meta: Drama
2022
'Tokyo Decadence': The Dark Age Of Love January 24, 2022
Ryū Murakami's adaptation of his own story about a Tokyo sex worker is noisome social commentary that won't reach anyone who hasn't already gotten the message
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'ODDTAXI': Drive, He Said January 20, 2022
This labyrinthine noir about a third shift cabbie grows in unexpected directions, becoming one of the best anime offerings in a long time
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2021
'How Do You Live?': Letters To A Young Wonderer November 29, 2021
Not some genteel life-lessons story, but the quiet plea of a man resisting the growing militarism and reactionary violence of his world
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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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'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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'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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2020
'Malice@Doll': The Machine's Last Love Song November 18, 2020
Half adult OVA of the 90s/00s home-video era, half experimental stop-motion art film, and while not entirely successful it's still worth a look for its low-fi digital aesthetic
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'Vital': The Weight Of The Dead, And Of The Living November 10, 2020
Shinya Tsukamoto's dark drama about a medical student obsessed with the cadaver of a lost love becomes a moving meditation on how life and death inform each other
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'A Snake Of June': A Love (And Death) Triangle October 05, 2020
Shinya Tsukamoto's eros-and-thanatos story doesn't always work, but gets an A+ for dazzling effort anyway
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'Tokyo Godfathers': Three Vagabonds And A Baby June 23, 2020
Satoshi Kon's most "conventional" movie was also his funniest, a coincidence-driven romp through Tokyo's lower depths
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'Ghost In The Shell: SAC_2045': A Withered Husk May 18, 2020
Easily the weakest 'Ghost In The Shell' project thus far, but with a tease of hope at the end of its first half
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'Lament In The Night': The Voice Of The Issei May 11, 2020
Unknown to English-speaking audiences until now, Shōson Nagahara wrote for fellow Japanese-Americans of their own displaced world and their own broken hearts
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'Giant Robo': The Mecha Opera January 10, 2020
This grand and glorious epic returns to home video for English speaking audiences in a spectacular new Blu-ray Disc edition; it is as essential as it gets
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2019
Junji Ito's 'No Longer Human': No Longer Dazai December 23, 2019
A manga horror icon takes on a classic of modern Japanese literature, and makes it his own in ways both fascinating and baleful
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'Millennium Actress': She Lost It At The Movies December 13, 2019
Satoshi Kon's mini-epic of one woman's journey in film across Japan's turbulent century starts with narrative games, but delves into the ultimate meaning of a person's life
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'Rashōmon': The Post-Truth Condition October 07, 2019
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's story, and Akira Kurosawa's movie, have endured to tell us something about the nature of truth in a time when we can hardly trust the words we hear in our own heads
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'Carole & Tuesday': The Mars Volta September 23, 2019
Shinichiro Watanabe's new series, about two young women trying to make their music their way, either needed more SF or less of it to really work
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'Princess Jellyfish': Girls, Be Ambitious! August 05, 2019
A sly treatise on gender roles and presentation, wrapped in a screwball romantic farce and delivered with great affection
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