Anime

Originally released on Steam back in mid-2014 following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Whispering Willows’ humble beginnings are apparent from the get go. There’s no voice acting, no grand production values. Cut scenes are composed of static images and the whole thing barely lasts three hours. It’s game design on a diet, stripped of the fat and distilled into a single afternoon experience. And it’s all the better for it.

Anime, like comic books and video games, has often found itself on the absolute fringe of nerd culture. When someone isn’t into anime, it’s almost impossible to get them to give it a try with an open mind–and that’s really too bad, because they’re depriving themselves of some really spectacular stuff like Attack on Titan.

In its frequently sorrowful tale of young Japanese siblings struggling through the tail end or immediate aftermath of World War II, anime Giovanni’s Island faces seemingly inevitable comparisons to both Grave of the Fireflies and the Barefoot Gen features. Mizuho Nishikubo’s film, however, has a spirit all of its own, even if you can trace in it bits of those other films’ DNA, as well as notorious British anti-war animation When the Wind Blows, whose art style it resembles more than the likes of Studio Ghibli. It stands apart in offering a look at an aspect of Japanese history rarely explored in any art form to date, that of the Russian occupation of the island of Shitokan after Japan’s defeat in 1945, as seen through the eyes of two Japanese children among the residents whose lives are upended by the new rule.

It’s interesting to consider how for many of us, games have been growing up with us. Atlus’ Catherine serves as a prime example of this phenomenon. Having been developed by a team who grew and matured as games themselves did the same, it simultaneously reaches much of the gaming audience as they confront the very issues addressed within it.

Finding the reason for Akira’s resonance with all manner of audiences is not particularly difficult, since it is the zenith of great narrative-meets-dreamlike philosophical reality bending. For all that it blurs the lines of established faux-reality and fantasy, science-fiction and existentialism, it is ultimately a film about the fatal danger posed by one’s own anger.

The animated companion to Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell seeks to delve even deeper into the nature of identity than its predecessor, distinguishing itself with a more political story and its backdrop as the advent of the information age. An animated art film is a nigh-singular achievement. It’s a cross-section of two genres you almost never get, and a great one to boot.

America’s fascination with all things Japanese long predates Keanu Reeves’s backflips or the recent adaptations of Ringu. The popularity of Japanese pop culture is a huge subject and even tackling Japanese manga and anime is daunting. Experts in the fields of manga and anime will have to excuse the necessary compression needed to introduce some …

Wolf Children Written by Mamoru Hosoda and Satoko Okudera Directed by Mamoru Hosoda Japan, 2012 Breakthrough success for The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars outside of Japan has seen director Mamoru Hosoda labelled “the next Miyazaki” in certain circles, in regards to being an anime filmmaker of increasing international reach and appeal. …

Asura Directed by Keiichi Sato Written by Ikuko Takahashi Japan, 2012 Who has not heard or read about the story of the man or woman who thought it was a neat idea to own as a pet, not a dog, cat, or some fish, but rather some wild beast they believed they could somehow tame …

Cult Cinema: Volume 2 In terms of cult cinema, anime, which encompasses a wide variety of genres within the blanket term of Japanese animation, can be difficult to categorize. Thankfully, its fans are not, because they all adopt the same high-pitched tone of indignation whenever you point out that jerking off to 14-year olds covered …