Midnight Eye. Anime.

An anime special this time around at Midnight Eye, from Jaspar Sharp's Round-Up of five varied titles to Nicholas Rucka's interview with Studio 4°C head Eiko Tanaka, focusing on their highest profile work yet, Mind Game.

Reviews:

• Sharp on Animal Treasure Island, a 1971 feature, whose "main point of interest is in its early employment of Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki, working in the capacity of story consultant and key animator."

• Sharp again: "Few series exploit anime's intrinsic liberation from reality quite so deliriously as Urusei Yatsura, a light-hearted, candy-coloured concoction combining a winning formula of ribald high-school fantasy, physical slapstick and rip-roaring space opera."

• Also, Wicked City, "the conjunction and culmination of several strains of 80s fantasy cinema... They certainly don't make them like this any more, and certainly not as feature-length cartoons..."

• Tom Mes praises Donald Richie's A Hundred Years of Japanese Film, now in paperback.

And the results of the Best of 2005 Reader's Poll are in, with Survive Style 5+ enjoying a comfortable lead over Tony Takitani, while all others trail considerably.

Posted by dwhudson at March 9, 2006 10:40 AM