Academy Award-winning director James Cameron is adapting Ghosts of Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino for what will likely be his first non-Avatar film in decades. Based on years of forensic archaeology combined with interviews of more than 200 survivors and their families, Ghosts of Hiroshima published on Aug. 5 — the …
Read More »XG Reflect on Their Stellar Journey After Ascending to a New Galaxy at Coachella
Within three years of releasing their first single, the rising global girl group XG were at Coachella to help close out the festival at the Sahara Tent. Members Jurin, Chisa, Hinata, Harvey, Juria, Maya, and Cocona delivered an electrifying set that spanned their discography from fan-favorite tracks like “LEFT RIGHT” …
Read More »Millennium Parade Taps Rauw Alejandro and Tainy for a Joyride on 'Kizao'
Rauw Alejandro, Tainy, and Millennium Parade’s Daiki Tsuneta are cartoon racers in the new video for “Kizao.” On Friday, the Japanese musical collective released their trilingual, cross-cultural collaboration with Rauw and Tainy, along with its animated music video. “I’m excited about the collaboration with Millennium Parade, Daiki, and my brother …
Read More »'Perfect Days' Features the Best Screen Performance in Recent Memory
You may know Kōji Yakusho as the oyster-slurping mystery man from the noodle-Western extraordinaire Tampopo (1985). Perhaps you remember him as the depressed suburbanite who ballroom dances his blues away in the international feel-good hit Shall We Dance? (1996). He’s the reformed felon in the Cannes-winning character study The Eel …
Read More »Embassy of Japan Assures Panicked Swifties Pop Star Can Make It to Super Bowl on Time
The Japanese Embassy in Washington moved to quell panicked Swifties over the the megastar’s chances of making it to see her boyfriend Travis Kelce play in the Super Bowl following her post-concert flight from Tokyo. Taylor Swiftis set to take the stage in Tokyo to a sold-out concert as part …
Read More »How Shiori Itō Took on Her Powerful Rapist and Changed Japan Forever
On the night of April 3, 2015, Shiori Itō, an intern at Thomson Reuters, met Noriyuki Yamaguchi at a restaurant under the guise of a job interview. Yamaguchi, then the Washington bureau chief of Tokyo Broadcasting System and a personal friend (and biographer) of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, was a …
Read More »'Oppenheimer' Finally Sets Japan Theatrical Release Despite Controversy
Oppenheimer has already earned nearly a billion dollars worldwide, but Christopher Nolan’s epic has yet to open in one major country’s theaters: Japan, where the film is viewed as controversial given its subject matter. (Warner Bros. Japan even had to apologize this summer over some tactless Barbenheimer marketing.) However, that …
Read More »'Blue Eye Samurai' Is a Gory and Gorgeous Animated Series From Netflix
The samurai Mizu stands backed up to the edge of a seaside cliff, flanked by four master swordsman known as the Four Fangs. It is seemingly a no-win scenario for the title character of Netflix‘s Blue Eye Samurai. But for eight riveting minutes, Mizu turns this dangerous terrain into an …
Read More »'Lost in Translation': Sofia Coppola on the Movie's 20th Anniversary
One of the most talked-about movies at this year’s Venice Film Festival was Priscilla, Sofia Coppola’s vividly realized portrait of how 14-year-old Priscilla Presley fell under the spell of Elvis Presley, the rock & roll icon who was 24 when they first met. The filmmaker has earned her best reviews …
Read More »Netflix's 'One Piece' Is More Bloated Than Any Anime
Two years ago, Netflix debuted Cowboy Bebop, a live-action adaptation of the beloved Japanese anime about spacefaring bounty hunters in the 22nd century. I found this new version lively and thrilling, but I admittedly had never seen the original. For the most part, it seemed, the most interested audience for …
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