Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka, retitled The Boy and the Heron for the English-speaking world but better translated as How Do You Live?, is…
Anime has always been more inclined toward YA-facing and -reflecting projects than most other film genres, perhaps only rivaled by the short-lived post-Harry Potter…
Alberto Vázquez is the sleeper MVP of the film animation world. Japanese auteurs like Makato Shinkai, Masaaki Yuasa, and Mamoru Hosoda have comfortably slid…
The latest film from Light Chaser Animation Studios, New Gods: Yang Jian, continues several ongoing trends in its development as a production house: first,…
Like most of Yuasa’s feature-length works, Inu-Oh lacks the dimension of his small screen output, and indulges the director’s sloppiest storytelling instincts. Masaaki Yuasa…
The Deer King is beautiful to look at and occasionally charming, but its underdeveloped plot gets in the way of any pleasures and makes for…
Ayuma Watanabe’s latest anime is both bland and loathsome, dull when its not offending and contemptible the rest of the time. Let’s not beat…
Pompo: the Cinéphile could do with being a bit thornier, but it’s nonetheless a film that understand the power of movies in a unique, appealing…
Belle as a leaden mess of abject sentimentality and perfunctory technological tedium. If there’s anything to be gleaned from Belle, it’s this: Mamoru Hosoda…
Earwig and the Witch is one of the ugliest major studio animated works in years and an incredible stumble for Studio Ghibli. Name recognition has…
ON-GAKU: Our Sound is something of a strange contradiction, managing both stupidity and profundity in equal measure. Kenji Iwaisawa was able to accomplish something few…
Wolfwalkers doesn’t do much to upset its fable template but thrives on the strength of its complex and gorgeous animation. The final film in Tomm…
Weathering with You is a heartwarming and delicately animated escapist fantasy finds hope in hardscrabble realities. Makoto Shinkai has already proved himself an idiosyncratic anime…
China’s major animated film of 2019, White Snake, unsurprisingly, takes on the legend of its titular figure — which, roughly, tells the tale of…
Using animation to sensitize young audiences to the horrors in our world is not an altogether novel approach, particularly in the realm of international…