With his latest film, Tetsuo: The Bullet Man , raking in an assortment of mixed criticism—an example of which you can find in the latest issue (June 2011) of Otaku USA —there's no better time than the present to look back at the works of …Read more »
With Mazinkaiser SKL residing at or near the top of my “absolute must-purchase anime of 2011” list, I thought now would be a good time to reflect upon the original Mazinkaiser anime from a decade ago. Wow, has it been THAT long already? Indeed it …Read more »
When it comes to unconventional dark fantasy tales, the ladies of CLAMP have proven themselves to be excellent storytellers. From X/1999 to XxxHolic and various works in between, their stories have often featured lavishly beautiful characters facing horrible situations in supernatural settings. Magic Knight Rayearth …Read more »
Ah, Macross . One of the great titans of Japanese animated science fiction, this space opera about jet planes that fly in outer space, transform into robots, and fire swarms of missiles amidst a backdrop of interspecies warfare and love triangles involving pop music idol …Read more »
In the latest issue of Otaku USA , Dave Riley reviewed a "modest" action game known as Vanquish . I speak of it with little expectation of mass familiarity because of one simple fact: no one seems to be buying it. Now, there aren't many …Read more »
Rika Ishikawa came from Japan to appear at the New York Comic Con/New York Anime Festival combined event on October 8 & 9, 2010. A former member of girl group sensation Morning Musume, Ishikawa came in character as the “Angry” half of the punk/gothic rock …Read more »
Given that modern Japanese culture is fairly preoccupied with the interface between fantasy and reality, fantasy—whether it involves the construction of an entire new world, as is common in Western fantasy, or simply the layering of a fantasy world along with the real world—is a …Read more »
If you've ever looked at Arabic-speaking facebook groups and forums about anime, you know the truth: anime and manga are crazy popular in the Middle East. The graphic novel series Gold Ring , the story of a boy named Sultan, a falcon named Majd, their …Read more »
Theatrical anime movies don’t come out in America very often anymore, and perhaps that’s part of why they don’t really get made as much anymore compared to how things were “back in the day.” Movies require more time and money to create than television shows …Read more »
If you're a fan of FLCL —Gainax's kinetic, Pillows-infused 2000 OVA that graces the cover of our latest issue—then you're no doubt an admirer of director Kazuya Tsurumaki. Despite having been involved in Gainax projects since his work as an animation director for select …Read more »
I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I’m pretty certain that this is the single most screwed up One Piece movie ever made. One Piece reigns supreme as the top-selling manga in Japan and one of the most watched anime. According to Japan’s …Read more »
There is a small, albeit significant, minority of anime fans out there for whom the feature film Redline encapsulates the spirit of what they wished most anime produced was like. I consider myself one of them, which is why it’s that much more crushing that …Read more »
Mako and Sayuki, otherwise known as the racing team Impact Blue, are just a couple of girls trying to make it in the male-dominated world of Initial D. Much like real world racing, females in Initial D are few and far between, and the …Read more »
Xam'd: Lost Memories is a show that's taken a curious route to reach the anime-loving public. It first dropped in June of 2008, as a launch-day exclusive for Sony's new Playstation Network online service. This is interesting not just because it makes Xam'd an early …Read more »
It's a rite of passage. After ten years, it's more or less mandatory that a band release a best-of compilation. The electronica duo Boom Boom Satellites has taken that one step further and released two ten-year compilations. 19972007 (reviewed in the October issue of Otaku …Read more »
Joseph Luster
Daryl Surat
Darius Washington
Brian Camp
Caleb Dunaway
Jason Thompson and Mikikazu Komatsu
Alexandria Hill
Mike Toole
Zac Bentz