Part of Wildgrounds’ 2010 Japanese Cinema Blogathon The first cinema-based ‘Ninja Craze’ in Japan is pretty well defined by the decade in which it took place – the 1960s. Yes, there were enormously popular manga, highly rated anime on TV, … Continued
VN is happy to join Japanese cinema bloggers from all over the globe November 3rd through the 10th for Wildground’s 2010 Blogathon. Yeah, that’s a word nowadays. Take that English! I’m finalizing an epic length look at essential black and … Continued
I’m delighted – DEE-LIGHTED – to wrap up Monsters and Masks Month 2010 with an early review of Sushi Typhoon’s Alien vs. Ninja from action auteurs Seiji Chiba and Yuji Shimomura. This thing’s been a big hit at film festivals the … Continued
Alright, so Japan’s burliest sword goon and the cutest pistol-packin’ bounty huntress EVER have been whisked away to the magical land of gold along with a hundred ninja, their spy master, a circus troop and a lunatic cave man. Time … Continued
Colorful, crazy. Ambitious as hell. All over the place. Fun. Frustrating… All describe Kaizo Hayashi‘s 1990 epic Zipang, a positively wacked-out genre bending inter-dimensional adventure littered with exotic warriors and fantastic costumes. This thing is either hitting on every beat … Continued
The hit of last year’s Monsters and Masks Month was the aging collection of press stills from the 1961 Toei programmer Strike of the Jaguma (Kaiju Jaguma no Moshu). So this year I thought we’d take an in-depth look at the … Continued
A cheaper and more hastily produced sequel, Kibakichi 2 forgoes the wolf vs. samurai clan and whole village of monsters caliber of storyline in favor of a one-on-one conflict between the fanged hero and a female survivor of his same … Continued
A raggedy, reticent ronin meandering through the dusty Japanese wasteland letting his sword do the talking. Sounds all too familiar, but this particular bushido bum has a secret! Yep, he’s a mother fuckin’ werewolf!!! 2004 saw this promising follow-up to … Continued
Is there a more perfectly 80’s manga creator than Buichi Terasawa? His art – augmented by then fledgling computer graphics – oozes MTV, Nagel, neon, hair products. His samurai wore suit jackets with the sleeves pulled up; traditional garb filtered … Continued
Many thanks to Eddie Mort for giving us some monster-ific shots from his in-development animated series Dead Ringo. This stuff is drawn from inspiration like The Samurai, Dororo and a huge stack of old ninja movies borrowed from yours truly, … Continued