anime
1995’s Ghost in the Shell creates a prescient vision of a connected world that functions as both as character study & social commentary.
Your Name is the latest anime from Makoto Shinkai; grounded in a contemporary setting, it is as endearing as it is gorgeous to watch unfold.
Miss Hokusai is based on the Japanese manga, and through a series of montages, it tells a powerful story of the struggles of an artist.
Among the animation giants of Disney and DreamWorks, it’s good to recognize directors who have perfected their craft outside the western sphere, and we’re not talking Hayao Miyazaki here (although he’s but a stone’s throw away). Satoshi Kon is a Japanese anime director known for his blending of fantasy and reality in his slickly edited films. In contrast to the magical animated realities of Studio Ghibli, Kon’s realities are completely grounded in the modern era, their subject matter rooted in the intertwining of identity and technology.
It may be fair to say that in the film industry, any motion picture that is not spoken in the English language is tagged under ‘foreign’. As we all know, Hollywood cinema is dominant among the world of film due to technological advancements, box office strategies for blockbusters, and stardom. For this reason, audiences are usually very selective when it comes to watching ‘foreign’ films.
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya tells the folklore of a Japanese princess born from a bamboo stalk in the heavens and raised as the child of an elderly agrarian couple. She lives and grows up rapidly right before our eyes, just like the bamboo from which she was bred. She was meant to live a more “normal” life, though, and is soon thrust into a lifestyle that contradicts her humble upbringings.