NEWSWORTHY
'Penguin Highway': What goes up must come down ... in penguin form
There's something about the playful, magical realist novels of Tomihiko Morimi that seems to lend itself to animated adaptations. Those adaptations include TV series like "The Tatami Galaxy" ("Yojohan Shinwa Taikei") and "The Eccentric Family" ("Uchoten Kazoku"), plus last year's film "The Night is ...
Tottori airport revamp adds stores, doubles down on 'Detective Conan' theme
An airport that was renamed after a popular comic book detective a few years ago has completed a revamp as it looks to lure more tourists to sparsely populated Tottori Prefecture. The revamped airport, unveiled Saturday, now has more stores, including one stocked with goods ...
Sally Amaki's life as an animated idol-pop star
Though she liked anime growing up, Sally Amaki never thought she'd grow up to be an anime character. After moving from Los Angeles to Tokyo, Amaki tried her luck at voice acting and eventually landed the role of the blond-haired Sakura Fujima, one of the ...
'Mirai': Mamoru Hosoda's latest anime is for the young at heart
Though anime director Mamoru Hosoda rarely diverges from his pet theme of family, the scale of his movies rises and falls like the tide. "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" (2006) was an intimate tale of high school life, "Summer Wars" (2009) dealt with ...
"I still feel the loneliness of being hikikomori. Maybe I'm successful, maybe not. I can't tell. But I still feel the loneliness. The only difference now is that I can express my loneliness, my pain, and all those feelings in my writing. They don't ...
Meiji University president sees new Japan-China relationship evolving through manga
Believing pop culture such as manga and anime will help establish a foundation for stable relations between Japan and China, Meiji University President Keiichiro Tsuchiya has been promoting bilateral exchanges through lectures on cultural topics at Peking University. Efforts by Tsuchiya, 71, include a lecture ...
'Akira': Looking back at the future
On the 30th anniversary of the release of the animated version of 'Akira' in Japan, we examine the enduring legacy of Katsuhiro Otomo's sci-fi classic.
France celebrates Japanese culture with huge eight-month festival
France has opened the largest celebration of Japanese culture ever to take place abroad. The eight-month festival Japonismes 2018 features everything from prehistoric art to what the organizers bill as Europe's first virtual reality concert. "It's the largest extravaganza of its kind ever held outside Japan," ...
The pain and the passion that fueled the creation of 'Akira'
When I tell Kuni Tomita the anime classic "Akira" turns 30 years old this month, she shakes her head and laughs. "Unbelievable," she says. The animator has a very personal connection to the movie: She was one of more than 60 key animators assembled to bring ...
'Akira' soundtrack featured music worthy of a visual masterpiece
A crack of thunder. Pulsing polyrhythmic percussion. The roar of a passing motorcycle. A haunting symphonic chorus. Once you've heard the soundtrack to "Akira," the anime classic that turns 30 years old this month, it's almost impossible to forget it. Like every other aspect of the ...
Reshaping the sound of Neo-Tokyo for 'Akira'
If you were watching anime in English in the 1990s and 2000s, chances are you've heard a dub recorded by Les Claypool III. Some of the films and series that passed through Claypool's studio, Magnitude 8 Post, include "Macross Plus," "Ghost in the Shell" ...
Speak Japanese like a biker punk from the future with 'Akira'
Those looking to give their Japanese a bit of biker edge could do worse than take in a screening of the classic sci-fi anime "Akira."
