meta: Science Fiction
2020
'Birdy The Mighty: Decode': Gimme Back My Skin! December 29, 2020
A raucous fusion of two genres (SF and comedy), and just like its two main characters, it's a symbiosis, not a collision
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'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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'Electric Dragon 80.000V': Raw Power September 11, 2020
Gakuryū Ishii's hourlong, warp-speed clash of pseudo-superheroes is still deafeningly good fun after twenty years
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'HUMAN LOST': The Death Wishers August 31, 2020
Why transmute Ozamu Dazai's 'No Longer Human' into medico-punk science fiction? Good question
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'Boogiepop': The Antibody Has A Voice August 03, 2020
Kouhei Kadono's knotty novels walk us backwards through the tangled stories surrounding a being that arises just long enough to right the world when it has fallen out of joint
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'BNA: Brand New Animal': Taming The Beast July 18, 2020
Comparison with 'Beastars' is inevitable, but Studio Trigger's story of man-animal hybrids trying to live in harmony plays it safer and more accessible -- and less intrinsically interesting
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'The Adventures Of Denchu Kozo'/'Haze': Shorter Tsukamoto June 15, 2020
Two short films from Shinya Tsukamoto, now anthologized in the Arrow box set for the director, show off his cheeky-humored and bending-sinister sides
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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
'Penguin Highway': Whiz Kid Vs. Cosmic Weirdness December 20, 2019
The author of the surreally absurd 'The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl' and 'The Tatami Galaxy' now turns to a story aimed at younger readers, but with the reality-warping and surrealism of his other work
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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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'Promare': The Burning World September 15, 2019
Studio Trigger's first theatrical film is so dazzling it threatens to melt the eyes right out of the head, but suffers from feeling like a TV series truncated into a two-hour slot
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'Steins;Gate': Stand Back, We're Going To Try Weird Science June 24, 2019
How comedic banter, science-fiction mind-bending, and an irresistible cast of characters combined alchemically to make one of anime's best moments in recent years
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'The Face Of Another': Confessions Of A Mask June 17, 2019
Kōbō Abe's novel, and Hiroshi Teshigahara's film adaptation, explore an extreme case: a disfigured man given a new face to present to the world, and thus all the perils of existential absolute freedom
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'Tetsuo: The Iron Man': Full Metal Mutation May 16, 2019
Thirty years later, Shinya Tsukamoto's frenzied masterwork of cyberpunk body horror still seethes like nothing else on film
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'The Five Star Stories': In The Year 7575 ... April 15, 2019
This late-1980s anime time capsule is daft but fascinating, if only because it hints at how a new re-adaptation of the same material might really go places
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'Alita: Battle Angel': She, The Ultimate Weapon February 17, 2019
A prime case study for how a film can be an fine adaptation of beloved source material, while also being breathless, overcrowded, and tangled as a story
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2018
Tsutomu Nihei's 'Abara': A Dead-Tech Sampler December 10, 2018
This one-shot story from the creator of 'BLAME!' and 'Knights Of Sidonia' serves as a useful entry point to the man's carbon-black universe of Giger-goth techno-body-horror
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'Un-Go': The Truth Will Out September 03, 2018
These cyberpunk/SF mysteries drawn from the works of Ango Sakaguchi are intriguing for how they adapt a classic author, but grow far too gimmicky for their own good
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'Gintama' (2017): The Fact That Elizabeth Is Played By A Guy In A Suit Is A Feature, Not A Bug March 17, 2018
Fans, this is about as on-target an adaptation of 'Gintama' to a live-action production as you're going to get -- but everyone else, don't walk in cold
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'Napping Princess': Slumberland Blues February 07, 2018
The one great idea to be found in Kenji Kamiyama's new film is stranded in a mishmash of a story that tries to do too many things and accomplishes almost none of them
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