I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas! I had a quiet couple of days and a nice time with family and plenty of manga and other presents. I also caught up with the movie adaptation of Cloud Atlas, one of my all-time favourite books, and liked it.
This is the last trailer post of the year sees me in a more introspective mood.
This has been the second year that I have worked on trailer posts but the first in which I made an effort to capture every Japanese film released in Japan (Tokyo, if we’re being honest because some of the short films and documentaries won’t travel) and give a fuller picture of what Japanese cinema-goers can watch. It has meant a lot of time and hard work but even then I am aware there may be errors, especially at the beginning of the year. For too many entries my efforts are somewhat amateurish because my translation skills aren’t all that great. Sometimes the kanji is so complex that friends from Japan have trouble providing information without research. To remedy that I have started to a website link, and as much information as I could drum up to help people interested in titles. Also, I bet that a lot 
of people find it hard to trawl through my words, so I started to cut down on the blurb and just run with the synopsis and maybe brief filmographies.
My performance is linked to the number of other websites that cover Japanese films like Eigpedia and the Japanese Film Database and it is also linked to my Japanese language skills so as I improve those the easier this will get. I’m spending less time watching television/playing games and more time practising so hopefully in the future I won’t come out with the weird sounding titles that have plagued previous posts. I’ll still write these things to a soundtrack like this.
I want to thank my Japanese friends for aiding me and all of the readers who keep coming back – I’m always surprised that anybody still reads this blog…
What did I post about this week? I continued with my Genki 2013 Christmas season by posting a review for Insidious Chapter 2 and The Conjuring followed by news of Third Window Films’s latest Japanese film acquisitions and a post about the Japan Foundation’s other events in January.
Anyway, here are the final films of the year. Check back tomorrow to see a post containing most of the posters for Japanese films released in Japan.
Hunter x Hunter – The Last Mission – (Movie) 
Japanese Title: ハンター X ハンター: ザ・ラスト・ミッション
Romaji: Hanta- X Hanta-: Za Rasuto Misshin
Release Date: December 27th, 2013
Running Time: 98 mins.
Director: Keiichiro Kawaguchi
Writer: Nobuaki Kishima (Screenplay), Yoshihiro Togashi (Original Creator)
Starring: Mariya Ise (Killua Zoldyck), Megumi Han (Gon Freecs), Daisuke Namikawa (Hisoka), Chisa Yokoyama (Biscuit Krueger), Kenji Fujiwara (Leorio), Yuka Terasaki (Zushi), Mizuki Yamamoto (Rengoku), Miyuki Sawashiro (Kurapika)
When the strongest Hunters in the Hunters Association were split into “light” and “dark”, a conflict emerged as the two sides began to walk their own path. The dark side begins o massacre all Hunters and both Killua and Kurapiku are caught up in the violence, What is the secret behind Netero, the strongest Nen-user and the chairman of the Hunter Association?
Majocco Shimai no Yoyo to Nene 
Japanese Title: 魔女っこ姉妹のヨヨとネネ
Romaji: Majocco Shimai no Yoyo to Nene
Release Date: December 28th, 2013
Running Time: 100 mins.
Director: Takayuki Hirao
Writer: Hirarin (Original Creator)
Starring: Ai Kakuma (Nene), Sumire Morohoshi (Yoyo), Shoko Nakagawa (Bihaku), Miyuki Sawashiro (Takahiro), Kyoko Hikami (Oyomi), Rui Sasaki (Aki)
Nene and Yoyo are sisters and magical girls who works as “noroiya” (cursers) in a fantasy world. Yoyo is a Picture Book Level witch while Nene is a practice Book Level witch. One day a big tree appears in a forest, and tall buildings that look like they are from our world can be seen entangled in it. When Nene and Yoyo investigate they are transported to our world where they encounter two children whose parents have been turned into monsters…
