Mirai reviewed exclusively for Projected Figures Aged just four, and keen to be like the bigger boys, Kun (voiced by Moka Kamishiraishi) has removed the training wheels from his brand new pushbike, and after a couple of abortive attempts, has learnt to ride unaided. “Children are incredible!” exclaims Kun’s amazed father (Gen Hoshino) to his wife…
Napping Princess first published by Sight & Sound, September 2017 Review: Somnolent final-year high schooler Kokone Morikawa (voiced by Mitsuki Takahata) leads a double life. In her waking hours she struggles to grasp an image of her mother Ikumi (who died in an accident when Kokone was a baby), to work out whether she should move…
Metropolis (Metroporisu) first published by Little White Lies, as part 25 of my Cinema Psychotronicum column “Every epoch dreams its successor,” states text at the beginning of Rintaro’s feature-length anime Metropolis (Metroporisu). This quotation from the nineteenth-century French historian Jules Michelet captures something of the film’s retrofuturist vibe, as we see Rintaro’s towering world of tomorrow…
First published by Movie Gazette Here’s a recipe for an enchanting spell: carefully distil The Odyssey and Alice in Wonderland, add a dollop of Grimms’ fairy tales, a soupçon of The Sorceror’s Apprentice and a sprig of Cupid and Psyche, and then sprinkle liberally with Japanese demonology. Garnish with exquisite hand-painted backgrounds, just the odd bit…
First published by LWLies “Once upon a time, long long ago, there lived an old bamboo woodcutter…” Along with the exquisitely layered and painted parchments that we see at the beginning of Studio Ghibli’s latest feature The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, these opening words, delivered by a reassuringly female voice, leave little doubt that…
First published by Little White Lies Interviews don’t always go as you hope and expect they will. This conversation with Yoshiura Yasuhiro, conducted awkwardly through an interpreter just before the theatrical release of his anime Patema Inverted, had so many false starts and misunderstandings that towards the end of our alloted time I was losing…
Longer version of review first published in LittleWhiteLies As a genre which reflects and defamiliarises everyday societal tensions through a glass darkly, dystopian fiction is always inverting the world as we know it – but in feature anime Patema Inverted, written and directed by Yoshiura Yasuhiro (Time of Eve), the inverted world assumes an unusually…
Review first published by Little White Lies Hana (voiced by Miyazaki Aoi), a good-natured, lonely student in Tokyo, befriends a young man who “didn’t look at all like the other students”. Discovering that he is a werewolf, Hana remains unperturbed, and they become lovers — but he dies shortly after their second child is born,…
Review first published by GrolschFilmWorks, where there is also an interview with director Kamiyama Kenji. Kamiyama Kenji’s 009 Re:Cyborg opens with beautiful/horrific images of Shanghai skyscrapers violently toppling, accompanied by a voice-over speaking in biblical terms about humanity’s moral Fall and subsequent trials sent by ‘Him’. Watching the disaster unfold on the television news, young…