Happy Weekend, everyone!
I hope you are all well.
I am still a little ill but that hasn’t stopped me from watching and writing about films. This week I posted reviews for The Fable: The Killer Who Won’t Kill, Tonkatsu DJ Agetaro, and Hold Me Back. I’ll be doing a Heroic Purgatory podcast with Ghost in the Shell being the film the episode is dedicated to Ghost in the Shell, the anime movie from the 90s.
This week I watched Room 237, The Pusher, Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku and a bunch of New York Asian Film Festival films that I will write about soon!
What is released this weekend?
The Great Yokai War: Guardians 
妖怪大戦争 ガーディアンズ 「Youkai Dai-sensou Ga-dianzu」
Release Date: August 13th 2021
Duration: 118 mins.
Director: Takashi Miike
Writer: Yusuke Watanabe (Script),
Starring: Kokoro Terada, Hana Sugisaki, Takao Osawa, Nao Omori, Yuko Oshima, Kenichi Endo, Sumire, Akira Emoto, Sakura Ando, Kazuki Kitamura, Nanako Matsushima, Rei Inomata,
Takashi Miike follows his 2005 yokai movie, The Great Yokai War which starred Ryunosuke Kamiki with this one. Kamiki makes an appearance as the main character’s home room teacher. It plays at Japan Cuts at the end of the month.
Synopsis: Kei Watanabe (Kokoro Terada) looks like your normal kid but he has the blood of legendary samurai and yokai hunter Watanabe no Tsuna running in his veins and that is why he is recruited by yokai to save the world from Yokaiju, a mass of spirits that have transformed into a destructive force of nature that is on its way to Tokyo where it threatens to break a spiritual barrier that staves off the revival of a nameless evil.
Tokyo Olympics 2017 Toei Kasumigaoka Apartment 
東京オリンピック2017 都営霞ケ丘アパート 「Toukyou Orinpikku 2017 Toei Kasumigaoka Apa-to」
Release Date: August 13th 2021
Duration: 80 mins.
Director: Shinya Aoyama
Writer: N/A
Starring: Kokoro Terada, Hana Sugisaki, Takao Osawa, Nao Omori, Yuko Oshima, Kenichi Endo, Sumire, Akira Emoto, Sakura Ando, Kazuki Kitamura, Nanako Matsushima, Rei Inomata,
Synopsis: This documentary examines a public housing complex and the people it contained until it was demolished in 2017 to make way for the new version of the Olympic Stadium which would host the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This building was thrown up in the 1960s and was a great place for working-class people to live. When the film gets there, many of the residents live alone but help each other out until the day Tokyo Metropolitan Government issued them with a notice to relocate…
Here’s a blog post with more history on the danchi with lots of photographs.
We Have the Same Morning 
僕たちは変わらない朝を迎える 「Bokutachi wa Kawaranai Asa o Mukaeru」
Release Date: August 13th 2021
Duration: 51 mins.
Director: Akihiro Toda
Writer: Akihiro Toda (Script),
Starring: Minehiro Kinomoto, Kaho Tsuchimura, Momoka, Mizuki Maehara, Go Kikuchi,
This film is part of the MOOSIC LAB [JOINT] 2020-2021 crop and it won the Audience Award, Best Actor Award, and Best Musician Award. It was directed by Akihiro Toda (The Name) and stars Kaho Tsuchimura (The Real Thing).
Synopsis: Kaoru Fujii has hit his 30s and his career as a film director has hit a wall. When his muse, the actress Nene Miyazaki, tells him that she is getting married, Kaoru desperately writes a script to express his feelings for her. However, when his producer reads the script, he rejects it and says, “Write about your hopes, not your ideals.” Kaoru begins to look at himself…
Go Seppuku Yourselves 
全員切腹 「Zen’in Seppuku」
Release Date: August 14th 2021
Duration: 26 mins.
Director: Toshiaki Toyoda
Writer: Toshiaki Toyoda (Script),
Starring: Yosuke Kubozuka, Kiyhiko Shibukawa, Haruka Imou, Ryoichi Yuki, Hiroaki Sakata (Seppuku Pistols),
Synopsis from Japan Cuts/IMDB: Completing Toshiaki Toyoda’s politically urgent Resurrection Trilogy following Wolf’s Calling (2019) and The Day of Destruction (2020), this electrifying short takes place in the early Meiji period and follows a man (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) tasked with assisting in the ritual suicide of a samurai (Yosuke Kubozuka) who won’t die without condemning the corrupt powers that be.
The next two films are part of a double-bill called “Toei Manga Festival” which is aimed at kids:
Shinkai no Survival! 
深海のサバイバル！ 「Shinkai no Sabaibaru」
Release Date: August 13th, 2021
Duration: 101 mins.
Director: Satoru Iriyoshi
Writer: Isao Murayama (Script),
Starring: Akira Ishida (Kei), Megumi Han (Pipi), Satsumi Matsuda (Geo), Kappei Yamaguchi (Professor Kon), Takushi Izawa (Operator),
Animation Production: Toei Animation, Gallop
This is the second theatrical anime adaptation of the best-selling “Science Manga Survival” and it is all about “Survival in the Deep Sea.”
Synopsis: The characters board the submarine “Ammonite” for a research mission, but on as they travel down they get caught in methane gas bubbles and breaks down. It gets even more dire when they are attacked by a giant squid and a sperm whale, and other deep-sea creatures in the pitch-black ocean floor!
Eiga Oshiri Tantei: Sufu-re-to no Himitsu 
映画おしりたんてい スフーレ島のひみつ 「Eiga Oshiri Tantei: Sufu-re-to no Himitsu」
Release Date: August 13th, 2021
Duration: 101 mins.
Director: Akifumi Zako
Writer: Natsuko Takahashi, Jun Narita (Script), Troll (Original Creator)
Starring: Yuko Sanpei (Oshiri Tantei), Ayaka Saito (Brown), Ikkei Watanabe (Chief Maltes), Takahiro Sakurai (Kaito U), Hiroshi Kamiya (Ruka), Akira Kamiya (Pepe), Rio Suzuki (Lulu),
Animation Production: Toei Animation,
Synopsis: This is the third feature film based on “Oshiri Tantei,” a detective who looks like a butt but is a gentleman in his reasoning and behaviour. Oshiri Tantei and his dog, Onekoro Keisatsu, visit the island of Soufflé, where the wind blows all year round, to learn that the inhabitants have had a letter from Kaito II threatening the theft of the island’s treasure, the “Wind Guide. There they meet Lulu, a girl who flies freely in the sky and protects the island’s important lighthouse as part of a family tradition. Despite their best efforts, they are unable to save the treasure from Kaito…
Kurayukaba (Preface)
クラユカバ 序章 「Kurayukaba Joshou」
Release Date: August 13th, 2021
Duration: 101 mins.
Director: Shigeyoshi Tsukahara
Writer: Shigeyoshi Tsukahara (Script), Shigeyoshi Tsukahara (Original Creator)
Starring: Hakuzan Kanda (Sotaro), Raiko Sakamoto (Inarizaka), Tomoyo Kurosawa (Tanne), Yu Serizawa (Saki),
Animation Production: Pancake
This is the first chapter of “Kurayukaba,” the first feature-length animated film by animator Shigeyoshi Tsukahara. He raised over 15 million yen through crowdfunding.
Synopsis: Shoutarou is a lazy detective investigating a huge mystery: a mass disappearance that has everyone in his city puzzled and shocked. To find some answers, he boards an armoured train called “Sokore 463” and goes on an adventure with Tanne, a girl with a special mission.