another anime movie review

By Andrew Osmond. One Piece: Red, opening in UK and Ireland cinemas this Autumn, is so new that few story details have yet emerged. However, the publicity makes clear that it centres round a completely new character – Uta, who’s the most beloved singer in the One Piece world and who also happens to be […] http://dlvr.it/SXWBpd

By Jonathan Clements. From the opening moments of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Cannon Fodder, the third and final story in the Memories anthology movie, we find ourselves in a world dominated by military thought. Even the striking mechanism of the Boy’s clock depicts a cannon destroying a castle. Everybody’s job is connected to the war effort; everybody’s […] http://dlvr.it/SXLzDx

By Jonathan Clements. Hapless lab assistant Nobuo Tanaka is working on a new ‘miracle drug’ at a research institute. Unfortunately for him, his harmless project turns out to have a military dimension, and when Tanaka mistakes a stray pill for a cold remedy he fails to realise he has just become the ultimate weapon. Now […] http://dlvr.it/SXBcb9

By Andrew Osmond. Speaking about his anime film Magnetic Rose, part of the Katsuhiro Otomo-produced anthology Memories, director Koji Morimoto made a bold proclamation. “The characters in the story had to escape the magnetic field,” Morimoto said, “so Satoshi Kon and I used to say we had to escape the magnetic field called Otomo!” Kon […] http://dlvr.it/SX1HK5

by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood. A country opens up to the West and goes through a flowering of political and social liberalism before reactionaries force a backlash, democracy flounders, and a repressive regime takes the reins. This could describe Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Soviet bloc, or Japan from the Meiji Restoration to the 1945 […] http://dlvr.it/SWprGG

By Shelley Pallis. So many things came to mind when I saw the title of Asumiko Nakamura’s Maiden Railways manga for the first time. And I thought, well, it’s probably a thing about girls who are trains, or trains who are girls, or a bunch of witches who moonlight as train conductors, but no. It’s […] http://dlvr.it/SWhdny

By Jonathan Clements. One of the carriages on the Kyoto shinkansen is a mauve hellscape of high-pitched voices and big eyes, devoted to the irritating but mercifully fictional anime mascot character Momonga. Every now and then the duelling assassins in David Leitch’s Bullet Train have to traverse it, subject to invasive entreaties to be someone’s […] http://dlvr.it/SWVMCX

By Jonathan Clements. Masakazu Ishiguro’s manga Heavenly Delusion begins with super double-bluff opening chapter, in which a bunch of gormless school-children, tutored by a robot, complain about an unexpected maths test. It’s only when one of them tries to come up with a word for it, unaware that the term “pop quiz” even exists already, […] http://dlvr.it/SWM5V7

By Shelley Pallis. Festooned with prizes, including the judges’ award at last year’s Scotland Loves Anime and the Japan Academy Award for Excellence in Animation, Ayumu Watanabe’s Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko now reaches British cinemas. As her name inadvertently suggests, Nikuko is a creature of fleshy delights – passionate, enthusiastic, bubbly and obsessed with foods. […] http://dlvr.it/SWBL8V

By Shelley Pallis. Back in town for the summer vacation, would-be medical student Toto is reunited with his former middle-school bestie, Roma. In the intervening months, their roles have been reversed – Roma was once the sophisticated city-slicker transplanted to Hicksville, but now he’s just a farmer’s boy who has to muck out the cows, […] http://dlvr.it/SW2Sbs

The summer may be slipping away by the day, but we’re not ready to let it escape before…. the All The Anime Summer Sale! Yes, we’re kicking off this month’s newswire with a reminder that our huge summer sale begins this Friday, 5th August. Expect all manner of great deals, including Buy One Get One […] http://dlvr.it/SVyMx4