japanese – PopCult Reviews

TV Review – Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop (1998)
Written by Shinichirō Watanabe, Keiko Nobumoto, Michiko Yokote, Ryōta Yamaguchi, Sadayuki Murai, Dai Satō, and Akihiko Inari
Directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, Yoshiyuki Takei, Ikurō Satō, Kunihiro Mori, Tetsuya Watanabe, Ikurō Satō, Kunihiro Mori, and Hirokazu Yamada

Last year, after a lifetime of not finding anime TV series really appealing, I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion. I enjoyed it and decided to check out another anime series. I’ve been well aware of titles over the years but never felt like sitting down and watching them. One show I heard about over and over in the early 2000s was Cowboy Bebop. I watched a lot of Adult Swim comedies, and I can recall a vague image of Cowboy Bebop, but I don’t think I had ever seen an entire episode. I saw reviews later of people claiming it was the best anime of all time, in their opinion, and several people I know adore it. This seemed like a good choice for my next watch.

Movie Review – Throne of Blood

Throne of Blood (1957)
Written by William Shakespeare, Shinobu Hashimoto, Ryūzō Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa, and Hideo Oguni
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

I could have gone with more traditional adaptations of MacBeth, but I wanted to see how Kurosawa interpreted the work. I was also interested in learning how far back Japan’s history with Shakespeare’s work went to understand how well-known the play was. Shakeapeare’s plays arrived in Japan during the Meiji Restoration when power was reconsolidated under the Emperor. If you watch Shogun, it is the beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which ended with the Meiji Restoration. It was marked by the opening of Japan’s borders to foreign influence in a way that had never been seen before.

Movie Review – Hana-bi

Hana-bi (1997)
Written and directed by Takeshi Kitano

One of my favorite things as a film fan is coming across a filmmaker doing something all their own. No film exists in a vacuum, so you’ll always see influences from others. But how that filmmaker mixes their ingredients makes all the difference. Takeshi Kitano started his media career as a comedian and TV host in the early 1970s. It was Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, in 1983, where Kitano made his feature film debut. It was a non-comedic role as a Japanese soldier who brutalized Allied prisoners. In 1989, he made his directorial debut with Violent Cop, a neo-noir film. And then it was this movie, translated into English as “Fireworks,” that won Kitano the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, only the third Japanese director after Akira Kurosawa and Hiroshi Inagaki to win the honor.

Movie Review – Ikiru

Ikiru (1952)
Written by Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

After watching a little over half a dozen Kurosawa films in my life, I have concluded that I prefer his modern films more than his historical ones. That isn’t to say films like Seven Samurai or HIdden Fortress are bad. It’s more that I have difficulty emotionally connecting with that era of Japan. It’s certainly entertaining, but I don’t get invested. Perhaps that’s why I’ve gravitated towards Yasujirō Ozu’s films; they are contemporary to the period they are made in and focus on people living their lives with little melodrama. Ikiru is like if Kurosawa tried his hand at an Ozu picture. It has some thematic similarities, but tonally, this is pure Kurosawa. You can see him shaping the minds of audience members who would go on to become prolific filmmakers in their own right, mimicking the techniques of a master they first observed here.

My Favorite Television Watched in 2024

X-Men ‘97 Season One (Disney+)
Read my full review here

I was skeptical of the animated X-Men revival. Like many others, I have been burned out on superhero shows and films for a while now. However, this was the one Marvel thing in 2024 that I actually enjoyed. It was probably aided by reading Chris Claremont’s 16-year run on Uncanny X-Men this year, where so many stories on X-Men animated old & new drew from. Stylistically the ‘97 revival felt like the 1990s version, but with slightly more sophisticated storytelling and some major upgrades regarding the animation. There were a few duds; the Jubilee/Mojo episode was meh. The season overall was fantastic. I was very happy to see characters like Nightcrawler added to the regular roster; it always felt odd that he wasn’t included as a regular. We get a big cliffhanger that suggests some twists for a second season. Hoping they can keep the quality levels just as high going forward.

PopCult Podcast – PopCult Christmas 2024 Special

Ghosts visiting a jaded television executive. A mad scientist’s creation hoping to find a home among the normies. A Japanese POW camp becoming the site of a clash between soldiers and honor.

Comic Book Review – Cat-Eyed Boy

Cat-Eyed Boy: The Perfect Edition Volume One and Volume Two (2023)
Written & Illustrated by Kazuo Umezz

Kazuo Umezz is one of the most famous Japanese horror manga authors and started his career in the 1950s. Bucking the trends of the time, Umezz incorporated gory & grotesque imagery often associated with Japanese folklore, especially the Yokai – the umbrella term for ghosts, demons, and other nefarious spirits. One of his most well-known series was Cat-Eyed Boy, initially serialized in the pages of Shōnen Gaho, an anthology magazine. Like most manga that prove to be a success, there was an anime series (though it was more like voiceovers and little paper cutouts) as well as a live-action series in the mid-2000s. While the title character does prove to be an important part of each story arc, the stories were more like serialized horror anthology tales, a la American Horror story.

PopCult Podcast – Halloween Spooktacular 2024

Frankencows, J-Horror, Little Wednesday, and the Sanderson Sisters are all here to make this Halloween a scare of a good time.

Movie Review – The Face of Another

The Face of Another (1966)
Written by Kōbō Abe
Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara

Hiroshi Teshigahara found his cinematic muse in the writing of Kōbō Abe. He directed an adaptation of Abe’s novel Woman in the Dunes two years prior. He returned to the author’s work for his next film, The Face of Another. Teshigahara’s relationship with filmmaking was very tempestuous, though, making a film in 1972 and abandoning the medium for nearly a decade. He pursued other interests like calligraphy, ceramics, and ikebana (the art of flower arranging, of which his father was seen as the master). While he returned to film, Teshigahara never recaptured the height of this period when he and the work were perfect. Western critics dismissed his work at the time of release, but a new appreciation has grown in the following decades.

Movie Review – House

House (1977)
Written by Chigumi Obayashi and Chiho Katsura
Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi

Following the phenomenal success of Jaws at the box office, Japanese film studio Toho went to Nobuhiko Obayashi and proposed he develop a similar script. Obayashi was an odd choice. His filmmaking career focused on personal, avant-garde experimental movies and TV ads, not big commercial hits. The director discussed the script with Chigumi, his preteen daughter, positing that telling everything from an adult perspective is limiting for films. From young Chigumi, he got several of the set pieces that would end up in House, including a mirror attacking the audience and a house eating a girl. The final product doesn’t have much in common with Jaws, but it is a film you won’t forget after watching it.