I suspect most people's first encounter with Kyōsōgiga is going to be much like mine: first you're confused and frustrated, then you're fascinated, and then finally you're even a little bit moved and awed.
Like Wings of Desire, 2001, Night On The Galactic Railroad, or any of the other great works about man's place in the universe, Haibane Renmei inspires more reflection than certainty.
The simple algebra for Blade Runner Black Out 2022 is that it's to Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 as an episode of The Animatrix was to The Matrix generally.
A masterwork, not just of period reconstruction and attention to the details of daily life, but also for the ways it navigates through the tricky issues of a story about WWII Japan without stumbling.
There's always the chance the live-action 'Gintama' and 'Bleach' movies will be good, but right now they appear to embody the deadliest, most literal sins of such projects.
A trifle of a film, but it doesn't overstate its importance or overstay its welcome, and it shows how Studio Ghibli gave as much care to stories like this as they did for any of Miyazaki's fantasias
The results are consistently hilarious, and so Tsukikage Ran works both as a love letter to its source material and a mutation of it, an homage and a sendup alike.
