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Last year, Toho released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One (read our review Here), in Japan on November 3rd, which happens to be Godzilla Day, the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla movie. That was the 69th anniversary – and since this year marks the 70th anniversary of the original film, Godzilla Minus One is returning to theatres this weekend, with screenings starting on November 1st. There’s also a black & white version of Godzilla Minus One that’s called Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, and that version of the film is also returning to theatres for this celebration. To see if Godzilla Minus One and/or Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color will be showing near you this weekend, check out the Tickets.Godzilla website.

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One sees an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla.

Space Battleship Yamato is one of the most influential anime in existence. Dating back to 1974, it had a style and story like no other. It inspired the likes of Gundam, Evangelion and Marcross. The style of Space Battleship Yamato also inspired the styles of some video games, such as Space Invaders. There are multiple series and films within the universe that you can explore. Now, the creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Hideaki Anno, has acquired the rights to a brand new Space Battleship Yamato film with a twist.

Space Battleship Yamato 1974. [Credit: Academy Productions]

Hideaki Anno has always been an artist who pushes boundaries and keeps evolving. Now, the news of a new Space Battleship Yamato film adaptation has created significant hype in the anime community. As an artist and director who was originally inspired and gave homage to the series, Anno is the perfect choice to continue the legacy. Fans...

Hideaki Anno announced that his company, Khara Inc., has secured the rights to produce a new anime film for the Space Battleship Yamato series.

The announcement was made during the anime’s 50th anniversary screening event held in Tokyo on Oct 6, 2024.

During the event, Anno disclosed that Khara had secured the production rights from Voyager Holdings, which oversees the original series, and received permission to use the copyright from Tohokushinsha Film Corporation.

“This time, Khara Inc. was granted the rights by Voyager Holdings, represented by President Shoji Nishizaki, to create a new animated work based on ‘Space Battleship Yamato.’ At the same time, we obtained permission to use the copyright from Tohokushinsha Film Corporation.“

Speaking at the event, Anno expressed his enthusiasm for the project, stating, “With this, I can now make a new Space Battleship Yamato work.“

While details of the new production remain under wraps, Khara’s official...

In a statement on the official home page for animation studio Khara , director / Khara founder Hideaki Anno has announced that Studio Khara has acquired the rights to produce a new Space Battleship Yamato animated theatrical film, including permission from Voyager Holdings to produce new animation and permission from Tohokushinsha Film Corporation to use the copyright. The as-yet-untitled new film is currently in the planning stages, with production on the movie tentatively scheduled to begin in 2025. The story of the film will differ from the Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 , 2202 , and 3199 anime which reboot the original Space Battleship Yamato series for a modern audience. Related: Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 3199 Now Available on Crunchyroll In the statement, Anno noted that he wouldn't be the same person he is today if he hadn't encountered the original Space Battleship Yamato anime some 50 years ago. He also expressed his gratitude to and respect for...

Code Geass is one of the popular anime in the mecha genre. Its finesse’ lies in the outlining of profound elements. This holds especially true to the theme of war, oppression, and unrest. The crude portrayal of a dystopian society sets it apart from most mecha anime. This extends to Lelouch’s character in the series. And there’s more to it.

Lelouch Lamperouge in a still from the series | Credit: Studio Sunrise

Director Gorō Taniguchi highlighted the world-building in the anime. He also outlined the importance of setting. In most aspects, his anime outclasses Naruto and One Piece. This is also reflected in Lelouch’s character in the series.

Code Geass outlines Naruto and One Piece in world-building according to Gorō Taniguchi.

Code Geass is centered on the journey of Lelouch Lamperouge. The series underscores rebellion and rage against oppression. The Holy Empire of Britannia subjects Japan to violence.

The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) today unveiled the full lineup and other highlights of its 37th edition in a press conference held at Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, one of the festival’s main venues.

As previously announced, TIFF will open with the world premiere of 11 Rebels, an action-packed jidaigeki period piece directed by Shiraishi Kazuya, and close with the French-Italian comedy Marcello Mio, a Cannes standout directed by Christophe Honoré. The 10-day festival will feature screenings and extensive related events in the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Marunouchi-Ginza area of Tokyo from October 28 to November 6, 2024.

Festival Chairman Ando Hiroyasu delivered opening remarks at the conference, highlighting three major focuses of this year’s TIFF: enhancing the festival’s international exchange initiatives, nurturing talents for the industry’s future, and implementing programs to support female empowerment.

Hiroyasu Ando ©2024 TIFF

Tiffcom Managing Director Ikeda Kaori then discussed Tiffcom 2024, TIFF’s affiliated marketplace, which will be hosting its...

The Tokyo International Film Festival revealed its full 2024 lineup on Wednesday, including its main competition program and the Asian Future section for emerging regional filmmakers, as well as the all-new Women’s Empowerment section, which highlights nine films directed by women or involving female-focussed stories.

Tokyo’s 15-title main competition reveals a preference for securing world premieres over previously shown titles by established festival names. There are eight world premieres in the section — including Big World and My Friend An Delie by China’s Yang Lina and Dong Zijian, respectively; Papa from Hong Kong’s Philip Yung; The Englishman’s Papers from Portugal’s Sergio Graciano; and three Japanese features, among others (see full lineup below). Additional highlights include the international premiere of Midi Z’s The Unseen Sister and Huang Xi’s recent Toronto Film Festival entry Daughter’s Daughter, starring Sylvia Chang.

As previously announced, the competition titles will...

The Tokyo International Film Festival has unveiled a competition section with as many Chinese titles as Japanese for its 37th edition.

Announced on Wednesday the festival’s full lineup runs to a compact 110 films, culled from a huge 2,023 applications, and functions partly as discovery event, partly as a Japanese showcase and also as best-of the year international art house compendium.

The 15-title competition includes Midi Z’s “The Unseen Sister,” “Big World,” by Yang Lina and “My Friend An Delie,” by Dong Zijian from China. Adding rising star Hong Kong director Philip Yung’s “Papa” and Huang Xi’s Sylvia Chang-starring “Daughter’s Daughter,” fresh from Toronto, and the competition will resound to Chinese accents. From Japan comes “She taught Me Serendipity,” by Ohku Akiko, “Teki Cometh,” by Yoshida Daihachi and “Lust in the Rain,” which is a Japan-Taiwan coproduction directed by Katayama Shinzo.

Other competition selections include “The Englishman’s Papers,...

Following the latest theatrical release in Japan , the latest chapter in the Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato saga is now available to watch on Crunchyroll! Fans in select regions can now watch episodes one and two of Space Battleship Yamato 3199 , with future episodes launching at a later date. Read on for everything you need to know about the release! Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 3199 Episodes 1 and 2 available now Territories: United States, Canada, Great Britain, Channel Islands, Malta, Gibraltar, Isle of Man and Eire, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Netherlands, Central and South America Synopsis: In 2207, two years after Gamilas and Iscandar vanished, a colossal object, the “Grand Reverse” appears, effortlessly breaching Earth’s defenses. Swarms of troops and multi-legged tanks swiftly conquer Earth’s capital city. Amidst the chaos, the old Yamato crew receives a secret order and now begins a voyage for unseen dimensions...

In its second weekend of July 19-21, Kingdom: Daishougun no Kikan ( Return of The Great General ), the fourth installment in the live-action Kingdom film series based on Yasuhisa Hara's manga, earned 816 million yen (5.2 million Usd) on 529,000 admissions according to Kogyo Tsushinsha . The numbers were down 49 percent from its opening weekend ( 1.628 billion yen ) but it was enough to keep the film in the top spot for a second straight weekend. After 10 days on release, Daishougun no Kikan has made a cumulative 3.6 billion yen (22.93 million Usd) on 2.41 million admissions, which were about 158.5 percent of the first two-week revenue ( 2.271 billion yen ) of the previous third installment released in July 2023, Kingdom: The Flame of Destiny . Related: Japan Box Office: Fourth Live-Action Kingdom Film Makes Record-Breaking No.1 Debut Gekijou-ban SutoPuri Hajimari no Monogatari ~ Strawberry School Festival!!!~ ( Strawberry Prince The Movie: A Story of The Beginning ~Strawberry School Festival!!!!~ ), the anime feature film inspired by...

Today, July 19 (in Japan), the opening day of the first chapter's theatrical screenings, the official website for the Space Battleship Yamato remake anime series released a teaser trailer for "Sekijitsu no Shutsugeki" (literally means "The Sortie on Red Day" ), the second chapter of its latest installment, Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 ( Yamato yo Towa ni Rebel 3199 in Japan). The clip confirms that the second of the new seven-chapter series (consisting of 26 episodes) will start its theatrical screenings in Japan on November 22, 2024. Additionally, a teaser visual for the second chapter, newly drawn by Kia Asamiya ( Silent Möbius ), who is in charge of image drawings for this series, has been released. The tagline reads: "Counterattack. Look carefully. This is Space Battleship Yamato." Advance tickets with a bonus poster using the teaser visual poster go on sale at theaters today. Related: First 5 Minutes of Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 1st Chapter Streamed Be Forever Yamato...

Ahead of its theatrical screenings, the official website for the Space Battleship Yamato remake anime series released the first five minutes of "The Black Invasion" ( Kuro no Shinryaku ), the first chapter of its latest installment, Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 ( Yamato yo Towa ni Rebel 3199 in Japan). The clip begins with poet reading by Shiro Sanada (CV: Hochu Otsuka), and slightly introduces a new heroine, Sasha / Mio Sanada. Then, a new invasion of the earth by a mysterious black object begins. Meanwhile, a new conspiracy regarding the invasion is being revealed on the earth by Yasuo Nanbu (CV: Kenji Akabane), the heir son of Nanbu Industry, which was involved in the construction of Yamato. Additionally, a 20-minute digest of the previous installments, which will be screened in theaters before the first chapter, is also streamed. Related: Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 Releases New First Chapter Trailer Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 is based...

The official website for the Space Battleship Yamato remake anime series released a main trailer and visual for "The Black Invasion" ( Kuro no Shinryaku ), the first chapter of its latest installment, Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 ( Yamato yo Towa ni Rebel 3199 in Japan). The tagline for the main visual reads: "We can't live together anymore. —What will you tell your loved one then?" Main visual Related : Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 Releases New First Chapter Trailer Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 is based on the feature film Be Forever Yamato ( Yamato yo Towa ni ) in 1980, and also includes some elements from the third original TV series Space Battleship Yamato III in 1980-1981. Sci-fi writer Harutoshi Fukui ( Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn ) serves as general director, series composition and screenplay writer. He has already served as series compositor and screenplay writer for the remake series' second installment, Space Battleship Yamato 2202 , in 2017-2019 and the third installment,...

The official website for the Space Battleship Yamato remake anime series released a second teaser trailer for "The Black Invasion" ( Kuro no Shinryaku ), the first chapter of its latest installment, Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 ( Yamato yo Towa ni Rebel 3199 in Japan). This 30-second clip first aired during the broadcast of the previous installment's first episode, Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love , on Japanese TV last night and later streamed on YouTube Emotion Label Channel . It will also screen at theaters in Japan from April 19. The clip depicts something extraordinary approaching Earth and includes footage shown for the first time, such as scenes featuring Space Battleship Yamato and Wave-motion Test Ship Ginga. The first of the new seven-chapter series is scheduled to open in Japan on July 19, 2024. Related: Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 Releases 1st Chapter Trailer Teaser visual Related: Be Forever Yamato Rebel 3199 Anime Adds 5 Cast Members Main staff: Original...

Takashi Yamazaki, the Japanese filmmaker behind Oscar-winning smash hit “Godzilla Minus One,” has signed with CAA for representation.

“Godzilla Minus One,” on which Yamazaki served as writer, director and VFX supervisor, earned the first-ever nomination and win for a Japanese production in the VFX category at the Academy Awards earlier this month. The film beat strong contenders such as “The Creator,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” and “Napoleon.” The Oscar win also marked the second time in 55 years that a director won the VFX award.

“Godzilla Minus One” also became the third-highest grossing foreign language feature in the U.S. box office history.

Budgeted at $15 million, the film follows former Kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Kamiki Ryunosuke), who grapples with survivor’s guilt following World War II and the trauma of having been attacked by Godzilla. While he manages to build a life for his newfound family,...

Toho released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One (read our review Here), in Japan on November 3rd, which happens to be Godzilla Day – the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla movie. The film made its way over to the United States in December… and it became the highest grossing live-action Japanese film in North America even before a black and white version was released under the title Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color. Director Takashi Yamazaki has let it be known that he’s interested in making a sequel, and during a new interview with Empire magazine he revealed that he would like to feature some “kaiju vs. kaiju” action in the follow-up, if Toho lets him make it!

Yamazaki said, “I would certainly like to see what the sequel would look like. I know that Shikishima’s war seems over, and we’ve reached this state...

The late Satoshi Kon was amongst the most prominent Japanese animators, with his works transcending the world of anime and manga, thus creating a modern division of the genre, which chiefly addressed a more mature audience. However, he did not accomplish that via sex and violence, but through the profundity of his themes and a complex style of presentation. The former becomes evident in his nightmarish worlds of terror that are based on concepts like fixation, publicity and the perspective of reality and personal identity, while the latter is clear through the mixture of fantasy and reality in the surrealistic environments of his movies. Additionally, he was equally elaborative as a designer and animator; hence, his works amount to masterpieces, both visually and in content.

Satoshi Kon was born on October 12, 1963 in Kushiro, Hokkaido. Early on, he became a fan of anime and manga, chiefly “Mobile Suit Gundam” and “Space Battleship Yamato...

Toho released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One (read our review Here), in Japan on November 3rd, which happens to be Godzilla Day – the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla movie. The movie made its way over to the U.S. on December 1st. On January 12th, a black & white version of Godzilla Minus One reached theatres in Japan… and Deadline has confirmed that this black & white version, which is called Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, will also be getting a U.S. theatrical run! Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color will begin showing in U.S. theatres on January 26th, then the theatrical runs for both versions of the film will be coming to an end on February 1st.

Director Takashi Yamazaki, who has let it be known that he would like to make a sequel to the film, had this to say about the black...

Toho released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One (read our review Here), in Japan on November 3rd, which happens to be Godzilla Day – the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla movie. Director Takashi Yamazaki has let it be known that he would like to make a sequel to the film, which has been a box office success both in Japan and internationally. But before we find out if Yamazaki is going to get the chance to make another Godzilla movie, it has been confirmed that he was given the opportunity to make another version of this one. A black & white version! The black & white version – which was created because the original Godzilla was made in black & white – is called Godzilla-1.0/C, which stands for Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, and it will be receiving a theatrical release in Japan on January 12th! A trailer and...

Toho released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One (read our review Here), in Japan on November 3rd, which happens to be Godzilla Day – the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla movie. The film made its way over to the United States on December 1st, and has quickly become the highest grossing live-action Japanese film in North America. There was a rumor going around that the film had a budget of $15 million – but director Takashi Yamazaki has since spoken up and said he wished he had that much to work with, because the budget was actually lower. With that in mind, it wouldn’t be surprising if Godzilla Minus One‘s success were to lead to a sequel… and Yamazaki says he would like to direct one!

As of this writing, Godzilla Minus One has earned $26 million at the Japan box office and another $26 million from other territories,...

Toho released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One (read our review Here), in Japan on November 3rd, which happens to be Godzilla Day – the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla movie. The film made its way over to the United States on December 1st… and Godzilla Minus One has not only done well enough during its release in the states that its theatre count is going to be expanded this weekend, but its $14.36 million haul so far has also earned it the honor of being the highest grossing live-action Japanese film in North America!

Toho has brought Godzilla Minus One to the states in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles. The film has secured a PG-13 rating for its U.S. release.

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One will see an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla.

Toho released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One (read our review Here), in Japan on November 3rd, which happens to be Godzilla Day – the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla film. Today, December 1st, is the film’s official U.S. release date (although there have been Early Access Fan Event Screenings in premium large format theaters since Wednesday), and to mark the occasion the final trailer for Godzilla Minus One has arrived online. You can check it out in the embed above.

Toho brings Godzilla Minus One to the states in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles. The film has secured a PG-13 rating for its U.S. release.

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One will see an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla. Interestingly, one of Yamazaki’s previous credits is the 2007 film...

"Godzilla Minus One" is not only one of the best movies of the year, but one of the best "Godzilla" movies ever, with /Film's own Witney Seibold saying in his review that it includes "some of the best, most exciting destruction visuals in the franchise's long history."

The film follows in the footsteps of Hideaki Anno's "Shin Godzilla" in reinventing the king of monsters, but it also looks back at the very origins of the franchise. The result is a movie that gives us a human story as compelling and thrilling to watch as Godzilla wreaking havoc. This is a monster that is utterly terrifying, and one with an upgraded power move that is closer to the imagery of nuclear armageddon than anything in this 70-year franchise — making it a pseudo "Oppenheimer" sequel.

Director Takashi Yamazaki brings to "Godzilla Minus One" the same energy and the same great eye...

Toho released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One, in Japan on November 3rd, which happens to be Godzilla Day – the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla film. The film will be making its way over to the United States on December 1st, and in anticipation of that release the folks at Rotten Tomatoes got an exclusive look at a clip from Godzilla Minus One that shows the iconic kaiju chasing a boat. You can watch the clip in the embed at the bottom of this article.

Toho will be bringing Godzilla Minus One to the states in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles. The film has secured a PG-13 rating for its U.S. release.

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One will see an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla. Interestingly, one of Yamazaki’s...

Today, November 3rd, is Godzilla Day – the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla film. To celebrate the occasion, Toho has released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One, in Japan. The film will be making its way over to the United States on December 1st, and a new trailer for the U.S. release has made its way online. You can check it out in the embed above.

Toho will be bringing Godzilla Minus One to the states in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles. The film has secured a PG-13 rating for its U.S. release.

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One will see an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla. Interestingly, one of Yamazaki’s previous credits is the 2007 film Always: Sunset on Third Street 2, which features a Godzilla cameo in a fantasy sequence.

Godzilla Minus One, the latest Godzilla movie from Toho, is set to be released in Japan on Godzilla Day this year, November 3, 2023. It will then receive a nationwide release in the United States on December 1st. With the first audiences just about to get the chance to watch the movie, a new poster for the U.S. release has arrived online, and you can check it out at the bottom of this article.

Toho will be bringing Godzilla Minus One to the states in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles. The film has secured a PG-13 rating for its U.S. release.

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One will see an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla. Interestingly, one of Yamazaki’s previous credits is the 2007 film Always: Sunset on Third Street 2, which features a Godzilla cameo in a fantasy sequence.

Godzilla Minus One, the latest Godzilla movie from Toho, is set to be released in Japan on Godzilla Day this year, November 3, 2023. It will then receive a nationwide release in the United States on December 1st. Variety reports that the theatrical-only specialist distributor Pieces of Magic Entertainment has now acquired the rights to distribute Godzilla Minus One in 38 European territories, and will be releasing it at the beginning of December. Along with the news of that distribution deal comes the unveiling of a new trailer for the film, which can be seen at the bottom of this article.

Toho will be bringing Godzilla Minus One to the states in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles. The film has secured a PG-13 rating for its U.S. release.

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One will see an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla.

Yesterday we learned that Godzilla Minus One, the latest Godzilla movie from Toho, has been given a PG-13 rating for its release in the United States, a rating it earned due to creature violence and action. Now a new TV spot for the film has arrived online, and you can check that out in the embed above. The film is set to be released in Japan on Godzilla Day this year, November 3, 2023. It will then receive a nationwide release in the United States on December 1st.

Toho will be bringing Godzilla Minus One to the states in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles.

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One will see an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla. Interestingly, one of Yamazaki’s previous credits is the 2007 film Always: Sunset on Third Street 2, which features a Godzilla cameo in a fantasy sequence.

There’s a new Godzilla movie, called Godzilla Minus One, coming our way from Toho, The film is set to be released in Japan on Godzilla Day this year, November 3, 2023. It will then receive a nationwide release in the United States on December 1st… and while Toho gears up to bring Godzilla Minus One to the states, the film has secured a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association ratings board. The reason for the rating: “creature violence and action“. Exactly what we want to see from a Godzilla movie.

Toho will be bringing Godzilla Minus One to the states in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles.

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One will see an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla. Interestingly, one of Yamazaki’s previous credits is the 2007 film Always: Sunset on Third Street 2, which features...

While Godzilla’s been busy in American movies and TV, with 2024 promising the return of the iconic kaiju in both Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and the Apple TV Plus series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, there hasn’t been a live-action Japanese Godzilla movie in awhile. The last one was 2016’s Shin Godzilla, which was the highest-grossing Japanese-language entry in the franchise to date. And now, the green guy is back in Godzilla Minus One, which just got its first full trailer.

Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, the man behind Space Battleship Yamato, this is actually a prequel with it taking place in post-WW2 Japan. This an interesting approach, as the original Godzilla movies were always seen as a reaction to both the American occupation and an allegory for the hydrogen bomb. The series has spawned 37 films over four different eras: the Shōwa era, the Heisei era, the Millennium era,...

This is the year of Godzilla. We recently got the first images of the upcoming Apple TV+ MonsterVerse show that pits both Kurt and Wyatt Russell against the King of Monsters. There's also the upcoming "Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire" that is set to bring round two of the match of the century next year. Arguably, though, the headliner is the return of Toho's own Godzilla in "Godzilla Minus One," the first since "Shin Godzilla" seven years ago.

"Shin Godzilla" was a phenomenal reimagining of the iconic monster, with Hideaki Anno making an incredible movie that brought the King of Monsters to modern times, making it an allegory for the response to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster —all while giving us an incredible redesign for the character.

Now, Takashi Yamazaki, director, writer, and VFX supervisor is helming "Godzilla Minus One." Yamazaki is no small name either, having helmed a series of VFX-heavy blockbusters,...

In many respects, the ‘80s are highlighted as a boom period for anime, something perhaps unwittingly foretold by Mobile Suit Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino in his famous “Anime New Century Declaration” — a promo event for the “Ms Gundam” compilation movie “Mobile Suit Gundam 1” that unexpectedly drew a crowd numbering in the thousands. The event was emblematic of that coming explosion — anime production reaching newfound scale, finding larger audiences in turn, and maturing as both a medium and an industry. It would be a decade that saw more confident spending, bigger original productions, and a much deeper roster as new creators.

In a retrospective piece about the moment, “Anime: A History” author Jonathan Clements wrote that while Tomino would become a figurehead, his “new world order” would belong to the next generation. It would be a dynamic new age defined by works like the famous Daicon III & IV Opening Animations, made...

There’s a new Godzilla movie coming our way from Toho! The film is called Godzilla Minus One, and it’s set to be released in Japan on Godzilla Day this year. November 3, 2023. It will then receive a nationwide release in the United States on December 1st. We saw a trailer for the movie a couple days ago, but since there’s just a quick glimpse of Godzilla in this short amount of footage, we were left wanting to see the full design of the iconic character. Thankfully, a full body shot of Godzilla has since been unveiled – and images of an action figure offer an even better look at the design! The full body shot and one image of the action figure can be seen at the bottom of this article. More images of the figure can be found at Godzilla-Movies.com.

The figure is part of the S.

Last November, Toho announced that a new Japanese Godzilla film was in the works and would be released on Godzilla Day this year. November 3, 2023. Today, they unveiled a teaser trailer for that movie, which is officially titled Godzilla Minus One, and you can watch the teaser in the embed above!

Following its November 3rd release in Japan, Godzilla Minus One will receive a nationwide release in the United States on December 1st.

Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, this film will see an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla. That’s the only plot information that has been revealed so far. Interestingly, one of Yamazaki’s previous credits is the 2007 film Always: Sunset on Third Street 2, which features a Godzilla cameo in a fantasy sequence.

Yamazaki directed a trilogy of Always: Sunset on Third Street films, as well as Juvenile, Returner, Ballad, Space Battleship Yamato,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.REMEMBRANCEIsland in the Sun.The singer, actor, and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte has died, aged 96. Christina Newland wrote a piece on Belafonte for Notebook in 2020, praising his politics, his style, his music, and his work ss stage and screen. "His impact on American mid-century life has been so significant that it’s difficult to define him as any single thing, or to see him occupying only one role."NEWSNo Bears.Jafar Panahi has left Iran for the first time in fourteen years, it is being reported. Posting from an airport, his wife Tahereh Saeedi tweeted that, “after 14 years, Jafar’s ban was cancelled" and, that finally, the pair are "going to travel together for a few days…”The Cannes Film Festival have...

"The Little Mermaid" saved Walt Disney Feature Animation in 1989. It earned rave reviews from critics like Roger Ebert, who wrote that "the magic of animation has been restored to us." It won an Academy Award and a Grammy for the hit song "Under the Sea." Best of all, the film popularized animated musicals; not just animated films with songs, but films with songs that expressed motivation and character as aptly as the animation did. Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken, responsible for the off-Broadway legend "Little Shop of Horrors," brought their hard-won expertise to a project that was floundering on the rocks. The results didn't just set the standard for the Disney Renaissance; they set the standard for its competition. For the first time in many years, Disney took the lead as opposed to ceding ground to challengers like Don Bluth. Not every film in the coming years would be successful,...

Leiji Matsumoto, the popular Japanese manga and anime artist known for his work with Daft Punk, has died at the age of 85.

Among his many works, Matsumoto created the popular manga series Space Pirate Captain Harlock. In an interview, Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo cited the manga as one of their biggest early influences. “At around the age of 5 years old, we would watch Captain Harlock,” they explained. “The music we have been making must have been influenced at some point by the shows we were watching when we were little kids.”

Alongside co-writer Cédric Hervet and director Kazuhisa Takenouchi, Daft Punk collaborated with Matsumoto on Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. The 2003 animated film served as the visual companion to the group’s second album, Discovery. Scenes from the film were also released as standalone music videos for songs like “One More Time,...

Leiji Matsumoto, the Japanese manga and anime creator known for science fiction sagas, TV series like Space Pirate Captain Harlock and music videos for Daft Punk, died of acute heart failure on February 13. He was 85.

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His death was announced by his studio, Studio Leijisha.

Among his best-known science fiction sagas were Galaxy Express 999, Queen Emeraldas and Space Battleship Yamato.

In a statement to the BBC, Matsumoto’s daughter and head of the studio, Makiko Matsumoto, said her father “set out on a journey to the sea of stars. I think he lived a happy life, thinking about continuing to...

Leading Japanese manga artist Matsumoto Leiji, whose space operas became known to fans globally in animated incarnations, died on Feb. 13 in Tokyo at age 85.

His representatives announced on Monday that the cause of death was heart failure.

Born Matsumoto Akira in 1938 in Kurume, a city on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu, Matsumoto began drawing manga professionally after his arrival in Tokyo at age 18. He made his debut in 1954 with a comic titled “Mitsubachi no Boken” (Adventure of the Honey Bee).

He drew successful manga about ronin (masterless samurai), cowboys and other subjects, but became best known for series about adventures set in outer space, including “Space Pirate Captain Harlock” and “Galaxy Express 999,” both of which bowed in 1977. Animated versions became enduringly popular in Japan and around the world.

Matsumoto collaborated with producer Nishizaki Yoshinobu on the 1974-75 “Space Battleship Yamato” TV animated series that was shown in the U.

"Their battleship will lead directly to war." Well Go USA has released a new official trailer for the Japanese drama titled The Great War of Archimedes, which originally opened in Japan back in 2019. Everyone has heard of the anime Space Battleship Yamato, but have you heard the real story of the actual Yamato warship? It fought in WWII, then sunk in 1945. The Great War of Archimedes, based on the 2015 manga series “Archimedes no Taisen," is a dramatized depiction of the behind-the-scenes struggles of the Japanese Navy while building the Yamato, the largest battleship in the world, prior to WWII. The film is produced by Toho, and directed by Takashi Yamazaki - of Space Battleship Yamato, Stand by Me Doraemon, Dragon Quest: Your Story, and the most recent 3D CGI Lupin III: The First film (which he made after this but was released before this film). The film stars Suda Masaki,...

In February, Arrow Video send a wonderful Valentine to genre film fans, with a bells and whistles release of a classic J-horror trilogy.

The One Missed Call Trilogy- An iconic trilogy of J-horror films comes to Blu-ray for the first time! Tapping into the same brand of terror as the Ring and Grudge movies, visionary director Takashi Miike presents a modern, high-tech twist on that mainstay of Japanese folklore, the yurei or vengeful spirit, in the form of its own iconic antihero – the terrifying Mimiko.

In the first instalment in the trilogy, 2003’s One Missed Call, student Yoko receives a phone message from her future self, ending with her own death scream. Two days later, she dies in a horrific rail collision. As the mysterious phone curse spreads, claiming more young lives, Yoko’s friend Yumi joins forces with detective Hiroshi, whose sister met the same gruesome fate.

Ryan Lambie Mar 15, 2019

Released in 1985, the anime Megazone 23 makes for an ideal companion piece to the Wachowskis’ 1999 hit, The Matrix...

When the Wachowskis were laying out their vision for what would become The Matrix in the late '90s, they sat down producer Joel Silver and showed him a VHS tape of Ghost in the Shell - Mamoru Oshii’s classic anime adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s manga.

With The Matrix, the Wachowskis wanted to mix up a heady cocktail of Hong Kong action, cyberpunk, philosophy, eastern and western myth, as well as the bold stylings of Japanese and American comic books. But they also wanted to draw on the cool design, camera angles, and sense of dynamism seen in the best Japanese anime. Ghost in the Shell has certain story elements in common with The Matrix - most obviously the cyberpunk idea of physically jacking into a virtual space...

While Skydance and Christopher McQuarrie are busy with M:I6 Mission Impossible at Paramount, David Ellison’s company is trying to move forward with Star Blazers, the live-action adaptation of the space-set 1970s anime TV series also known as Space Battleship Yamato. Ellison, in SXSW to do press for the Daniel Espinosa-directed Life, told online site Lrm that Skydance has hired Zach Dean to write a new draft of the script as a potential directing followup for McQuarrie…...

With the upcoming Power Rangers and Ghost in the Shell movies coming out over the next few weeks, one might want to take a look back to the '70s and '80s as a time when Asian productions were frequently brought to American shores.

One of the originators of that tradition was the cartoon Star Blazers, based on the Japanese anime Space Battleship Yamato.

The Star Blazers animated show only had three seasons that ran from 1979 to 1984, but it created an avid fanbase with the related toys, comic books and other iterations, all of which followed the adventures of the crew of the Argo, an old battleship turned into a starship that is used to fight against the forces of Gamilon, a distant planet that attacks earth sometime in the future.

The show's fanbase has mainly been kept alive by constant reissues of the show on DVD until 2012 when...

Warner Bro. Pictures teased audiences with the first trailer of the highly anticipated Ronin thriller “Blade of the Immortal.”

The trailer is a jam-packed 30 seconds. Not much of the plot is revealed but we do see the superstar cast all banged up, bloody, and ready for battle. Iconic Japanese singer and actor Takuya Kimura (Love and Honor (2006), Space Battleship Yamato (2010), and Hero (2007 & 2015)) plays the cursed immortal samurai “Manji”. The teaser also shows the rest of the cast: Hana Sugisaki as heroine Rin Asano, Sota Fukushi as Kagehisa Anotsu, Hayato Ichihara as Shira, Erika Toda as Makie Otono-Tachibana, and Ebizo Ichikawa as Eiku Shizuma.

The film is helmed by critically acclaimed and prolific cult director Takaski Miike. Miike is known for his masterful oeuvre ranging from the bizarre, the dramatic, the controversial and of course the ultra violent. His films Audition (1999), Ichi the Killer (2001), 13 Assasins (2010) Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011), Shield...

An alien craft shaped like an artichoke? A vessel with breasts? Here's our pick of 15 of sci-fi cinema's most eccentric spaceships...

For decades, heroes have crossed the universe in rocket ships and modified light freighters. Aliens have conquered galaxies in disc-shaped craft of varying sizes.

Yes, as long as there's been science fiction on the silver screen, spaceships have captured our imagination, from the matinee serials of the 30s to the sci-fi blockbusters of the present.

We all have our own idea of what a great spaceship should look like. For some, it's Han Solo's fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, the Millennium Falcon. For others, it's the more graceful USS Enterprise, or maybe the utilitarian craft of 2001: A Space Odyssey. But what about cinema's more unusual, outlandish spaceships? The ramshackle ones, the anachronistic ones, the ones that look a bit rude, or just plain scary? Those are...

Anime fan favourite Space Pirate Captain Harlock stars in a new movie... but is it worth the wait?

If you're a fan of manga, you probably already know Harlock, although his fan following is much larger in France, Quebec and Japan. Harlock is the brainchild of Leiji Matsumoto (creator of Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers). Harlock was created in the 50s, but his breakthrough came in 1978 with the release of the original television series, Space Pirate Captain Harlock. He has since then seen many incarnations, but he had been absent from our screens since 2002. Given the current trend of revisiting old franchise favourites, Harlock was bound to suffer the reboot treatment at one point. Harlock has already been rebooted several times over the years, long before the term "reboot" was actually coined, so it shouldn't have been a big deal, but some fans feared that Harlock's move to the big...

Second World War kamikaze drama “The Eternal Zero” has emerged as one of the most popular films at the Japanese box office of recent years, having topped the list for an impressive eight consecutive weeks and now ranking as the country’s fifth highest-grossing live-action film of all time. Based on a novel by Hyakuta Naoki, the film was directed by Yamazaki Takashi, helmer of the hit nostalgic “Always” series and who recently gave audiences the visually stunning “Space Battleship Yamato” update. Like many modern Japanese war themed films, “The Eternal Zero” revolves around a present day framing device, in this case following Kentaro (Miura Haruma, “Space Pirate Captain Harlock”), a law student who has failed the bar exam several times, and who at his grandmother’s funeral finds out that his grandfather Oishi is not in fact his biological grandfather. Aided by his sister Keiko (Fukiishi Kazue, “13 Assassins”), he looks into the matter,...

While the world continues to experience Attack on Titan-mania, Toho is banking on the live-action adaptation of another wildly popular manga: Hitoshi Iwaaki’s Parasyte. It looks like just the sort of mix of cute, ugly, weird, and violent we expect from Japan.

Alien “parasytes” come to Earth and start taking over humans by entering people’s bodies and latching onto their brains. They can deform human bodies in ways that would make John Carpenter’s The Thing smile.

Teenager Shinichi gets infected by an alien called “Migi”, but since it is only able to control his right arm, the two come to an understanding and work together to stop the evil parasytes that only want to consume and control us.

Did you get all that? If not, here’s an even longer, more detailed synopsis of the plot.

Synopsis:

One night by the seaside, tiny creatures, or "Parasytes,...

The Hollywood live-action film adaptation of the hit 1970s anime series "Space Battleship Yamato" (aka. "Star Blazers") has been a long time coming, mostly due to some thorny rights issues regarding the work.

In late 2012, filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie told Dark Horizons that after years of talks, the last few issues were being worked out regarding the rights to the property. At the time he said: "Yes, the longest rights negotiation of planet Earth. I think we're very very close to finally… there's one last piece in the chain that needs to be worked out and when that's done I would immediately be able to start writing that."

It sounds like that has happened as the Sports Nippon newspaper (via Anime News Network) reports that McQuarrie will shoot the project next once he wraps his work on the currently filming "Mission: Impossible 5".

Skydance Productions and Voyager Entertainment are producing the...