Tag: Japanese animation

Arrietty
(US: The Secret World
of Arrietty)
(Karigurashi no Arietti,
借りぐらしのアリエッティ,
lit. Arrietty the Borrower)

Arrietty

(US: The Secret World of Arrietty)

(Karigurashi no Arietti,

借りぐらしのアリエッティ,

lit. Arrietty the Borrower)

Director – Hiromasa Yonebayashi – 2010 – Japan – Cert. U – 94m

*****

A teenage girl under a foot high is found by a kindly boy with a heart condition who has come to his aunt’s home on the city’s outskirts to convalesce – back out in a 4K remaster in UK IMAX cinemas on Wednesday, October 14th, then in regular UK cinemas on Friday, October 16th through Sunday, October 18th

His Aunt Sadako (voice / 2010 Japanese dub: Keiko Takashita; 2010 StudioCanal UK English dub: Phillida Law) drives (voice / 2010 Japanese dub: Ryonosuke Kamiki; 2010 StudioCanal UK English dub: Tom Holland) to the house on the city’s outskirts he is visiting. On arrival, he sees a crow having a spat with the cat, which in turn is taking an interest in a group of plants in which he spots a teenage girl less than a foot high. After he’s been called inside the house, the girl, Arrietty (voice / 2010 Japanese dub: Mirai Shida; 2010 StudioCanal UK English dub: Saoirse Ronan) escapes the cat through the grille into the basement, where she outruns grasshoppers to enter her family’s cosy, miniature cottage accessible by a small flight of steps.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, adventure, animation, anime, Arrietty, attacked by a crow, aunt, basement, bedridden, captured, cat, caught, cavity wall, children’s book, city outskirts, co-existing, convalesce, crow, doll’s house, Geraldine McEwan, Hayao Miyazaki, heart condition, heart operation, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, housekeeper, human world, ivy, Japan, Japanese animation, kitchen, ledges on a pathway of nails, Luke Allen-Gale, Mark Strong, Mary Norton, melancholy, miniature, Mirai Shida, move house, Olivia Colman, out of sight, parents and children, pest control, Phillida Law, rain, rainstorm, relax, rescue, Saoirse Ronan, sewing pin, spying, Studio Ghibli, sugar cube, survival, suspicious, tabletop, teenage girl, The Borrowers, tissue, Tom Holland, underfloor, winch lift, window sill

Animation Features Movies

Perfect Blue
(Pafekuto Buru,
パーフェクトブルー)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date May 21 1999
No Comments on Perfect Blue
(Pafekuto Buru,
パーフェクトブルー)

Perfect Blue (Pafekuto Buru, パーフェクトブルー)

Director – Satoshi Kon – 1997 – Japan – Cert. 18 – 81m

*****

Multi-layered, identity crisis psycho thriller redefines the boundaries of animation, Japanese or otherwise – 4K Restoration plays in the Annecy International Animation Festival 2026 which runs from Sunday, 21st June to Saturday 27th June

During a gig by girl pop trio CHAM, one of its three singers Mima announces her decision to quit the band. Her intention to pursue an acting career is a move designed to both help her escape the inevitable waning popularity of the pop idol and make the public take her more seriously than they would the innocent girl they perceive her pop idol / persona to be.

Her agent, a former pop idol herself, expresses concern when Mima is first required to play a rape scene in her new daytime TV soap Double Bind and second to pose nude for a photographer. But there’s worse to come for Mima as an internet fan page starts to chronicle an idealised version of her life and a series of bloody corpses start piling up in her wake.

Although it plays like an Argento or De Palma Hitchcockian thriller, Perfect Blue is in fact a cel animated, subtitled Japanese affair that once and for all kills off widespread misconceptions about animation – it’s neither for kids, nor cute, nor simplistic.… Read the rest

Animation Features Movies

The Lord
of the Rings:
The War
of the Rohirrim

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date December 12 2024
No Comments on The Lord
of the Rings:
The War
of the Rohirrim

Director – Kenji Kamiyama – 2024 – US – Cert. 12a – 134m

****

A story of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, set around 200 years before The Lord of the Rings – English language anime is out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 13th

This narrative is based on one of the appendices in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, (although checking my copy of the 1979 Unwin paperback edition, it’s not there, so it’s unclear when this appendix first appeared). The Kingdom of Rohan and the Battle of Helm’s Deep are familiar from Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy, as is the character of Éowyn (voice: Miranda Otto, reprising her role) who serves here as a narrator, the tale taking place around 200 years before the events in LOTR.

Wulf (voice: Elijah Tamati) and Hèra (voice: Bea Dooley) are childhood friends, sweethearts even. She is something of a tomboy, riding out of the small fiefdom – from where her father Helm Hammerhand (voice: Brian Cox) rules his Kingdom of Rohan – to feed a giant eagle, or engage in friendly, hand-to-hand, sword and shield combat with Wulf, at which task she bests him.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, animation, animation background, anime, appendix, battle, Bea Dooley, betrayal, bow, Brian Cox, cast of thousands, cavalry, CG, CG animation, childhood friends, cultural slippage, culture, East and West, elephant, Elijah Tamati, fiefdom, footnote, fortress, Fran Walsh, Gaia Wise, giant eagle, hand-to-hand combat, Helm’s Deep, hordes, Hornburg, horseback, injuries, Japanese animation, Kenji Kamiyama, kingdom, Luca Pasqualino, maw, Michael Wildman, Middle-earth, military strategist, Miranda Otto, mountainside, myth, mythology, narrator, no plans to marry, Oriental and Western, overweight, Peter Jackson, Phillippa Boyens, retreat, retribution, riders, riding, Rohan, Shaun Dooley, shield, siege, Silmarrillion, skirmish, story outline, sweethearts, sword, tentacle, The Lord of the Rings, The War of the Rohirrim, Tolkien, tomboy, two kingdoms at war, underwater, unite, Warner Bros. Animation, Wingnut Films, wraith