Based on a best-selling Chinese children’s book, Tibetan Dog (2011) was produced at Japan’s Madhouse studio in a rare Chinese-Japanese deal. Since his parents separated, Tenzin (Tatsuomi Hamada) has grown up in the city of Xi’an in Shaanxi province with his mother. He learned to play the flute from her and had an unremarkable urban […]

On March 2nd, Netflix brought us the fifth season of DreamWorks Voltron Legendary Defender [sic] with six new episodes. The fight continues against Emperor Zarkon and the imperial hordes of the Galra Empire. With the pilots—that is, “Paladins”—of super-robot Voltron leading the way, the Freedom Coalition now claims a third of the territory once ruled […]

On Tuesday, October 10th, I attended the ASIFA-Hollywood screening of Ron Diamond’s 19th annual Animation Show of Shows. The program presented sixteen films this year; fourteen new ones and two “retrospectives”. The sixteen were, as usual, widely varied in subjects and animation techniques, so each viewer will have different favorites. I enjoyed it all. You […]

Shounen-ai—literally “boy’s love”–is a curious genre of anime and manga that has no American counterpart. It depicts innocent romances between bishonen (beautiful young men), but it’s created by women for female audiences. Some people use the word interchangeably with yaoi. Others maintain yaoi involves sexually explicit scenes, while shounen-ai never does. The characters may kiss […]

Times are tough for Yato (voice by Jason Liebrecht), the minor god of calamity who’s at the center of the broadcast series Noragami Aragoto (2015), the sequel to Noragami (2014). He’s still knocking around Tokyo in an old warm-up suit and busted boots, offering to grant wishes for ¥5 coins. Yato may be broke, but […]

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 […]