The opening of Yuki Tanada's new film "My Dad and Mr. Ito" promises a comedy of the quirky family variety. The 34-year-old Aya (Juri Ueno) and her 54-year-old lover (Lily Franky), whom she calls "Ito-san" (Mr. Ito), are living in age-inappropriate, tight-budgeted bliss when Aya's ...

Japanese weekly scandal magazines are pond scum, are they not? Dishing up grainy paparazzi photos of the famous and powerful, accompanied by wink-wink stories about improprieties and crimes — alleged or exposed — they appeal to the lowest common denominator, with their only raison ...

The Japanese women directors who have been gaining attention in the past two decades, beginning with frequent Cannes invitee Naomi Kawase, tend to be serious types, understandably. Their struggle for respect and recognition in a male-dominated industry is difficult enough — and goofy comedies ...

In English, you usually don't want to be compared to marine life. "Cold fish," "shark" and "whale" are not often intended as compliments, and "come out of your shell" is commonly addressed to the anti-social. Japanese have a somewhat different take on the undersea ...

High school kids dream big dreams, and in Japan one of the biggest is to be a successful manga artist. The financial rewards for a hit manga published in a national magazine and sold in paperback editions are substantial. And the accompanying recognition and ...

Japanese war films typically frame themselves as anti-war, even when they glorify the sacrifices made by brave Japanese boys in defense of the homeland, as in the 2013 hit "Eien no Zero" ("The Eternal Zero"). Kon Ichikawa's 1959 war film "Nobi" ("Fires on the Plain") ...

Japanese films did quite well both commercially and critically in 2013, with Hayao Miyazaki's final feature animation, "Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises)," thumping the Hollywood competition at the local box office. But the industry's over-reliance on sure-thing manga, TV shows and novels for source ...