Recent content by Professor Irony

Dan Da Dan ep22 Kinta capturing the spirit of 'that guy' to an alarming extent. Reporter Blues ep1 A Japan/Italy co-production from TMS, this seems like a charming little series in the mould of Lupin or Cat's Eye, following a young woman from the sticks who heads to Paris in the 1920s to take...

Much as I thought it was fine (haven’t seen the director’s cut mind), my lingering memory of the Highlander anime movie is that the villain spends his time mastering business, art and music, whereas the hero’s sole activity over the years seems to be repeatedly trying to get revenge on him. I...

It is a shame that no-one seems able to tempt Kawajiri back into the director’s chair for one last hurrah. While neither were especially successful (at least not with the critics), it’s notable that US-Japan co-productions such as both the recent Devil May Cry series and Ninja Kamui take...

I’ve appreciated the curated blocks as a chance for older films which would be unlikely to come up otherwise to get an airing, but my objection is purely practical - I can’t afford (both time wise and monetarily) to repeatedly travel to Edinburgh for one film each night. If we could have had...

A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971) Obsessed with her Bohemian nuisance-neighbour, Julia (Anita Strindberg), wealthy London socialite Carol (Florinda Bolkan) dreams alternately of making love to or killing the other woman, only to find herself the chief suspect when Julia is found dead in real...

Maybe it’s because I never had many ADV discs, but I don’t think I ever saw much of their marketing material. The famous What is Anime schtick was a running gag at the local anime club, but I only ever absorbed that one through osmosis. I do remember them having a couple of trailers on one of...

Tatsuki Fujimoto 17-26 Having gone into this completely blind, I had an absolute whale of a time with this collection of Fujimoto's short stories - they're beautifully animated and frequently very, very funny. I think my favourite of the bunch was hired-killer comedy Shikaku, but shout out...

My experience of Chinese animation is by no means exhaustive, and I imagine it affects some things more than others, but I have often struggled to shake the feeling of their domestic works being created within a noticeably more narrow field of what you can and can’t say. The raw talent is...

Unsure if I’ll need this thread more than once, but for now, I’m selling the AL Neon Genesis Evangelion Ultimate Edition BD, including that extra replacement disc to cover the missing subtitles. I have it up on eBay for open bidding or buy it now, but depending on how that pans out, I may also...

Lupin III: Immortal Bloodline Having successfully fought off the powerful assassins sent after each of them, Lupin and his gang receive a mysterious invitation to an uncharted island in the Bermuda Triangle, leading them into a final showdown with the sinister mastermind manipulating world...

Shout out for Cyberpunk Edgerunners as the show I most think folk ought to see from that period, but Akiba Maid War is both the one I think is most likely to be overlooked, and also my outright favourite. ‘What if maid cafes were run like the Yakuza’ seems like the sort of mad premise usually...

Overall, I remember being puzzled about what exactly they were trying to achieve with Stampede. It seemed like they’d put a huge amount of effort into giving the characters expressive faces (something so often missing from CG anime) in a way that would have fitted a comedy series really well...

Dan Da Dan ep18-19 I’ve said it before, but I do wish they would drop the sexual assault imagery, it feels so at odds with everything else in the show. It always seems to be Momo who’s the target as well.

Night of the Living Dead (1990) After an unexplained phenomenon causes the recently deceased to apparently return to life and attack the living, seven people find themselves trapped in an isolated house besieged by ghouls in rural Pennsylvania, in this remake of George A Romero’s horror...

Octopussy (1983) After an agent carrying an expertly faked Fabergé egg turns up dead at the British embassy in Berlin, 007 (Roger Moore) is sent to investigate a violent smuggling ring secretly fencing treasures from the Soviet Union, which may conceal a far more sinister agenda. Following a...