Iwai’s film is not one of the greatest Japanese romance narratives, but one of the greatest films of becoming able to love again.
Blue Boy Trail (2025) review [Nippon Connection 2026]
Kasho Iizuka delivers a heartfelt demand to the spectator to go beyond the mere societal and ideological question of gender and consider the right of the subject to carve out his own singular space of ego-contentment.
Anymart (2026) review [Nippon Connection 2026]
A darkly twisted comical horror narrative that exposes the dynamic of repressive societal violence and what the Japanese societal field seeks to refuse.
Yokohama BJ Blues (1981) review
Eiichi Kudo delivers an unhurried atmospheric neo-noirish vehicle for Yusaku Matsuda, radically undone of any form of tension.
The Snow Woman (1968)
Tokuzo Tanaka’s film remains, up until this day, an incredibly satisfying tragic romance-horror.
Recommendations: Nippon Connection 2026
Do not miss any of these films at this year’s Nippon Connection.
Analog (2023) review
Takahata gives the spectator a chance to re-appreciate the joys and sorrows of ‘analog’ interactions, in the formation of connections without the support of digital interconnectivity
5 Centimeters Per Second (2025) review
The fully blossomed fruit of Makoto Shinkai’s influential animated film.
The Godzilla Project: Godzilla versus Hedorah (1971) review
Banno, despite re-emphasizing Godzilla as hero, exposes the deceit of the ‘nationalistic’ narrative structures by showing, with irony, that Godzilla’s passage does not result in societal change
The Blood Of Rebirth (2009) review
Toyoda transforms the folkloric tale of Oguri Hangan into a personal warning for the Other: I will not let you ‘kill’ my societal position as director.
Sana: Let Me Hear (2024) review
Dramatic, thrilling, chilling, shockingly good.
Sana (2023) review
Takashi Shimizu cannot avoid his film from being held back from the fan-service it needs to deliver.
Thanc you (2021) review
A quintessential manzai-experience in a filmic envelope and a beautiful introduction to the emotional range relational comedy can have.
Suzuki=Bakudan (2025) review
A thrilling ride that brutally confronts the spectator with the effects of the over-emphasis of pleasure and consumption within social interactions on the subject
Awake (2020) review
Atsuhiro Yamada ensures, by delivering an effective visual and musical frame, that his poignant psychological portrait result into a thrilling finale and, ultimately, a heartwarming conclusion.