Ace Attorney (known as Gyakuten Saiban in Japan) made it's Texas debut at the 2012 Asian Film Festival of Dallas. Unlike most of my fellow audience members at the sold-out closing night screening, I was neither a fan of the Phoenix Wright video games nor a fan of director Takashi Miike. I was, however, curious about the franchise that spawned ( Read more... )

This past year, I have struggled to keep up with movies. I already don't watch many American ones, and foreign films rarely make it stateside the same year they are released in their home country. Even Bunraku, which starred Hollywood A-listers, hit theaters a year after its debut. Therefore, I'm including movies that were released in Japan in 2010 ( Read more... )

Last week, the Asian Film Festival of Dallas screened Kimi ni Todoke, billed as From Me to You. As the film was based on a shoujo manga, I figured I could grab a couple of girl friends to come check it out. It turned out to be the perfect girls' day out movie.


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I was feeling sick the past couple of days so I've fallen behind on my year-end recaps.  The first one is for this year's doramas and movies (I didn't watch any tokusatsu or comedy shows).  Since it took me a while to format it, I'll just provide you the link to my Wordpress: hibarisensei.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/best-of-2010-film-and-tv/

Up next is

I’m giving you a double dose of actors today. Lately I’ve been obsessed with the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels by Brian Lee O'Malley, as well as the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I highly recommend checking out both. While I was watching the movie, Ramona’s fifth and sixth evil exes, Ken and Kyle Katayanagi, caught my eye. They’re played by ( Read more... )

Hisashiburi! (Long time no see!) I had not meant to go on a brief hiatus, but this entry took much longer to put together than expected and there was real life business to take care of. We should be back to more regular updates now.

Before we get to this week's shitsumon, I want to close the series of Alice in Wonderland-themed post with an ( Read more... )

Tonight is the Academy Awards.  It's a very American event, but last year, the Japanese film Okuribito, known here as Departures, won Best Foreign Language Film.  Based on what I read, it was quite an upset because the film didn't generate as much buzz and Japanese cinema has never been that popular overseas, minus Akira Kurosawa.  I never saw ( Read more... )

I've been posting my own lists for the "best" and "most ____" in Japanese entertainment for 2009. Let's see how they compare to the opinion of the Japanese public. I've also included some of the more interesting rankings.

What are some of your highlights for 2009?

Oricon Charts
#1 single - "Believe"/"Kumorinochi, kaisei" by Arashi/Kenta Yano starring ( Read more... )

This is going to be a long one since I've combined anime, manga, television, and film into one post. I confess that I haven't watched many 2009 anime and dramas because I was playing catch up with American TV and older anime series. Therefore, you'll see many of things from the same series. Speaking of older series, I decided that "Best anime debut ( Read more... )