Looking for a great roundup of Japanese films, animated and otherwise? Get thee to Toronto. From May 10 to June 27, the TIFF Bell Lightbox will be showing a series they’re calling POP Japan, featuring anime faves like Spirited Away and Akira, plus madcap live-action …Read more »
The Tokyo International Film Festival is on (sans international guests—thanks COVID) and its anime section features films old and new, from the very first Pokemon movie to ones that haven’t even been released yet. Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop is in the latter category. …Read more »
Over the last few years, the Tokyo International Film Festival has been devoting a lot of energy to anime: the festival has hosted auteurs like Hideaki Anno ( Evangelion ), Yoshiyuki Tomino ( Gundam ) and Mamoru Hosoda ( The Boy and the Beast ). …Read more »
Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name continues to be a mega-hit in Japan and abroad (it just opened huge in South Korea), which means anybody who’s anybody in the world of Japanese cinema inevitably gets asked what they thought of it. That includes Tokyo International Film Festival …Read more »
Left to right: Akihiro Yamauchi, Isshin Inudo, Kohei Ando Shin Godzilla , which opened way back in July, is still stomping its way through Japanese theaters. “I just met someone the other day who’s seen it 50 times,” said Akihiro Yamauchi, taking the stage after …Read more »
For three years in a row, the Tokyo International Film Festival has honored an anime director with a series of retrospectives and talk events based around that director’s filmography. Two years ago, it was Evangelion ’s Hideaki Anno ; last year, Mobile Suit Gundam creator …Read more »
Over the past few years, the organizers of the Tokyo International Film Festival have been adding one of Japan’s biggest cultural exports, anime, to the mix, featuring films and talks with directors including Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hideaki Anno. This year, TIFF also rolled out a …Read more »
The Tokyo International Film Festival is underway, and like last year, the festival has decided to showcase anime as a part of its lineup. Last year the festival featured the films of Hideaki Anno, and this year, the spotlight is on the long-running Gundam franchise. …Read more »
You may recall that last year the Tokyo International Film Festival hosted a retrospective of works by Evangelion director Hideaki Anno (check out our coverage here ). The program was a hit, apparently, because this year the festival is doubling down on the anime thing. …Read more »
If you are at all interested in the works of Mamoru Oshii ( Patlabor , Ghost in the Shell , Jin-Roh ) may we heartily recommend this in-depth interview from last year’s Toronto International Film Festival? “One hour twenty minutes?!” you scream. But trust us. …Read more »
If you’ve been watching Aoi Hono , the TV show about manga author Kazuhiko Shimamoto’s college days, you might remember a scene in which Hideaki Anno, future anime director and creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion , draws an incredibly detailed piece of animation on a …Read more »
This week the Tokyo International Film Festival teamed up with the World Cosplay Summit for a live show featuring some of the world’s best cosplayers. The World Cosplay Summit, a yearly cosplay contest held in Nagoya, attracts contestants from 22 participating countries. 44 of the …Read more »
Fans of Mamoru Oshii, the director of anime classics like Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor , are split into two distinct groups: those who like his live-action work and those who don’t. Oshii’s been working in live-action for years, but his real-life films are …Read more »
Takeshi Kitano, director of such films as Zatoichi and Sonatine , also known as Beat Takeshi, comic host of Takeshi’s Castle and star of Battle Royale , was awarded the first ever Samurai Award this week at the Tokyo International Film Festival. During his talk …Read more »
A television broadcast of Evangelion 3.33 last Friday served up a brief teaser of the fourth and final film in the Evangelion remake series. And we do mean brief. After the credits rolled, the words “Next” and “Evangelion 3.0+1.0” appeared on screen. The image subsequently …Read more »
Matt Schley
