“Kaleidoscopic Animation – An encounter with Yukio Takatsu” Panel at Paris Japan Expo 2022
After missing for two years, Paris Japan Expo was finally held again at the Villepinte Parce des Expositions. For this edition, called the phoenix edition, to express the event's resurrection, one of the guests of honor was the director, animation director, and...
Tonko House’s Oni: Thunder God’s Tale – A technical tour de force
On June 17th, 2022, American animation studio Tonko House held a Work-in-Progress panel dedicated to their subsequent work, the Netflix series Oni: Thunder God's Tale. While it is on its own particularly promising, it is of particular interest for anime fans thanks to...
A Glimpse of Garden of Remembrance with Naoko Yamada
On Wednesday, June 15th, 2022, Naoko Yamada was at the Annecy festival to hold a work-in-progress session about her subsequent work in studio Science Saru: Garden of Remembrance. She was accompanied by studio staff, most notably the CEO Eunyoung Choi, who drove the...
What’s the deal with slice-of-life anime?
2022’s Winter anime season came and went pretty fast but it was an enjoyable one nonetheless. Out of the many shows that aired during the weekends over the last twelve weeks, it was the slice-of-life anime that stood out from the rest for me. This season led to the...
What’s hidden in Studio La Cachette?
French animation studio La Cachette, created in 2013, has in recent years become a presence that animation fans worldwide can't ignore. After their first viral short, Kairos, they have become famous for their work on the 2019 series Primal, for which they have done...
Alternatively Progressing into FLCL – Notes on the FLCL Sequels
Recently I released a video discussing FLCL, and tried to apply a more Japanese reading to it that went beyond the typical Western Coming-of-age take. I was originally going to include some points on the sequels in that video, but found it was getting to be...
Voyage through Outer Space #01 – Leiji Matsumoto’s Roman
This article is the first in a series whose goal is to observe how the representation of Outer Space in anime has evolved throughout time.Through the analysis of the genesis of fundamental tropes, we aim to achieve a better understanding and contextualization of this...
Scale, Space & Ranking of Kings’ Visual Worldbuilding
Ranking of Kings is a ‘big’ anime for various reasons. First of all, this series serves as Yousuke Hatta’s debut as a series director. Hatta has made leaps and bounds of progress in the past few years, featuring as a storyboard artist and episode director on many of...
What to expect of fullfrontal.moe going into 2022
With 2022 close at hand, we, the staff at Full Frontal, wanted to share our future goals, upcoming projects and express our gratitude to all who have participated in our journey thus far! This post is intended to sum up the main talking points we discussed on December...
Another Look At Heike Monogatari’s Incredible Final Act
After eleven episodes, the curtain has finally closed on the story of the Heike clan. Although it was a short affair, Heike Monogatari was able to deliver a phenomenal experience from start to finish. However, the final act of the show took it to new heights by...
Production Committees – Understanding the Anime Business Model
Today, as sakuga discourse has become increasingly prevalent within anime fandom, more people have become aware of anime's production process and some of the business behind it, notably the concept of "production committees." Inside and outside Japan, these mysterious...
New Rock and Happy End – Origins of Japanese Rock
Japanese Rock and Pop music has, through the 21st century, become an undoubtedly global phenomenon with genres like J-Pop, J-Rock reaching foreign audiences, and in more recent years, genres like City Pop getting a newfound appreciation with international audiences...