5 March 2012
‘People Who Eat Darkness’ – An interview with Richard Lloyd Parry Article by Michael Sullivan On July 1st 2000 Lucie Blackman went missing in Tokyo, months later her body would be found, dismembered, buried under a bath tub in a seaside cave in Miura, Kanagawa. The period of time leading up to that discovery would [...]
5 March 2012
Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema, By Jasper Sharp, Scarecrow Press, 2011, 564 pages, ISBN-10: 0810857952, £59.95 Review by Roger Macy Let me introduce you to a cultural curiosity: the book. It has no links, it can’t be updated , it’s bulky and heavy, and is pretty much all the work of one person. Scarecrow Press [...]
28 February 2012
Along with Confessions of a Dog [see issue 35], I Just Didn’t Do It is a damning indictment of the Japanese legal system. The audience palpably gasped at some of the more appalling scenes of unfathomable injustice and clapped as Masayuki Suo took to the front of the Institute of Contemporary Arts film theatre at the end of the screening to answer questions.
28 February 2012
Crossfire is the third novel by Miyuki Miyabe to be published in English. Originally this was a bestseller in Japan and was adapted into a movie in 2000 called Pyrokinesis [クロスファイア]. It was directed by Shusuke Kaneko [金子 修介], and starred Akiko Yada [矢田亜希子] and Hideaki Ito [伊藤 英明]. Miyabe is a full time writer and has received numerous literary prizes including the Naoki Prize.
20 February 2012
This is a superbly researched and visually stunning publication by Japan scholar Sir Hugh Cortazzi. It gathers together a wide variety of rare and exquisite prints from the latter part of the Meiji era. The primary link shared by all the colourful works presented in this visually rich volume is that they were created for the European and American communities living in Japan.
20 February 2012
Always Sunset on Third Street 2 (ALWAYS 続・三丁目の夕日), directed by Takashi Yamazaki (山崎貴), 2007, 146 minutes Review by Susan Meehan (contains plot spoilers) As the Embassy screening of Always Sunset on Third Street 2 ended, I wished I’d seen the first in the series; not just because it’s a delightful family drama, but because I [...]
16 February 2012
Review by Michael Sullivan In Japan there is a curious word play regarding the 29th day of the month in Japanese, put into just its number components it creates the word ni-kyuu [二九] which is the same as niku [肉] which means meat. So, quite often many people can be found eating meat on this [...]
16 February 2012
The Devil’s Whisper [魔術はささやく], By Miyuki Miyabe [宮部 みゆき], translated by Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi, Kodansha International, 2007 (originally published in 1989, Tokyo), 264 pages, £8.99, ISBN 4770031173 Review by Michael Sullivan Miyuki Miyabe was born in 1960 in Tokyo, she has been writing since the 1980s and a number of her books have been adapted [...]
3 February 2012
by Yukinobu Hoshino, translated by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, Hiromi Uchida and Timothy Clark, British Museum Press, 2011, 264 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0714124650, £14.99 Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi This is the English version of an original Japanese Manga book. It was translated into English by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere with Uchida Hiromi and Timothy Clark. It has [...]
2 February 2012
by Lian Hearn, Quercus Publishing, 2011, 400 pages, ISBN 978-0-85738-297-9, £12.99 Review by Ali Muskett Blossoms and Shadows by Lian Hearn (real name Gillian Rubinstein), is set in 19th century Japan, and is narrated by fictional character Tsuru. The daughter of a doctor, Tsuru is raised in a world of medicine where, due to cultural [...]
