Charles Solomon

Editor

Internationally known animation historian and critic, Charles Solomon has written over 15 books books including Enchanted Drawings: The History Of Animation, The Art of Disney’s Frozen, The Making of Peanuts Animation, and Tale as Old as Time: The Art and Making of Disney Beauty and the Beast .

Articles By Charles Solomon

Anime

The broadcast series Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom (2010) is the first animated adaptation of the popular 2008 video game: Additional TV series, two features, an OAV and a manga followed. The adventure begins in 1864, when Japan was facing an uncertain future: The failure of the Tokugawa shoguns to formulate a satisfactory response […]

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Anime

Ocean Waves (Umi ga Kikoeru), sometimes translated as “I Can Hear the Sea” (1993), is Studio Ghibli‘s only TV special. A modest work that’s closer in scope and tone to Whisper of the Heart or From Up on Poppy Hill than to the fragile poetry of The Tale of Princess Kaguya or the grand adventures […]

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Commentary

Although he wrote them in 1859, Charles Dickens might have been thinking of animation in 2016 when he penned the celebrated lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the […]

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As it’s the 2nd talking koala movie, the 2nd juke box musical and the 11th talking animal movie of year, Illumination Entertainment’s Sing! suffers from a certain lack of originality. Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey), an upbeat, if less than honest koala, runs a crumbling theater that he’d love to restore to its former glory. But […]

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Anime

Writer-director Makoto Shinkai’s runaway hit Your Name. (Kimi No Na Wa) is the year’s number one box office hit in Japan and the sixth-highest grossing film of all time there. Since it opened in August, it’s earned more than ¥19.4 billion (about US $174 million), more than any animated film not directed by Hayao Miyazaki. […]

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BOOK REVIEW: “The Art of The Boy and the Heron”

“The Art of The Boy and the Heron” opens with director Hayao Miyazaki’s self-deprecating Project Memo: “Isn’t it proof that you are aging when you imagine you’re still capable, but in fact you have memory loss due to senility? I would say yes.” Audiences who saw the Oscar-winning film would say “no.” The Japanese title […]