WARNING: SIGNIFICANT, DETAILED SPOILERS AND GRUESOME IMAGERY AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Don’t be fooled by the apparently child-friendly character designs on the packaging of this febrile descent into danger and madness, Kinema Citrus’ 2017 13-episode adaptation of Akihito Tsukushi’s web manga Made in Abyss. What appears at first to be a cutesy kiddie’s adventure story evolves … Read more
Another family-friendly choice, this film makes an interesting complement/counterpoint to my recently reviewed A Letter to Momo in that this Chinese-produced animation also explores Eastern concepts of the afterlife from a young person’s perspective. When I picked it up, I didn’t even realise this wasn’t Japanese anime – though it most certainly looks like anime. The characters wouldn’t look … Read more
Part of a bundle of cheap DVDs from my local HMV store, I chose Momo as the first of them to watch (and also as it was one of the few child-friendly ones I could share with my son). This is a 2011 theatrical anime release directed by Hiroyuki Okiura, whose most prominent previous directorial work was … Read more
I have just returned from my spring break visit to my family in the far north of Scotland, to Thurso – the town where I was born. On my last visit in October 2018 I was pleasantly surprised to find a new comic shop in the town centre. I was even more pleasantly surprised that … Read more