Anime Nation

Do you want to watch something different from the classic love, romance, happy/sad ending story? Then you should definitely watch a Makoto Shinkai film. What I admire most in Makoto Shinkai’s works is that, whilst listed as romance stories, they are not developed in a typical fashion. There’s always a complex, endless stream of visual context tangled with deep metaphors and conversations about essential aspects of life like human relationships, growth to adulthood, self-discovery.  Japan’s summer rainy season has started. Takao Akizuki skipped class to enjoy the rain and sights in Shinjuku Garden, where he meets a mysterious woman, Yukari Yukino. As the days go by, without arranging time or day but always when it rains, the two still keep meeting in the garden, under the same shed. A strong bond started to develop. The film has a unique perspective and focuses in the relationship between Takao and Yukino, starting with their meeting in the garden. The romantic de...

Weathering With You is the latest film from Makoto Shinkai, the writer and director who shot to worldwide fame with 2016’s Your Name. Your Name was tremendous; it became the highest-grossing anime film at the time it was released. It was also the perfect distillation of Shinkai’s sensibilities: openly romantic, quietly profound, and every frame gorgeous. It’s tempting to compare Weathering With You to Your Name, since the films have many similarities. That feels unfair, though.  Weathering With You is trying for something far more difficult. Film takes place in a Japan beset by near-endless rain. Under a perpetually gray sky, Weathering With You follows Hodaka, a teenage boy who leaves home for Tokyo with no real plan other than getting away and trying to make it on his own. He falls in with Suga, a tabloid writer who gives him a place to stay in exchange for being his assistant. Throughout, he keeps crossing paths with Hina, a gi...

A Silent Voice  is a subtitled animated Japanese movie by Yamada Naoko. It’s about the relationship between two school students, Shoya Ishida (Miyu Irino) and Shoko Nishimiya (Saori Hayami). When Shoko, who has a hearing impairment, starts as a new student in an established elementary class, delinquent Shoya teases her because of her impairment. But when he transfers to junior high school, his former friends turn against him and Shoya finds himself isolated and lonely. He feels guilty about his past actions towards Shoko, and he frequently thinks about how he could atone for his behaviour. One day, he reunites with Shoko and the two become tentative friends. In an effort to bring happiness to Shoko’s life, Shoya sets out to reconnect her with other students from elementary school, whom she never had a chance to know. Shoko and Shoya gradually begin to develop strong feelings for each other, although Shoko still experiences feelings of hopelessn...

Youre is a Japanese animated romantic fantasy film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, and produced by CoMix Wave Films. It was produced by Kōichirō Itō and Katsuhiro Takei, with animation direction by Masashi Ando, character designs by Masayoshi Tanaka, and music composed by Radwimps. Your Name tells the story of a high school boy in Tokyo and a high school girl in a rural town, who suddenly and inexplicably begin to swap bodies. The film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki and Mone Kamishiraishi. Shinkai's eponymous light novel was published a month before the film's premiere. The story Mitsuha Miyamizu is a high school girl living in the rural town of Itomori near Hida. Bored of the town, she wishes to be a Tokyo boy in her next life. She inexplicably begins to switch bodies intermittently with Taki Tachibana, a high school boy in Tokyo, waking up as the other person and having to live through their activities and social interactions for the day. The two initially be...

Bleach is a Japanese anime television series based on  Tite Kubo's manga of the same name. It was produced by  Studio Pierrot and directed by Noriyuki Abe. The series aired on TV Tokyo from October 2004 to March 2012, spanning 366 episodes. The story follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki after he obtains the powers of a Soul Reaper—a death personification similar to the  Grim Reaper—from another Soul Reaper, Rukia Kuchiki. His newfound powers force him to take on the duties of defending humans from evil spirits and guiding departed souls to the afterlife. The anime adaptation includes original storylines not found in the manga with repeated appearances and stories containing these original characters. The Name Bleach Was Picked Very Carefully I If you have ever wondered why Bleach is called such, then you don’t have to guess for long. Tite Kubo chose the name Bleach because contrasts with ...

Attack on Titan’s final season has expertly played with the viewers’ expectations, but “Brave Volunteers” feels like the most atypical episode of what’s been an extremely unpredictable season.  The crux of “Brave Volunteers” comes down to Eldia’s invasion of Paradis Island and the unlikely arrangement that they enter with Zeke and a determined soldier named Yelena. A tense parley takes place between these factions and the Eldian and Marleyans reluctantly decide to pool their resources together to take on the larger threat of Paradis and the Founding Titan. There’s a lot to digest as Attack on Titan breezes through its plan and there are some enlightening glimpses into strategy, like how Eren wants Armin to tap into Bertholdt’s memories as a way to learn of their enemy’s plan and gain the advantage over them. Everyone is still planning multiple moves ahead in this metaphorical match of monster chess.   The secret alliances between Zeke, Levi, Eren, ...

  The author and his wife , Mashiro Hiiragi , adapted the novels into a  manga  series for  Monthly Comic Alive  in 2013.  Later that year, an  anime  adaptation of No Game No Life   by Madhouse was announced.  It premiered on  AT-X  between April and July 2014, and was  simulcast  outside Japan by  Crunchyroll . An anime film adaptation of the sixth volume,  No Game, No Life Zero , premiered on July 15, 2017. A spinoff manga, No Game No Life, Please!, focusing on the character Izuna, ran from May 27, 2015, to November 27, 2017. The No Game No Life franchise was localized in North America by several companies:  Seven Seas Entertainment  licensed the manga,  Sentai Filmworks  the anime, and  Yen Press  the light novel series. The series follows  Sora  and his younger stepsister  Shiro , two  hikikomori ...

Mamoru Hosoda is Japan’s next great anime director. It’s extremely refreshing to say that because I feel as though great anime is a rarity. I’m a long-time fan of Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Satoshi Kon, but their output is very low – and understandably so. Miyazaki’s unfortunate retirement, the odd once-a-decade Takahata release, and Kon’s death in 2010, etc. has me feeling rather starved for excellence in anime. So, Hosoda is a godsend. Frankly, I’m giddy at the thought that I have yet to see his first two films – The Girl Who Leapt through Time and Summer Wars. But for now, we’ll focus on his latest, a Studio Chizu and Madhouse production: Wolf Children. It’s the story of Hana, a university student when we meet her. She sits in a lecture hall, distracted by a thin, handsome man named Kare. Very soon, the audience is gently eased in to the loving relationship between these two. In fact, we are with Hana when Kare tells her that he is a wolf. (Not a werewolf that transforms onl...

Animation is rarely used for action or adventure films. Because it’s still largely regarded as children’s entertainment here, studios are usually reluctant to tell stories where the danger is real and the hero can be killed. In contrast, Masahiro Ando’s Sword of the Stranger (2007) is an action-filled samurai adventure that echoes the period films Akira Kurosawa and Hiroshi Inagaki made starring Toshiro Mifune. The bloody violence may seem over the top at times, but that’s also true of live action samurai epics. The stakes are high and the audience can’t be sure if the heroes will be alive when the film ends. Sword of the Stranger is set during the Warring States period (c.1467-c.1600) when Japan was divided into small realms ruled by nobles locked in internecine power struggles. Kotaro (voice by Aidan Drummond), an adolescent orphan, has been living with Buddhist monks since his parents died. He fled the temple that was his home when it was attacked by Chinese warriors and samurai ser...

Have you ever walked into a film with absolutely no idea what it was going to be about? No TV ads, no trailers, no opinion peaches, a complete blind experience. For me, it has only truly happened once with The Forbidden Kingdom. Well, today I have another entry for that list with Mirai. Not only did I have no idea what it was going to be about, I had no idea it was about to hit me in the feels in a very complex way. So to set the scene, we open on Kun (Moka Kamishiraishi) a young toddler playing with his Bullet Train models, as his grandmother (Yoshiko Miyazaki) ties to clean up behind him. He’s waiting for a big change as his Mother (Kumiko Aso) and Father (Gen Hoshino) are about bring home the new addition to their family Mirai (Haru Kuroki). While there was a sense that his world was about to change, Kun had no idea about what life would be like when you are not the centre of attention. One day in a fit of frustration he throws his train at his new sister and in a tantrum runs outsi...