By Patrick Macias

Roman Album book cover for the 1979 Galaxy Express 999 movie. Boffo b.o.! Call me old-fashioned, nostalgic, or just plain crazy IF YOU WILL, but I just can’t stop thinking about the year 1980 and what it meant to anime, manga, and Japanese pop culture in general. Go to my blog  and behold a selection of movie posters, magazine covers, and primordial cosplay from this seminal year. There’s...

By Fernando Ramos

Not long ago, an article on the small town of Washimiya and its shrine was featured on this fair site. As fate would have it, the recent Skip City International D-Cinema Film Festival in Kawaguchi was holding a screening of Washimiya Monogatari ( Washimiya Story ), an hour-long film that skewers the transformation of the town from quiet hamlet to otaku hotspot. The development of Washimiya Mon...

By Mike Dent

There's a sort of gag reflex when one hears mention of a fan-film. Who can blame you? While there have been some diamonds in the rough, there have also been some utterly terrible productions. Those in themselves aren't exactly the turn-off for me; that's reserved for poor fan-films that have problems with plot/anything that isn't technical and hide behind the shield of Low Budget as a fragile ...

By Mike Dent

For two years, yours truly had the honor of gracing the Tokyoscope section of Otaku USA with my column, "R5 Central"--named after the podcast that I host and produce. (Now currently on college-induced hiatus!) This last year saw the ending of said column, due to the growing need for space, wrapping up with my take on the Kamen Rider Decade movie, All Riders VS Dai-Shocker . However, one more i...

By Joseph Luster

If the name in this article's subheader doesn't ring an immediate bell, then you need some serious schoolin'. I don't say that in a remotely belittling way, either, because you already know who Ishiro Honda is, whether you're aware of it or not. The man behind the original Godzilla film; the pioneer of kaiju flicks as we know them today. Ishiro Honda's career is as bold a legend as the tale of...

By Mike Dent

As they haven't done any openings for say Naruto or Soul Eater , I'm betting that a majority of you readers out there will tilt your head slightly at the mention of Tokyo Jihen (lit. Tokyo Incidents). Mind you, I'm not saying that to be utterly elitist or as part of my best possible hipster impression, I'm being realistic. It makes this group something of a tough sell as there aren't any notab...