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. […]

Warner Bros. just posted a trailer for a new anime film by director Kenji Kamiyama – (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Eden of the East) – Napping Princess: The Story of the Unknown Me. I.G Port’s anime subsidiary Signal.MD is animating the film as its first anime film project. The film opens March […]

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 […]

The animated film Miss Hokusai has been one of a handful of features that has been garnering awards attention, and justly so. Gorgeously filmed, sophisticated, and meaningful, it’s a movie that should been seen and considered both the critics awards and arthouse audiences. We spoke to director Keiichi Hara about bringing famed and important feminist […]

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 […]

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Funimation: $64.98, 5 discs, (4 Blu-ray and one DVD) Despite the series title, Haruhi Suzumiya (Wendee Lee) is hardly melancholy. She’s one of the prettiest girls in her high school, but also the strangest and the loudest. Haruhi dismisses normal people as “boring” (“What kind of fun does a ‘normal’ […]