SIGNIFICANT SPOILERS FOR THE TV ENDING AND MOVIE FOLLOW So what, in the end, was all that about? If you’ve come to my review of Adolescence of Utena hoping that it will answer some of my lingering questions about the TV series’ finale, then you’ve come to the wrong place. It’s hard to describe what this movie … Read more
With all 39 episodes of Revolutionary Girl Utena under my belt, am I any better placed to explain what the hell this series is actually about? That’s a very daunting prospect, as I feel that especially regarding this final 6-episode “Apocalypse Saga” I’d need a PhD in metaphor and symbolism to even scratch the surface. Suffice to say, … Read more
Remember last time when I expressed my concern that Revolutionary Girl Utena might disappear up its own rear end in the next arc? Thankfully that hasn’t quite happened, but boy does this show like to make its viewers work that much harder to parse what is actually going on, over and above the overwrought emotional teenage drama and stylised visuals. This … Read more
Some of the very best movies leave behind a sense of aching melancholy, a intangible feeling that persists long after the end credits roll. 2018’s Penguin Highway is one such film — an aquatic story that effortlessly outmatches the similarly themed anime Children of the Sea. As the perfectly matched closing song “Good Day” tugged at my heartstrings, … Read more
Anyone who survived UK anime fandom in the early-to-mid-1990s, can effortlessly list the most prominent hits of the time — Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, most infamously Urotsukidoji. All released on VHS by Manga Video and marketed to the “beer and curry crowd” who wanted something lurid, noisy and violent to watch with their mates on a … Read more
With my recent week’s holiday, what better to do than relax watching strange late 90’s anime with my increasingly bewildered teenage daughter? October in the UK is cold, wet and miserable. It’s not like anyone wants to leave their house at this time of year anyway, though our government’s escalatingly byzantine multi-tier lockdown rules make … Read more
My kids and I tend to give daft nicknames to the shows we watch together. Lately, my eldest son and I have endured suspiciously immortal director Ridley Scott’s latest androids’n’misery SF depression-fest Raised by Wolves. We refer to it as “Murderbots”, an apt, snappy title. Last season, my daughter and I watched Re:Zero Season 2, but referred to it as “Misery … Read more
So underwhelmed am I by the current (Autumn 2019) anime season, that instead of keeping up with currently-airing shows, I’ve started digging into my Eternal Streaming Backlog of Shame. Autumn 2017’s Girls’ Last Tour has been in my sights for two years, as at first glance with its cutesy-characters-on-a-journey premise it seems both aesthetically and thematically similar … Read more
Kabukimonogatari is the second story in Monogatari Second Season, and can be summarised as: What if Back to the Future Part II, but Monogatari? This is not a bad thing, as I am one of those weirdos for whom that darkness-tinged and narratively complex middle film is the best part of that cinematic trilogy. Tragedy-infused time-travel shenanigans are like … Read more
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms is a film I wish I’d seen in the cinema. Sometimes I am lucky – anime occasionally shows in rare isolated theatrical screenings here in the frozen north of Scotland. I managed to see Mirai, Mary and the Witch’s Flower and My Hero Academia: Two Heroes last year, which (film festivals notwithstanding) may be the most … Read more