Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Com­plex
The news of a Ghost in the Shell tele­vi­sion series was met with a mix of joy and trep­id­a­tion; highly regarded in the West and being helmed by a then unknown dir­ector, the assump­tion would be that the themes and del­ic­ately bal­anced char­ac­ters of the Mamoru Oshii movie as […]

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Organised with care and attention into:

• Anime,
• anime of the decade,
• aramaki,
• batou,
• ghost in the shell,
• gits,
• individual eleven,
• laughing man,
• major,
• motoko,
• network,
• sac,
• society,
• solid state society,
• stand alone complex,
• technology,
• togusa

Mushishi
Like the creatures them­selves, Mushishi came more or less out of nowhere. A crit­ic­ally acclaimed manga by Yuki Urushibara mostly unheard of out­side of Japan, and Stu­dio Art­land for which this would be one of their first fully pro­duced series out­side of some rel­at­ively obscure OVAs. For it to be so unspeak­ably bril­liant is at […]

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Organised with care and attention into:

• Anime,
• anime of the decade,
• artland,
• cure,
• curse,
• ginko,
• historical,
• instrument,
• mushi,
• mushishi,
• Music,
• period,
• sound,
• spirit,
• story,
• vignette

RahXephon
In a dec­ade rife with stel­lar release from Stu­dio Bones, RahXephon stands out. An ambi­tious and sleek pro­duc­tion which draws upon a diverse mix of sources from obscure Mayan lore to clas­sical music to cre­ate a sym­phony of unpar­alleled beauty. Con­tinu­ously stun­ning, it deftly handles a wide cast of char­ac­ters as well as a plot […]

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Organised with care and attention into:

• Anime,
• anime of the decade,
• ayato,
• dolem,
• evangelion,
• hemisphere,
• maaya,
• maaya sakamoto,
• mayan,
• rahxephon,
• yoko kanno

Five Cen­ti­metres Per Second
On first watch­ing Five Cen­ti­metres Per Second, the over­bear­ing sad­ness of Takaki’s jour­ney from love­struck adoles­cent to down­trod­den adult is depress­ing; the piano music that fol­lows him through the three stor­ies of the film is a heart­beat of yearn­ing for times gone by. Sub­sequent view­ings but build upon this and more than […]

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Organised with care and attention into:

• 5 centimetres per second,
• 5cm/s,
• akari,
• Anime,
• anime of the decade,
• byousoku 5 centimeter,
• children,
• kanae,
• makoto shinkai,
• movie,
• nostalgia,
• piano,
• school,
• snow,
• takaki,
• wistful

Kara no Kyoukai
Kara no Kyoukai is, without hyper­bole, one of the most ambi­tious and intel­li­gent series, movie or oth­er­wise, to come out in the past ten years. As the pro­gen­itor of the Type-Moon dyn­asty it is afforded the means to avoid the over­bear­ing fran­chise over­load that can scare away fresh view­ers. It presents a world […]

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Organised with care and attention into:

• Anime,
• anime of the decade,
• azaka,
• boundary of emptiness,
• garden of sinners,
• hollow,
• kalafina,
• kara no kyoukai,
• kokuto,
• mikiya,
• movies,
• murder,
• oblivion recorder,
• overlooking view,
• paradox spiral,
• remaining sense of pain,
• series,
• shiki,
• souren,
• speculation,
• toko,
• ufotable,
• yuki kajiura