Popular music and anime go hand-in-hand these days, at least in Japan — theme songs aren’t just the purview of anison singers. But even if you’re not up-to-date on idol groups or pop stars in Japan, you’ll still occasionally hear familiar favorites in anime… well, sometimes. …Read more »
Anyone who writes science fiction has to worry about the present overtaking their futuristic fantasies. It’s particularly true for a franchise like Ghost in the Shell, which is over 30 years old (the first chapter of the manga came out in April 1989) and has …Read more »
Meet us in the Fun Magic Club Room right after school for a look at the ridiculously fun Magical Sempai It’s all fun and games until someone loses their lunch, and when the previously anonymous, newly christened Assistant (voiced by Aoi Ichikawa), an ordinary high …Read more »
Anime News Network founder Justin Sevakis once dismissed Yoshiyuki Tomino—creator of the Gundam franchise, Space Runaway Ideon, and dozens of other series both influential and forgotten—as “one of anime’s naked emperors,” a storyteller with a style “muddled and distracted,” lacking for “dramatic timing and emotional …Read more »
Nichijou is both a furiously energetic comedy and a simplistic and endearing display about the trials and tribulations of everyday life. For an anime whose title roughly translates to mean “My Ordinary Life,” Nichijou, the 2011 spring adaptation of Keiichi Arawi’s popular slice-of-life/comedy manga, has a very …Read more »
What is it that causes teenagers to act the way they do? To lash out in anger. To go from being an outgoing child to an introverted young adult. Whatever the “affliction” may be, symptoms of youth in revolt come in many forms, and a …Read more »
An interview with Terumi Nishii, Part 2 Terumi Nishii is an animation director and character designer who has had a long career working on such hits as One Piece, Pokémon, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable. In April 2019, Terumi made headlines when she …Read more »
Terumi Nishii is an animation director and character designer who has had a long career working on such hits as One Piece, Pokémon, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable. In April 2019, Terumi made headlines when she tweeted in English about difficult working conditions within the anime industry, flat …Read more »
At Otakon 2019 in Washington, DC I was able to see an advance screening of Promare, the first theatrical film offering from anime studio TRIGGER. Courtesy of the film’s US distributor, GKIDS Films, I was able to ask them collectively some questions leading up to the …Read more »
None of the zombies of Zombie Land Saga have a heartbeat, but they certainly have a lot of heart Sakura Minamoto just had the worst day of her life. One minute she’s on her way to submit her application to be an idol singer, and …Read more »
What’s Your Sign? Ask any shojo fan that hungrily devoured anime and manga in the 2000s what one of the greats is, and you’ll undoubtedly get the same answer: Fruits Basket. Natsuki Takaya’s emotional roller coaster of a shojo series quickly became one of the …Read more »
Love can often bloom in the most unexpected places. It’s a trope that romance fans know all about, how the meet-cute between two protagonists at a café or some sort of once-in-a-lifetime event transforms into a beautiful love story. It becomes clear the couple in …Read more »
Way Out Truth be told I was a late convert to the church of anime director Kunihiko Ikuhara, and even now consider myself something of a skeptic. While I’ve since come to appreciate his unbridled artistry and technique as well as his utterly unique narrative …Read more »
A Party of One The trend for so many popular series of the past few years has been to have social underachievers—often stand-ins for the author and/or perceived target audience—suddenly placed into a scenario where they are now innately excellent, who then proceed to exert …Read more »
Flash Of The Blade We’re all forced to deal with our own hardships. Some of them are more intense than others, but we all go through difficult times in our lives. In the case of Osamu Tezuka’s Dororo, protagonist Hyakkimaru has been subjected to far more …Read more »
Kara Dennison
Brian Ruh
Paul Thomas Chapman
Austin Price
Michael Goldstein
Joseph Luster
Patrick Macias
Daryl Surat
Brittany Vincent