INTERVIEW: Makoto Shinkai, Director, “Weathering With You”

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It’s the summer of 2011. The long-range weather forecast for Tokyo is rain. And it’s not. Going to. Stop. Such is the sad state of affairs in Weathering With You, from Japanese director Makoto Shinkai. His previous work, Your Name, became the first anime not directed by Hayao Miyazaki to earn more than U.S. $100 […]

ANIME REVIEW: “Yu Yu Hakusho Ghost Files”

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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 […]

TRAILER: Fuminori Kizaki’s “Human Lost”

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From the chief director of Psycho-Pass, the director of Afro Samurai, and the studio that brought you Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters comes the animated feature film Human Lost – Osamu Dazai’s masterpiece of Japanese literature re-imagined into a hyper-kinetic deep dive into human consciousness. Funimation Films will give Human Lost a limited theatrical release, […]

ANIME REVIEW: “Golden Kamuy: Season One”

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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 […]

ANIME REVIEW: “Cells at Work!”

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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 […]

ANIME REVIEW: “Cells at Work!”

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 […]