Mismatched colleagues struggling amid contemporary corporate culture find unexpected solidarity in Sho Miyake’s gentle human drama.
Jun 15, 2024 • Subscribe
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All the Long Nights 夜明けのすべて (2024) Director: Sho Miyake [Nippon Connection 2024 / Japan Cuts 2024]
Beautifully depicted, workmates suffering in silence with mental and physical conditions feel the warmth of human connection in director Sho Miyake’s All the Long Nights 夜明けのすべて (2024)…
Remembering Every Night (すべての夜を思いだす, Yui Kiyohara, 2022)
A series of women wander around Tama New Town each searching for something in Yui Kiyohara’s wistful drama.
Rainbow Over the Pacific (夜明けの二人, Yoshitaro Nomura, 1968)
An unserious man begins to grow up while chasing love in Hawaii in a cheerful if ultimately downbeat musical celebration of the centenary of Japanese migration to Hawaii.
All About Lily Chou-Chou (リリイ・シュシュのすべて, Shunji Iwai, 2001)
Alienated turn of the century youth finds refuge in the music of an etherial pop star and online connection in Shunji Iwai’s elegiac youth drama.
All The Long Nights (2024) review [Japan Cuts 2024]
A splendid drama that shows how symptoms can disturb a subject’s life and how the social field attains its cruel complexity due to the riddle of desire.
Oni to Yoake Yuzikiyo (鬼と夜明け 夕月夜)
While shopping in random bookstores in Japan at the end of last year I kept seeing book,s with girls in school uniforms wielding swords. I did that thing…
Remembering Every Night/全ての夜を思い出す
In 2017, director Kiyohara Yui released her first feature film, Our House (私たちの家), and established herself as a talent to watch. Though that film at times felt a…
Anata no Yoru ga Aketera (あなたの夜が明けたら)
Anata no Yoru ga Aketera (あなたの夜が明けたら), translated on the cover as After Sunrise, Haru Harukawa Collection is a collection of shorts by, obviously Harukawa Haru. Some of these…
The New Morning of Billy the Kid (ビリィ★ザ★キッドの新しい夜明け, Naoto Yamakawa, 1986)
A collection of pop culture icons attempt to safeguard a cafe bar/live house from an assault by savage gangsters in Yamakawa’s anarchic post-modern satire
Small, Slow But Steady (ケイコ 目を澄ませて, Sho Miyake, 2022)
An aspiring boxer begins to lose the will to fight in Sho Miyake’s empathetic character study.
Ju-On: Origins 呪怨: 呪いの家 Director: Sho Miyake (2020)
Ju-On: Origins 呪怨: 呪いの家 Director: Sho Miyake (2020) is a largely forgettable entry in the horror franchise.
Junpaku no yoru / 純白の夜/ (‘Pure White Nights’, 1951)
Obscure Japanese Film #161 Michiyo Kogure Ikuko (Michiyo Kogure) is a young woman happily married to Tsunehiko (Seizaburo Kawazu), a banke...
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Mixing direct and distal styles - How to Japanese - December 2024
The End of the Pale Hour (明け方の若者たち, Hana Matsumoto, 2021)
Dejected youngsters flounder amid the ruins of the salaryman dream in Hana Matsumoto’s youthful drama.
Thousand and One Nights (千夜、一夜, Nao Kubota, 2022)
Two women are united by the search for answers in the disappearances of their husbands but take very different paths in Nao Kubota’s melancholy tale of unanswerable longing.
Bakumatsu Joshikousei – Oni to Yoake, Volume 2 (幕末女子高生 鬼と夜明け 二)
Welcome to the wrongest way to read a series, part 3. ^_^ This series began in 2023, when I was wooed by the repeated appearance of girls with…
Bakumatsu Joshikousei – Oni to Yoake, Volume 1 (幕末女子高生 鬼と夜明け 一)
Back a the beginning of the year, I reviewed the second volume of a sequel to this series, Oni to Yoake Yuzikiyo (鬼と夜明け 夕月夜). Given that I knew…
The Dawning Sky (明け行く空, Torajiro Saito, 1929)
A female pastor is unexpectedly reunited with the child she was forced to abandon in Torajiro Saito’s tearjerking familial melodrama.
野獣死すべし OST - Akihiko Takashima
The Beast to Die [Yajû Shisubeshi] Directed by: Toru Murakawa 1980 (Thanks eternally H2O) (Also, s orry for…
Watashi no Kobushi wo Uketomete, Volume 4 (私の拳をうけとめて!)
Watashi no Kobushi wo Uketomete, Volume 4 does something wonderful. But first…. Soramori and Takebe are taking a trip. To an onsen. Overnight. Yeah, and don’t think they…
Watashi no Kobushi wo Uketomete, Volume 3 ( 私の拳をうけとめて)
In Volume1 and Volume 2, we met Soramori and Takebe, former rivals in high school gangs who have met once again as adults. Soramori confesses to Takebe that…
Uyanotsuki, Volume 1 ( 雨夜の月)
Saki loves piano. Or does she? She loves taking lessons with her teacher, she’s sure of that. But her teacher is leaving… In Uyanotsuki, Volume 1 ( 雨夜の月),…
Princess Mononoke (もののけ姫, Hayao Miyazaki, 1997)
A young man from an exiled clan tries to make peace between the natural world and the industrial in Hayao Miyazaki’s landmark 1997 animation
So Beautiful, Wonderful and Lovely (素敵すぎて素敵すぎて素敵すぎる, Megumi Okawara, 2025)
Is it better to have a dream that will never come true or to have no dreams at all? That’s a question that Nozomi can’t help asking herself…
Episode #72 (S10E1) – Princess Mononoke [ もののけ姫] (1997)
We kick off Season 10 with one of the most internationally renowned animated films of all time. Derick McDuff of the Underrated network returns to discuss Studio Ghibli’s…
Wolves of the Night (夜の狼, Yoichi Ushihara, 1958)
A heartless yakuza becomes conflicted on being confronted with the consequences of his actions in Yoichi Ushihara’s slice of Nikkatsu Noir.
365 Nights (三百六十五夜, Kon Ichikawa, 1948)
A noble architect’s life is ruined by an obsessive stalker in Kon Ichikawa’s stylish though improbably post-war melodrama.
The Beast Shall Die (野獣死すべし, Eizo Sugawa, 1959)
A sociopathic serial killing literature student runs rings around an ideologically divided police force in a grimy post-Sun Tribe Toho noir from Eizo Sugawa
Intro to Niji Nights 2024
Welcome to readers! Noobs and Otakus, it’s that time of the year again! Our annual celebration of all things under the queer weeby umbrella! Giving you food for…
Sisters Royale: Five Sisters Under Fire [シスターズロワイヤル 5姉妹に嫌がらせを受けて困っています] (PlayStation 4) Unboxing
A few days ago I received a shoot em up from Japan, and it came with some interesting goodies.
My Atomic Aunt (波の向こう, Kyoko Miyake, 2013)
Documentarian Kyoko Miyake explores the plight of those left in limbo after the Fukushima nuclear disaster through the story of her pioneering aunt Kuniko
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 6 (雨夜の月)
Do you remember Morinaga Milk’s series Girl Friends? It was an incredibly popular and influential Yuri manga in the early 2010s, so more than a decade ago. The…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 2 ( 雨夜の月)
In Volume 1, we met Saki, a high school student who plays piano, and her classmate (and piano teacher’s daughter), Kanon, who is hard of hearing. Kanon is…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 8 (雨夜の月)
Volume 7 of Kuzushiro’s school life drama, finished up the school festival arc and, while it had its fair share of maid costumes and cat-eared girls, it also…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 4 ( 雨夜の月)
Well, wow. A whole lot of story happened in this volume. First, Saki finds Kanon’s former best friend – the one Kanon feel betrayed her – and learns…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 3 ( 雨夜の月)
2022 has been an absolute celebration of amazing Yuri manga licenses and releases. Almost everything I wanted to have been licensed has been. Of the two remaining that…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 5 (雨夜の月)
In my fevered anticipation for The Moon on a Rainy Night, Volume 1 coming from Kodansha next week, I was thrilled to have the newest volume of the…
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 7 (雨夜の月)
Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 7 (雨夜の月) is absolute perfection. It was so good, that the moment I finished it, I started from the beginning and read it again.…
Remember Death All Year Long
The man who would be a warrior considers it is the most basic intention to keep death always in mind, day and night, from the time he first…
Ani no Yome to Kurashiteimasu., Volume 7 (兄の嫁と暮らしています。)
Kuzushiro’s Ani no Yome to Kurashiteimasu. (兄の嫁と暮らしています。) lurches along, awkward, uncomfortable, neither a romance nor something else, and yet, I cannot look away. I last reviewed Volume 5,…
Kanojo no Kuchizuke Kansensuru Libido Short Movie (彼女のくちづけ感染するリビドー ショートムービー)
In the wake of Yorita Miyuki’s successful kickstarter for Volume 2 of her series Her Kiss, My Libido Twinkles, she floated the idea of a new live-action adaptation…
The Beast Must Die: Mechanic of Revenge / 野獣死すべし 復讐のメカニック / Yaju shisubeshi: fukushu no mekanikku (1974)
Obscure Japanese Film #247Hiroshi Fujioka At the end of The Beast Must Die (1959), Kunihiko Date (Tatsuya Nakadai), a highly intelligent but amoral student leading a double life as a thief and…
正チャンの冒険 – Sho-chan Adventures Ep. 2
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正チャンの冒険 – Sho-chan Adventures Ep. 5
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正チャンの冒険 – Sho-chan Adventures Ep. 4
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So Beautiful, Wonderful and Lovely 素敵すぎて素敵すぎて素敵すぎる (2025) Director: Megumi Okawara [Osaka Asian Film Festival 2025]
Megumi @okawara_megumi Okawara’s surreal imagination sparkles in her comedy drama about surviving loveless despair in So Beautiful Wonderful and Lovely 素敵すぎて素敵すぎて素敵すぎる [Osaka Asian Film Festi…
正チャンの冒険 – Sho-chan Adventures Ep. 6 – The Dead City
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或るバイトを募集しています
Aru baito o boshū shite imasu (或るバイトを募集しています) is a collection of eight short horror stories conveyed in the form of documentary-style found footage. Each story is prefaced by…
Beast Alley (けものみち, Eizo Sugawa, 1965)
A hotel maid is dragged into conspiracy after murdering her bedridden husband in Eizo Sugawa’s incredibly dark post-war noir.
The Uniform (夜校女生, Chuang Ching-Shen, 2024)
A young woman from a humble background is gradually seduced by upper-middle class mores after gaining admission to an elite school in Chuang Ching-Shen’s teen drama.