Behind The Nihon Review

One of my favourite Japanese movies is a film by former comedian, now actor/director, Kitano Takeshi, entitled Hana-bi. Hana-bi is a gritty, minimalist cop drama about a broken down detective who takes revenge on the yakuza while his wife dies from leukemia. Hana-bi is, in my opinion, the best of Kitano’s minimalist crime dramas that [...]

In all honesty, this is an intentionally misleading title, because none of the following anime romances can really be described as “torrid”. In fact, anime romance generally isn’t torrid at all. Romance in anime tends to be fairly subdued, and there’s an innate innocence about the emotions involved, especially compared with other mediums. Romantic J-movies [...]

While discussing the new Anime no Chikara timeslot, Omo from Omonomono noted that it’s a little difficult to come up with a decent list of anime originals that are both critically acclaimed and popular. Omo brought up Gainax‘s Evangelion and Gurren-Lagann, and the subsequent comments mentioned titles like Code Geass, My-HiME and Cowboy Bebop. My [...]

More mock awards on the anime blogosphere (as if there haven’t been enough), this one being a sequel of the one I did last year. Just like the last effort, this set of awards will be structured to (somewhat) resemble the real Academy Awards, cheekily timed to coincide with yesterday’s ceremony. Again, these awards are [...]

This post is largely inspired by a Twitter debate largely between Sea Slugs! Anime Blog‘s Jesus159159159 and The Cart Driver‘s Scamp, over the respective merits and flaws of Excel Saga and Seto no Hanayome. For the record, I sided with Jesus159159159, but it’s quite a stretch to say either is an exceptionally funny, let alone [...]