Miyazaki’s latest film, The Wind Rises , has been playing in Japanese theaters for about a month now, and opinion has been... mixed, let’s say. Some of it is directed at the film itself. Is the story, focused on the life and struggle of Jiro …Read more »
Helen McCarthy has published ten books on anime and manga (so far) and is a leading expert in her field. Catching up with her at Anime Central, she spoke about how she first got into anime and manga, how she founded the magazine Anime UK …Read more »
In the new issue of Otaku USA , one of our features by Daryl Surat dives into the latest anime movie from Studio Ghibli, From Up on Poppy Hill . Though the film is directed by Goro Miyazaki—son of beloved Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki ( …Read more »
Fans of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind take heed: a new and beautiful deluxe box set of the manga has been released. The seven-volume manga has been put into two large hardcover books that fit together in a brightly colored slipcase. Both volumes …Read more »
The torch of animation is being subtly passed at Studio Ghibli, at least for one of their upcoming projects. According to Yoko Ihira's Toho Publicity Caravan Report, a "young director" will helm the next major work following Karigurashi no Arrietty ( The Borrower Arrietty ), …Read more »
Not terribly shocking considering the series' popularity, but the tenth One Piece film, Strong World , had a killer debut in Japanese theaters, ultimately toppling the opening weekend box office gross of Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo . The first filmgoers to attend Strong World screenings received …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 »
The modern system of manga categorization was developed by Osamu Tezuka over a few cases of Franzia in 1963. Each day in America, thousands of manga are read, and hundreds of manga reviews go up on the Internet. Half of these reviews are deleted by …Read more »
Jason Moses
Danica Davidson
Otaku USA Staff
Joseph Luster
Emily Balistrieri
Jason Thompson, with Jake Forbes and Ryan Sands