The broadcast series Amagi Brilliant Park boasts an impressive pedigree: Its original creator is Shoji Gatou, who wrote the light novels that served as the basis for the hit comedy-adventure Full Metal Panic! Former child actor Seiya Kanie (Adam Gibbs) is one of the brightest and best-looking students in his high school. But he’s so […]
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ANIME REVIEW: “Wolf’s Rain”
February 14th, 2017 
Charles Solomon On the “Day of Destruction,” which occurred 200 years before the fantasy-adventure Wolf’s Rain (2003) begins, much of human civilization was destroyed. Wolves supposedly died out at the same time, yet the story centers on four humans who turn into wolves. Like the young father in Hosoda’s Wolf Children, they are wolfmen: not the violent […]
ANIME VIDEO REVIEW: “Blood Blockade Battlefront”
February 9th, 2017 Charles Solomon Based on 2009 manga by Yasuhiro Nightow, the creator of the 90’s hit Trigun, Blood Blockade Battlefront (2015) is a supernatural adventure that takes place in what used to be New York City. A few years before the series begins, the city was engulfed in an impenetrable fog that was somehow linked to a fissure […]
ANIME REVIEW: “Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom”
January 31st, 2017 Charles Solomon 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 […]
ANIME REVIEW: Studio Ghibli’s “Ocean Waves”
January 10th, 2017 Charles Solomon 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 […]
Charles Solomon Reviews “Sing”
December 23rd, 2016 Charles Solomon 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 […]
ANIME REVIEW: “Your Name.”
December 2nd, 2016 Charles Solomon 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. […]
Anime Review: “Big Windup!”
November 15th, 2016 Charles Solomon Based on a manga by Asa Higuchi, the 2007 broadcast series Big Windup! turns the clichés of the anime sports genre upside down. The main character is neither an ace who needs to be taught the importance of teamwork, like Ryoma in Prince of Tennis, nor a newbie who discovers his exceptional talent as he […]
Anime Review: “Escaflowne”
November 7th, 2016 Charles Solomon Although it didn’t draw much of an audience when it aired on Fox Kids in 2001, The Vision of Escaflowne (Eska-FLOW-nay, 1996) retains a loyal following, probably because this sprawling fantasy infuses sword-and-sorcery and mecha elements into the popular “magical girl” genre. Hitomi Kanzaki (Caitlin Glass) is a sensitive teen-ager who reads Tarot cards for […]
Charles Solomon’s Review of “Trolls”
November 4th, 2016 Charles Solomon In Pixar’s Inside Out, Pete Docter and his crew reminded audiences of the human truth that even life’s happiest moments are inevitably tinged with sadness. The power and honesty of that message makes the theme of DreamWorks’ Trolls — that we’re all just chock full of happiness if we’ll just let it out–feel simple-minded. The […]
ANIME REVIEW: “Project Itoh: Harmony”
October 31st, 2016 Charles Solomon Harmony is the second of three films based on the fiction of Satoshi Ito (who wrote under the nom de plume Project Itoh). But the novel “Harmony” feels like an improbable candidate for animation. The book is an internal monologue by Tuan Kirie (Jamie Marchi, who carries the film as its de facto narrator), the […]
ANIME REVIEW: “The Empire of Corpses”
October 24th, 2016 Charles Solomon The first feature based on a novel by Project Itoh (the nom de plume of Satoshi Ito), The Empire of Corpses (2015) is a striking, if often baroque, zombie adventure. The plot seems far more complicated than it needs to be, but the cyberpunk designs, which bolster the film’s curious premise, are stunning. The Empire […]
ANIME REVIEW: “Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin III”
October 4th, 2016 Charles Solomon Yoshiyuki Tomino’s mecha series Mobile Suit Gundam ranks among the longest-running and most successful franchises in animation history, encompassing more than three dozen broadcast series, feature films and OVA’s. Ironically, its initial run on Japanese television in 1979 earned such poor ratings, it was cancelled mid-season. The programs were recut into three theatrical features that […]
Charles Solomon Reviews “Long Way North”
September 29th, 2016 Charles Solomon The Long Way North (Tout en haut du monde) is latest entry in the recent string of smaller, hand-drawn animated films from France. It’s not as polished in its look or storytelling as some of its predecessors, but it’s a promising debut for first time director Rémi Chayé, Sacha (voice by Chloé Dunn), the daughter […]
Charles Solomon’s Animation Year End Review 2016
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 […]