demographic: seinen
'Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within': Persistence Of Vision December 06, 2021
Critically maligned, a financial disaster, and dramatically murky -- but dazzling nonetheless, and as a milestone for how CGI functions as its own storytelling medium
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Netflix's 'Cowboy Bebop': A New Jam Session November 22, 2021
Lopsided, but still very enjoyable; if this hasn't raised the upper bound for anime-to-live-action, it sure has raised the lower bound
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'Cop Craft': An Isekai Lethal Weapon November 15, 2021
Your standard cop-buddy story, made only slightly more interesting by having the buddy being a magic-wielding paladin
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'I Am A Cat': All Humans Are Gray In The Dark November 08, 2021
A scaled-down adaptation of Sōseki Natsume's dark comedy of human nature as seen through the eyes of a cat, but with all its cutting humor intact
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'The Castle Of Cagliostro': Thief Of Hearts November 02, 2021
Anyone curious about 'Lupin III' or Hayao Miyazaki's career, start here, as this is a grandly entertaining introduction to both at once
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'Sailor Suit And Machine Gun: Graduation': Shots In The Dark August 27, 2021
A functionally competent follow-up to the cult classic, but when your ancestor is a cult classic, you want more than just functional follow-up
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'Sailor Suit And Machine Gun': She Shoots To Conquer August 23, 2021
This off-kilter 1981 comedy about a girl inheriting a crew of not-very-competent yakuza is an oddball masterwork that zags when you think it'll zig
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'Demon Pond': Spirits In The Material World August 17, 2021
A lavish adult fairytale, now restored in 4K, and featuring a mesmerizing performance by one of Japan's legendary onnagata
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'Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex': Twenty Minutes Into The Future August 14, 2021
When so much cyberpunk dates badly, the futurology of the first 'Ghost In The Shell' TV series remains thrillingly relevant almost twenty years later
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Akira Kurosawa's 'RAN': Omnia Vanitas July 28, 2021
Akira Kurosawa's samurai revision of 'King Lear', among the very greatest films ever made, returns to glory in a new 4K remaster
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'SK8 The Infinity': No Wheels, No Life July 23, 2021
One of the smash hit shows of the year that's both fun to watch and touches on deeper things without getting lost in the weeds
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'The Sea And Poison': The Cure That Kills July 18, 2021
Kei Kumai's chilling film version of Shūsaku Endō's equally grim novel remains all but unseen outside of Japan, but deserves a wider audience despite its queasy subject of wartime culpability
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'Memories': Three By Otomo & Co. July 05, 2021
Katsuhiro Otomo's anthology project dazzlingly animates three of his stories, showing more sides to the man most only know through 'AKIRA'
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'Arion': Whom The Gods Would Destroy ... June 27, 2021
Calling it an anime 'Clash Of The Titans' falls far short; this staggeringly ambitious respinning of Greek mythic adventure is a must-see
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'No Longer Human' (2019): Dead Man Writing June 14, 2021
A splashy but unmoving look at the last years of Osamu Dazai's dissolute life, with much screen time sensibly devoted to the women he manipulated on the way down
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'Evil Dead Trap 2: Hideki': The Lady Killers June 07, 2021
A deeply unappreciated David Lynch-esque jolter, from two major writers of anime live-action adaptations; a horror-feminist project that deserves reexamination with fresh eyes
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'Evil Dead Trap': Monster In The House May 31, 2021
A classic 1980s Japanese horror effort, a ferocious Dario Argento homage that invents at least as much as it borrows or nods at
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Gakuryū Ishii's 'Punk Samurai Slash Down': Anarchy In The JP May 24, 2021
Gakuryū Ishii's wild adaptation of the equally wild cult novel is one part 'Gojoe', one part 'Burst City' and two parts Coen Brothers
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Barbet Schroeder's 'Inju': Rampo Wept May 21, 2021
An attempt to both modernize and partly Westernize Edogawa Rampo's thriller falls flat on both counts
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'Yasuke': Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos May 14, 2021
A wildly stylized project that bodes well for future trans-Pacific productions -- but which might have been just as good without being wildly stylized
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Izumi Suzuki's 'Terminal Boredom': She Saw The Future And It Didn't Work May 11, 2021
The first volume in English of this avant-garde feminist figure's work shows her approach to SF and fantasy as personal cultural commentary
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'Serial Experiments Lain': The Wired And The Weird April 25, 2021
Now that we're all wired, whether we like it or not, this cyberpunk urban legend and vaporwave precursor is even creepier and more prescient
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'ID': Beastly Flesh March 25, 2021
Kei Fujiwara's sequel to 'Organ' ends up being more merely unpleasant than unsettling
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'Organ': Grotesquerie In Red March 16, 2021
Kei Fujiwara's symphony of sickness drowns you face-down in its excesses and lingers for a long time to come afterwards
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'Children Of The Sea': The Life Aquatic January 27, 2021
Some of the finest animation around, lashed to the mast of a story that goes nowhere
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'Mirai': The Kid Stays In The Picture January 08, 2021
Mamoru Hosoda's weakest film yet, a cloying and sentimental misfire
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