Shirobako 's thinly-veiled portrayal of Hideaki Anno. Hayao Miyazaki, Mamoru Oshii, Hideaki Anno, Satoshi Kon: these names are among the select few considered the all-time greats of anime direction. But what exactly makes an anime director great? That question attracted hundreds of responses on Japanese …Read more »
Studio Ghibli producer Yoshiaki Nishimura (actually, ex-producer, as he made sure to point out in his apology) kicked up a ruckus last month when he declared that women are “realistic” as compared to “idealistic” men, making the former unsuitable for directing Ghibli films. Never mind …Read more »
Nikkei Entertainment, a pop culture magazine published by the Japanese media giant of the same name, has an anime-centric issue out this month, and it’s highlighted five anime directors fans might want to keep their eyes on. Let’s check out the list. In no specific …Read more »
Shirobako has been one of the most pleasant surprises of the anime season: a delightful office comedy about the work of actually putting together anime. This is a very meta premise, with more than its share of industry in-jokes and not one but multiple shows-within-the-show. …Read more »
Continued from Part 1 . Next they discussed a bit the tendency in Japan for the auteur theory to be pretty heavily used, at least in terms of the storyboarding process: "In Japan, it's a normal method to have the director draw the storyboard. So …Read more »
A few weeks ago, Berkeley's Center for Japanese studies awarded Hayao Miyazaki with the Berkeley Japan prize for, among other things, "[furthering] our understanding of Japan and its contribution to global culture." "Rare opportunity" sounds really cliché, but honestly, that's what we had – how …Read more »
Matt Schley
David Cabrera
Emily Balistrieri