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April 28, 2024
 

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WIDE ANGLE

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Aug 3, 2017
Wonder Woman doesn't need the kawaii treatment
If they did it to Cutie Honey and Fujiko Mine, they can do it to Wonder Woman. I’m talking about the kawaii treatment, which works like a kiss of death to bad-ass super-heroines in Japanese pop culture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 27, 2017
It's a bit out of the way, but Skip City festival makes up for the distance with great films and rare access
The location for the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival doesn't make it particularly easy for casual fans to pop in. The Skip City complex — which hosts studios for audiovisual production, as well as educational and entertainment facilities — is a fairly lengthy bus ride from Kawaguchi Station in Saitama Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 13, 2017
Meet the kawaii witches of the East
Despite being a fantastic go-to costume on Halloween, witches in the West have never had it easy. There were the Salem witch trials of the 1690s, and similar trials elsewhere in North America and Europe through the 17th century, which served as warnings to independent women that they could be persecuted at any moment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jun 15, 2017
A scorched-earth fix to a celebrity scandal
Scandals can send a celebrity's career careening off a cliff. This is especially true in Japan, where minor violations of the social code can lead to major personal repercussions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jun 1, 2017
Dad-made 'bento' make a splash on the silver screen
Japanese movies tend to portray Japanese dads as male chauvinists who never step into the kitchen if they can help it and have little interest in raising their kids. Consider Yasujiro Ozu's timeless classic "Tokyo Story." Sure, Chishu Ryu played a kind and gentle patriarch — but did he once help the women in his family or even get his own tea? That's a big negative and it applies to countless screen fathers and many real-life ones, too.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
May 25, 2017
Hollywood's love storyboard
If you're the type who sticks around after a movie to read the credits, you'll know it takes more than one village to make a feature-length film. Ten or even 20 villages is more like it. Among the villagers are people with the title of "storyboard artist" and "film researcher," although, like many artisans in the digital world, they are a disappearing breed. "Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story" is a documentary that sheds light on two such professionals who dedicated themselves to the art.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 27, 2017
Anime's Masaaki Yuasa directs a dream with 'Night Is Short, Walk On Girl'
Tomihiko Morimi's novel "Night Is Short, Walk On Girl" (Japanese title: "Yoru wa Mijikashi Aruke yo Otome") is set in the same universe as its predecessor, "The Tatami Galaxy" ("Yojohan Shinwa Taikei"), and is the latest to get the anime treatment by Masaaki Yuasa's Science Saru animation studios. This film, however, focuses a bit less on the male protagonist known only as "Senpai" and more on his love interest, "Kuro Kami no Otome" (the Girl with Black Hair). Notice the lack of identity beyond simple attributes? It's a way to make the story as generic as possible, though the film ends up being anything but.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 20, 2017
Japan, take pride in 'Your Name.'
Two weeks ago, the United States' box office saw a surprising animated feature take the top spot and generate large amounts of discussion — and memes — on social media.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 13, 2017
Fashion's night at the museum
"The First Monday in May" opens April 15 at the Bunkamura Le Cinema Theater in Tokyo's trendy Shibuya Ward (the Japanese title is "Metto Gara, Doresu o Matotta Bijutsukan"). It's a documentary about a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition titled "China: Through the Looking Glass" in 2015.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 6, 2017
When the talent gets religious
"Ankoku Joshi" is a murder mystery involving six pretty JK (slang for joshi kosei, high school girls)" who all have something to hide. The film's title literally means "pitch black girls," which pretty much explains their characters' personalities in what soon becomes a grisly little tale directed by Saiji Yakumo.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 29, 2017
'Trump: What’s The Deal?': you can finally find out
"Trump: What's The Deal," a documentary completed in 1991, was meant to be the first in a series on the celebrity businessmen who characterized the greed-is-good 1980s. It was never released as Donald Trump threatened to sue any broadcaster or distributor who handled it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 22, 2017
Marty Gross and 'The Lovers' Exile'
At various times and places in his four-decade career, Canadian native Marty Gross has been a potter, art teacher, film director and a producer, with most of his personal and professional roads leading back to Japan.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 15, 2017
Looking back on the 'trial of the century'
Everywhere you look these days, it feels like it's just Trump, Trump and even more Trump. It's worth taking a moment to recall that 23 years ago many people were just as sick of O.J. Simpson when the amiable American football star-turned-TV/movie celebrity became the main suspect in the brutal murder of his estranged wife, Nicole, and the subsequent trial/media circus marked the beginning of the age of binge coverage.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 10, 2017
Fukada's filmmaking a breath of fresh air
Koji Fukada's black comedy "Hospitalite" ("Kantai") won best film in the Tokyo International Film Festival's Japanese Eyes section in 2010 and since then he has become accustomed to stepping up on stages to receive prizes for his work.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 8, 2017
'Voyage of Time': Terence Malick's 40-year dream
Filmmaker Terrence Malick is renowned for quirky brilliance, but the director of "Thin Red Line" and "The Tree of Life" is also notorious for his steadfast refusal to have anything to do with the press. Not even online statements or a 10-second Skype session. He just doesn't do them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 1, 2017
Binge on the best of the Italian neorealists
Even a casual film buff knows that "Bicycle Thieves," the 1948 black-and-white film by Vittorio De Sica, is regarded as one of The Great Films of All Time. It's the best-known film by far of Italian cinema's postwar neorealist movement, but those who wish to delve deeper into that rich vein can binge this month at Yebisu Garden Cinema, with its Cinema Neo Classico Italia showcase.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 23, 2017
From the 'Queen of Boogie' to 'The Lion King,' Japanese audiences are always up for a good musical
Few Japanese will dispute that we are a nation of dedicated music fans and, though it may not seem like it at first, this goes for musicals, too.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 22, 2017
Asian Film Festival unspools in Osaka
Why go to Osaka to see films? I may sound like an insufferable Tokyo snob asking this, but given all the hundreds of movies on offer in the nation's capital, it's worth answering to justify the shinkansen ticket.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 15, 2017
It'll get released in Japan — come 'Hell or High Water'
Among the snubs and surprise inclusions in this year's Oscar nominations, one might have stood out for Japanese movie fans — and I'm not talking about "Your Name." In what's surely a first, a Best Picture nominee has bypassed cinemas here and gone straight to Netflix.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 8, 2017
'Do Not Resist': The consequences are high
Armored personnel carriers prowl the streets as bulky stormtroopers with automatic weapons and body armor batter down doors. Light aircraft and drones cruise the skies above, monitoring the movements to and from individual dwellings 24/7. Afghanistan? Nope, this is the troubling image of white-picket-fence America presented in director Craig Atkinson's documentary "Do Not Resist," where every small town needs an IED-proof armored vehicle.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Number of homeless in Japan hits record low
Homeless people sleep on the street in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward in August 2021.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Air China to buy 100 locally made C919 jets in $11 billion deal
A Comac C919 during an aerial display at the Singapore Airshow at Changi Exhibition Centre in Singapore in February
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Tokyo's Koto Ward by-election a race unlike any other
Natsumi Sakai, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan’s candidate and one of four female candidates running in the by-election, touts her experience as a cancer survivor and midwife as having prepared her to tackle issues that women currently face.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Top U.S. and China diplomats talk tough amid warnings of new ‘downward spiral’
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Friday
Kyotographie's strong 12th edition shines light into the margins
Yassine Alaoui Ismaili, who goes by Yoriyas, turned to photography, shooting motion while in motion himself, after an injury forced him to give up his career as a professional breakdancer.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores
By Alex K.T. Martin

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Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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