Monday, June 23rd, 2008

5cm Per Second and Makoto Shinkai in conversation: BFI Southbank

As reported on the AUKN News section recently, the BFI kicked off their Anime Now weekend at the South Bank venue with a screening of 5cm Per Second, the latest feature film from Comix Wave studios. As an added incentive the three-part feature was played in full along with a personal appearance from the director, [...]

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

A moment of stillness: the appeal of iyashikei

After being lured into anime fandom through hard-edged science fiction and edge-of-your-seat action-fests I’ve always wondered how exactly I started to gravitate towards the whimsical drama and slice-of-life drama; my DVD collection and watch lists have taken on a split personality of sorts with the gritty thrillers and cyberpunk on one hand and mellow realistic [...]

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

Album spotlight: Turbulence by Monoral

The rock duo Monoral, consisting of Anis Shimada and Ali Morizumi, have two EPs and two full-length albums under their belts but I first heard their music, as quite a few others no doubt did, through their single Kiri, the song used in the opening theme to Ergo Proxy. This is featured on the second [...]

Sunday, December 23rd, 2007

2007: the token retrospective

As anime and manga slowly but surely become more and more of an integral part of the UK’s popular culture, it’s fair to say that we as fans have never had it so good. Whether you share this view or not, there have been some important events in the past twelve months that have, for [...]

Sunday, November 11th, 2007

Whatever happened to my OAV?

Looking at animated films being released today, many big-budget titles use the quality of their computer graphics as a big selling point in a similar way that live-action blockbusters do when boasting about the quality of their ’special FX’ and stunts; it’s so commonplace now that it hardly feels worth mentioning any more. Looking at [...]

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

New DVD releases: Autumn 2007

With the warmth of summer now behind us, now is the time to retreat indoors out of the autumn wind and rain. Personally I like to unwind in front of the TV when the great British weather turns; fortunately there’s plenty on offer from the UK’s anime DVD distributors to prevent boredom setting in! There [...]