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Welcome, readers, to Late to the Party , a column that's right on time when it comes to catching up on anime everyone's already watched. This column addresses a universal truth in regard to being an anime fan: an anime backlog is quite the powerful beast. Many of us have one, where we amass more and more content we have designated in the "planning to watch" category. How and why it takes so long to actually address this task varies from person to person, but the gratification of finally allocating the time is really quite splendid. Occasionally, it’s by watching a classic anime from yesteryear that you’ve had your eye on for quite some time. In other instances, it’s a more recent premiere that just slipped by. This month, I wanted to go back. Way back. Like, way, way back, to watch an anime that premiered almost an...

Sonny Boy is one of the most visually stunning anime in recent years with a unique and surreal world. The series offers a deep and personal narrative that explores themes of adolescence and escapism. By critiquing the escapist nature of isekai, Sonny Boy presents a refreshing deconstructive take on the genre.

Despite isekai being so dominant that it has officially entered the dictionary, one of the genre's most innovative and surprising entries, Sonny Boy, slipped past many fans. With jaw-dropping animation, incredibly realistic characters, and themes of coming to terms with adulthood Sonny Boy is one of the most artistically fascinating isekai to release in years.

Animated by the acclaimed Studio Madhouse and directed by One-Punch Man season 1 director Shingo Natsume, Sonny Boy is a 12 episode anime series about a group of high school students who one day find their school transported into a strange black void.

Just as tensions...

The late Satoshi Kon was amongst the most prominent Japanese animators, with his works transcending the world of anime and manga, thus creating a modern division of the genre, which chiefly addressed a more mature audience. However, he did not accomplish that via sex and violence, but through the profundity of his themes and a complex style of presentation. The former becomes evident in his nightmarish worlds of terror that are based on concepts like fixation, publicity and the perspective of reality and personal identity, while the latter is clear through the mixture of fantasy and reality in the surrealistic environments of his movies. Additionally, he was equally elaborative as a designer and animator; hence, his works amount to masterpieces, both visually and in content.

Satoshi Kon was born on October 12, 1963 in Kushiro, Hokkaido. Early on, he became a fan of anime and manga, chiefly “Mobile Suit Gundam” and “Space Battleship Yamato...

Deep anime that keep fans thinking long after their end are now more popular than ever. Newcomers may find this surprising, as anime can look like a lighthearted form of entertainment on a surface level. Dig a little deeper, however, and one will find plenty of shows with surreal, existentialist, and highly elaborate themes.

The topics anime can cover are seemingly endless. Modern psychology, gender, and the role of technology are just few of the many challenging subjects that become more accessible when filtered through an anime lens. That's not to say that any of these series are straightforward viewing experiences: they open viewers up to new ideas that keep them thinking long after the credits roll.

Terror in Resonance

Terror in Resonance has been ranked one of the best Studio Mappa anime for its explorations of terrorism and violence. In an alternative modern-day Japan, two teens steal an atomic...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 24 Oct 2013 - 06:46

Another 25 unsung greats come under the spotlight, as we provide our pick of the underappreciated films of 1995...

The year covered in this week's underrated movie rundown was significant for a number of reasons. It was the year that saw the release of Toy Story - the groundbreaking movie that would cement Pixar's reputation as an animation studio, and set the tempo for CG family movies for the next 18 years and counting. It was the year that saw James Bond (played by Pierce Brosnan for the first time) emerge for GoldenEye after a six-year break. It was also the year of Michael Mann's Heat, Dogme 95, and the moment where Terry Gilliam scored a much-deserved hit with 12 Monkeys.

As ever, we're focusing on a few of the lesser-known films from this particular year, and we've had to think carefully about what's made the cut and what hasn't.

The North American licensing company Maiden Japan announced on Tuesday that it acquired the original video anime Black Magic M-66. The company will release the anime in conjunction with home video distributor Section23 Films on English-subtitled DVD on July 9th, 2013 and in digital formats. Manga creator Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell) co-directed and wrote the screenplay for the two-episode video anime based on his own manga. Hiroyuki Kitakubo (Roujin Z, Blood: The Last Vampire) co-directed with Shirow, and also adapted the character designs for animation. The series, originally released in 1987, revolves around a journalist named Sybil who gets entangled in a battle...

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Japanese director of playful animation combining realistic drama with fantasy

Satoshi Kon, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 46, was one of the boldest and most distinctive film-makers to specialise in animation. His main body of work – four completed feature films and an acclaimed television mini-series – was playful, sophisticated and adult. Tired of the cliches of mass-produced Japanese animation – "robots and beautiful little girls," as he once put it – Kon sought to make animation that used ambitious and often disorientating editing, intercutting and scene-shifting.

"In animation, only what is intended to be communicated is there," he once said. "If I had a chance to edit live-action, it would be too fast for audiences to follow." Kon made only sparing use of CGI in his mostly drawn films, relying on such superb animators as Shinji Otsuka and Toshiyuki Inoue.

Much of Kon's animation combines realistic drama (usually set in present-day Tokyo) with dreams and fantasy.