Nakama Britannica

One thing that’s caught my attention lately is how, in terms of genre and target audience, categorising an anime or manga series is surprisingly complicated. Many titles are marketed along the lines of age and gender of the target audience or readership: namely shounen (young, male), shoujo (young, female), seinen (older, male) and josei (older, [...]

I’ve found that often being a fan of anime and manga goes hand-in-hand with an interest in Japanese culture and tradition. The influence Western media has had on them is well-known of course, but to my mind it had more of a bearing on the superficial, aesthetic side of things; from a thematic and character-driven [...]

I was racking my brains over what to write for this blog entry: it’s too early to give a worthwhile run-down of what’s the best new summer show currently airing and wider-reaching topics such as the state of the industry have been done to death right across the anime blogosphere already. Looking at my own [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]