body of an anime protagonist. There are a few Japanese…
The Seven Great Detectives / 7人の名探偵
Yukito Ayatsuji ’s The Decagon House Murders was published in 1987, and is credited with kick-starting the shin-honkaku (new orthodox) mov...
The Labyrinth House Murders / 迷路館の殺人
The shin-honkaku movement has always been a bit meta. It’s right there in the name: it means “new orthodox,” as it’s a revival of the origi...
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An awkward young man chases love and romance on the streets of Shimokitazawa in Imaizumi’s soulful ode to the ever changing district
Seven Samurai (七人の侍, Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
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An anxious writer fears collapse under the weight of fatherhood in Kinji Fuksaku’s adaptation of the autobiographical novel of Kazuo Dan.
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The Power of Two: Rei and Shinji
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A man paralysed from the neck down and the blind woman who cares for him find themselves struggling against the prejudices of an ableist society in Keita Fujimoto’s…
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Rainbow Over the Pacific (夜明けの二人, Yoshitaro Nomura, 1968)
An unserious man begins to grow up while chasing love in Hawaii in a cheerful if ultimately downbeat musical celebration of the centenary of Japanese migration to Hawaii.
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A fugitive princess offers a new hope for a peaceful and prosperous socitey in Akira Kurosawa’s Sengoku-era epic.
The Town of Abu vs. The Gambler
A small town accidentally gave a man a small fortune. What the man did next has made national headlines in Japan.
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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.
Children of Mu-Town
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“A visually engaging narrative about the nature of happiness and the importance of desire that is highly relevant for Japanese youth.”
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The Old Town Girls (兔子暴力, Shen Yu, 2020)
The left behind children of decaying industrial China find themselves at the mercy of a corrupted parental legacy in Shen Yu’s gritty neo-noir
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An upperclass housewife finds herself pulled into a deadly game of espionage in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s dark exploration of the consequences of love
Gift of Fire (太陽の子, Hiroshi Kurosaki, 2020)
A conflicted scientist struggles to reconcile himself to the implications of his work while researching an atomic bomb in Kurosaki’s contemplative wartime drama
Nosari: Impermanent Eternity (のさりの島, Tatsuya Yamamoto, 2020)
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