Matt Schley

In which I chat with the directors of the Japanese films in competition at #TIFFJP:

It’s too bad Diao Yinan hasn’t made a film since 2019.

#TIFFJP kicks off tomorrow. Here’s my preview piece/interview with festival director Hisamatsu.

Is the greatest score of all time Jerry Goldsmith’s Chinatown? Or is it Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture? Or is it in fact Jerry Goldsmith’s Alien?

Apropos nothing, I was reminded of this awesome ‘80s doc about how KFC broke through in Japan.

I’ve been catching up on recent Japanese films. We Are Aliens and Nagi Notes are both excellent. The latter in particular really knocked me out.

Maybe you don’t understand it But if you’re a natural man You gotta ball and have a good time And that’s what I call choooooooglin’

New anime about outcasts, outsiders and vampire girls take center stage at the Tokyo International Film Festival, while a retrospective of women directors and public talks will explore the changing landscape of animation. 👉 ebx.sh/Vnwzs2

I used to rent DVDs through the mail via GreenCine, which was like Netflix but for cinephiles. They stocked lots of obscure R0 discs from Hong Kong and had a great daily blog. Those were the days.

Big Beer is in troubleeee. I wonder what such a raid looks like.

One of these days, I'll put on some disposable clothing and do a tour of the old kissaten I want to visit if not for the smoke.

RIP Eva Marie Saint.

Anime is bigger than ever — and for some of the people making it, that success is finally starting to pay off. But the industry's boom is far from evenly shared. www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2026...

A villainous exchange rate? Bread-stealing mice? Humans turning into plants? Fall anime has gone gloriously weird. Our critic digs through 60-plus new series to find five worth watching. 👉 ebx.sh/1QomMF

There's a gap growing in the fortunes of Japan's anime studios, @mattschley.com writes. A く (ku) shaped economy, he calls it. An excellent metaphor. I'm quoted a couple times in this excellent article with my thoughts on some of the financial pressures that anime studios face.

For the upcoming release of Creature Core, we're putting together a Nirasawa zine that we'll be giving away for free Send fanart, memorabilia pics, stories, or a message about what made you a fan, we'll cram in as much as we can into the zine. Send to readermail@peowstudio.com, deadline Oct 30!

In which I take a look the current state of the anime industry for both workers and studios, with lots of help from smart folks.

Movie version.

Across the generations, popular manga have lent themselves to both live-action and anime adaptations — with sometimes surprising results. 👉 ebx.sh/QLbfYd

Hot on the heels of Look Back comes… another version of Look Back. Here I am using it as an excuse to, ahem, look back on the history of manga double dips.

Shinya Tsukamoto's "Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?" seems to have had a rough ride with the critics at Venice, but I found it genuinely powerful. I spoke to him about it for the JT. Cheers to @mattschley.com for the photos. www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2026...

Grubby izakaya are one of Japan's great treasures. Leave your house at night.

Gutted to see that Mom’s Bar in Sawtelle closed down.

My chat with Shinya Tsukamoto about his latest film, Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?:

So glad I woke up at 3AM to write down: "Sung to the tune of 'Number of the Beast': 666 / A mango and some beets"

Wait. They took the Madoka Magica show, recut it into movies, then recut those movies back into a show?

So long, summer days: Shingo Ota's "hybrid documentary" records the final days of a public pool that was a microcosm of society.

Shingo Ota’s documentary “Numakage Public Pool” traces the final seven weeks of the pool’s operations, using the five stages of grief as a framing device.

This is why Japanese is great. You can say half a sentence and not only will people understand, it’ll sound natural.

Ah, it's been a decade since I went to see Your Name and thought, "That was all right, I guess."

Titles in italics > titles in quotation marks

Japanese cinema peaked when there was a 50% chance Do As Infinity would play during the credits.