From Ningin: If Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro was medicine, I’d say it’d be the cure for old age. Sure, I’m only 25 but a lot of things remind me of my old age on a daily basis. Justin Bieber, body aches and pains in places never before and the constant urge to fight every possible chance to leave home to name a few. Staying in one night to watch the special edition DVD of My Neighbor Totoro was like having the fountain of youth in front of me, in DVD format. More »

What: Studio Ghibli Museum and Nakano Broadway indoor shopping mall Where: Tokyo Area, Nakano and Mitaka stations on the Chuo-Sobu line What to do: Get out of Tokyo, but still enjoy all the good things about it

Go West, Young Man is proverbial advice, funny when you consider that Japan (the “East”) is actually west of the States; but this is also good advice if you find yourself in Tokyo and crave a bit more animanga culture than Akihabara gives you, and especially if you’re a fan of director Hayao Miyazaki. Just jump on a west-bound train to the suburb of Mitaka for the Studio Ghibli Museum, and hit up Nakano Broadway en route. More »

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A theme I’m irresistibly drawn to is the contrast between the tedium of everyday life and the richness of the imagination. The Japanese term for “everday life” is nichijou, and it crops up fairly often in anime and manga taking place in the limitless suburbs surrounding big cities like Tokyo. A perfect vehicle of this theme is Studio Ghibli’s Mimi wo Sumaseba (lit. “If You Listen Closely”), and of their films it is, in spite of the greatness of Totoro, Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, my favorite. More »

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Everything these days seems to end up becoming an anime. Take Devil May Cry for example, an anime based off the popular Capcom video game franchise. Or Samurai 7, a loose retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s famous film the Seven Samurai. It seems nothing is safe from the grasp of anime lately. So with that in mind, I decided to come up with five films that should be made into an anime series. Here’s what I got: More »

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Anime, so what is it? Why is it called called anime? And what’s the big fuss about it? Most of you reading this probably already have a wealth of knowledge on the subject but for those new to the scene, let’s go over the basics. More »

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