As we recently reported , last week saw the announcement of an extremely ambitious and exciting project from animation house Production I.G. and director Masaaki Yuasa: Kick-Heart , an animated short to be paid for by fan contributions via crowd-funding website Kickstarter. Kick-Heart , a …Read more »
photo by Yves Tennevin Osamu Kobayashi grew up in the 1970s, something of a golden era for future animators. Weaned on the work of Yoshinori Kanada, Isao Takahata, and Hayao Miyazaki, Kobayashi knew he wanted to be an animator from an early age. After working …Read more »
GEN Manga has turned one year old! Robert McGuire began publishing monthly doujinshi collections last year and we spoke with him when he was just getting GEN up and running. Now that he’s reached the milestone of year two, we wanted to check back in …Read more »
The California-based FanimeCon, which takes place May 27-30 at the San Jose Convention Center, has already announced a slew of big names to their Guests of Honor lineup. The latest addition is master animator Fumio Iida, also known as SUEZEN. Iida's portfolio is pretty loaded, …Read more »
Tokyo Scum Brigade is another one of those killer blogs like Same Hat that everyone would do well to keep an eye on. They post a ton of great Japanese obscurities that would do a smashing job of titillating many of our readers, but perhaps …Read more »
Before I read Walking Your Way to a Better Life (released by Vertical in August) I'd never heard of a walking class, let alone "face yoga," but apparently these kinds of classes are common in Japan. Kimiko (the book's single-name author) was once an average …Read more »
Watching the first two New People Artist Series documentaries back to back is quite the experience. NEW PEOPLE in San Francisco showed both Traveling with Yoshitomo Nara and Yayoi Kusama I Love ME Tuesday night; for 2.5X the price of a normal ticket, attendees received …Read more »
It's the end of another era in the industry, as A.D. Vision is officially shutting down and dispersing its assets across a few other companies. ADV Films has been, in previous years, as prominent a presence as FUNimation is today, once leading the anime industry …Read more »
Now here's something that easily tops the list of places we all need to visit as soon as possible. The Go Nagai Wonderland Museum was opened in the City of Wajima (of which, while not currently living there, Nagai is a native) this month, and …Read more »
For the Kamen Rider Dragon Knight feature in the most recent issue of Otaku USA, I found myself fortunate enough to talk to Yvonne Arias who plays the aspiring journalist, Maya Young. Like the other interviews in this series, word limits prevented them showing up …Read more »
The late co-creator of that legendary blue cat with the trans-dimensional pouch we all love, Fujiko F. Fujio, will be receiving one of our planet's highest honors come 2011: an interactive museum. While its opening was originally planned for 2010, it's been pushed back a …Read more »
[Excerpted from the December 2007 issue of Otaku USA magazine Ryuhei Kitamura is a giant among Japanese film directors. The only catch is, he's not in Japan anymore. A newly minted Los Angelino, Kitamura is currently prepping his US film debut with Midnight Meat Train, …Read more »
Matt Schley
Jason Moses
Danica Davidson
Joseph Luster
Erin Finnegan
Emily Balistrieri
Mike Dent
Patrick Macias