
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...
The talents of French Animation
Japanese animation holds a special place in the world scene and among fandoms for its diversity and championing of 2D animation techniques. This is very justified and has only become a stronger tendency now that an increasing number of animation creators outside Japan...
What Sonny Boy Can Teach Us About Living In Times Of Uncertainty
‘It’s been a tough year.’ This is a phrase that we’ve all heard countless times lately. Whether it is through the news, social media or word of mouth, I am often reminded that the world is in the middle of multiple crises and that I’m unwillingly stuck in the...
From Daicon IV to Mad Max – Interview with Mahiro Maeda [Archive, July 2016]
While I was looking through some files, I stumbled upon the audio to this interview I did five years ago, in 2016, and realized I had never released it. Mahiro Maeda had come to France to promote Studio Khara's 10th anniversary, and as such, I and a few other peers,...
Belle: Mamoru Hosoda’s Most International Film
Mamoru Hosoda has truly become "the new Miyazaki." By that, I do not mean that he is or has become Hayao Miyazaki's heir or that his work follows up on that of the studio Ghibli director. Rather, I mean that Hosoda has taken Miyazaki's place in Western film discourse:...
Nightmare made film: Phil Tippet’s Mad God
Mad God is a nightmare-made film. Quite literally so, as director Phil Tippett, one of the most renowned animators and special effects artists in American film history, confessed that his long-awaited movie was inspired by a nightmare he repeatedly made as a child. It...
On the Topic of Older Anime
What was the first anime you liked? What was the first one you fell in love with? What was the first anime you watched and realized it was anime? The answer to these questions is important when it comes to answering the question, 'how do we get people to watch...
Hunting Flying Saucers: Contextualising ‘The UFO’ in Anime
Those that follow the Japanese animation scene closely would know that the so-called ‘UFO’ has made a decent number of appearances in the past year and a half. The UFO’s resurgence presents us with an opportunity to draw some connections between it and other...
Keiichi Arawi’s animated works
With his unique sense of humor and round, cute character designs, Keiichi Arawi is an artist whose work always makes you feel good whenever you encounter it. Among animation fans, he’s mostly known for being the original creator of Nichijou, a hit manga that became,...