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

Since its modest beginning as a serial in Weekly Shonen Jump 35 years ago, Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball has become one of the most popular properties in the world. It’s sold more than 250 million books, and has been animated for four TV series, twenty theatrical features, video games, etc. It’s also accounted for billions […]

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Anime

Like Eddie in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 14-year-old Yusuke Urameshi (Justin Cook), the hero of the brawling fantasy-adventure Yu Yu Hakusho (1992), is “a low-down cheap little punk.” He boasts that he’s the toughest kid in Sarayashki Junior High. He cuts classes and loves duking it out with other guys, especially with his red-haired […]

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Anime

Alternately ground-breaking, engaging and grisly, Golden Kamuy (2018) can be challenging to watch, but it’s difficult to ignore. Based on the 2014 manga by Satoru Noda, the story takes place near the end of the Meiji era (1868-1912). While serving in the 1st Division of the Imperial Army during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), Saichi Sugimoto […]

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Anime

Both upbeat and offbeat, Cells at Work! (2018) is a quirky fantasy series that may initially remind some viewers of Osmosis Jones (2001). But the program is lower key and much less hip: It feels closer to the old police drama “The Naked City”: “There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has […]

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Anime

Cardcaptor Sakura (1996) probably ranks as the best and best-loved work by the four-woman artists’ collective, Clamp. A textbook magical girl adventure, the animated series debuted in 1998 and ran for 70 episodes, followed by two features and an OVA. A rather timid 4th grader who lived with her older brother Toya and their widowed […]

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“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 […]