A gentle melancholy hangs over the anime feature Penguin Highway (2018), setting it apart from similar fantasy-adventures. Fourth-grader Aoyama (voice by Kana Kita) is almost too precocious and self-possessed. Never at a loss for a reply to a bully or an interfering adult, he says what viewers may wish they’d thought to say in school. […]

GKIDS and Beijing Film Panorama have partnered to present ANIMATION IS FILM BEIJING, a special animation section within the upcoming Beijing Int’l Film Festival (BJIFF), which runs April 13-20, 2019. The ANIMATION IS FILM BEIJING lineup will be the largest slate of non-Chinese feature film animation ever to be presented in China and will highlight […]

One of the biggest anime hits of recent years, the broadcast series My Hero Academia (2016) blends the popular genres of the superhero adventure and the high school comedy-drama. The first feature, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, earned a 100% Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and a respectable $28 million in its US theatrical release […]

Although Pokémon is no longer the craze bordering on mania it was 20 years ago, the property remains extremely popular. The TV series, which runs to more than 800 episodes, enjoys a worldwide audience on TV, streaming services and discs; YouTube lists more than 100,000,000 Pokémon films. Pokémon merchandise is ubiquitous, and on a typical […]

What’s inside the Abyss? It’s a giant hole in the middle of an island, thousands of feet deep. It beckons explorers and fortune-seekers to build a city around it, for within its depths are valuable relics—and monsters. Those who dare to retrieve the relics are known as “cave raiders.” Some are orphaned children, exploited by […]

GKIDS today announced it has acquired the North American distribution rights for the animated feature Children Of The Sea. GKIDS will release the film theatrically in both Japanese and English language versions. The film is the latest feature from Japan’s STUDIO4°C (known for Tekkonkinkreet, MFKZ, Mind Game, Animatrix, Batman: Gotham Knight, and others), and is […]