11 Mar, 2013

Ever noticed how some items of sentimental value tend to just up and disappear? You put them aside for a few months, years, decades, then when you go looking for them again, they’re nowhere to be found. It’s a mystery – or at least it was until this film came along, But now Anime Focus can reveal there are spirits who help themselves to forgotten...

27 Jan, 2013

After stunning the anime world with his award-winning short Voices of a Distant Star (created, amazingly, on his home computer), writer/director Makoto Shinkai was widely dubbed the new Miyazaki. Journey to Agartha shows him seizing that crown with both hands, delivering the companion piece to Princess Monokoke and Spirited Away that Studio Ghibli has been...

21 Jan, 2013

When Beez Entertainment went under last year, there were real fears that some of the titles from their back catalogue would be lost from UK release forever. Fortunately, that was never going to be the case with Code Geass, a show far too popular and influential to stay off our shelves for long. It returns in this handsome reissue from Kaze, but almost 6 years...

13 Jan, 2013

Two rival female assassins. A plot to gatecrash a summit of world leaders, with some canisters of a lethal virus as party favours. And a plucky photo-journalist swept up in the ensuing maelstrom. That’s Canaan – a big, bombastic tech thriller of the kind you associate with authors like Michael Crichton and shows like 24, but done anime style, and done...

24 Dec, 2012

Persona 4: The Animation has an odd lineage. The game from which it takes its name, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, is widely regarded as one of the finest JRPGs ever made and is often called the Playstation 2′s last great game. Famed for its deep, highly atmospheric mystery story, endearing characters and unique gameplay hooks, it’s become a cult...

24 Dec, 2012

Gintama is a popular series in Japan, but it has received only some subbed releases in the US and nothing at all over here – which is to say the film doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you know nothing of the backstory. We’re presented with what is apparently Edo (the old name for Tokyo) in the standard 19th century setting, so lots of traditional...

17 Dec, 2012

Meet Guts and his infeasibly large sword. He’s the hero of Berserk, a manga serial written and illustrated by Kentaro Miura that has been running for over twenty years. He’s also the star of The Egg of the King, the first part in a mammoth project to adapt the entire saga into a series of anime films (three are in the can as we speak). It’s a...

3 Dec, 2012

Based on a visual novel, Clannad followed the life of Tomoya Okazaki, a high school student slacker, as he helps his friends with their varying problems and situations. After Story (Part 1 as reviewed here), continued to follow Tomoya and his girlfriend Nagisa’s lives as Tomoya starts a job as Nagisa re-does her final year again. The second part of After...

3 Oct, 2012

The god of the title is the “God of Conquest” – the gaming moniker of bespectacled high school nerd Keima Katsuragi, an ardent otaku who’s a dab hand at dating sims (video games where you attempt to seduce a 2D member of the opposite sex). Under the impression that he’s some kind of real-life Casanova, maladroit demon Elsie de Lute Irma...

6 Aug, 2012

Comedy is hard, and its never harder than in anime, where it’s left of string of painfully unfunny harem shows and boring slice-of-life snoozefests in its wake. Fortunately for those watching, Squid Girl dodges these traps and instead emerges as a winning, if slightly lightweight, sketch show with an eye for amusing details. A lot of the amusement in the...