Tag Archives: Japan

Explore It – Brisbane’s Cultural District and Southbank

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TL;DR – Today I explore the museums along the Brisbane river as I walk from GOMA down to Southbank

Brisbane in Spring. Image Credit: Brian MacNamara

 

Article –

I had a day off this week and given it was perfect weather, warm but before the heat of summer hits us, I thought I would take some time winding down Brisbane’s Cultural District among its brutalist buildings, and lush Bougainvillea. All of this is right next to the Brisbane River so it is hard to get lost with that guideline always being there for you. So with today’s Explore-It, we will take you through all the museums, some old, some new, all full of interesting things, and best of all, every place I visited you can enter for free.

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Movie Review – Mirai (Mirai no Mirai, 未来のミライ)

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TL;DR – Mirai is a film that ricochets from one emotion to the next, from joy, to despair, from excitement, to an existential crisis, but at no point does it lose its heart, and that is such a tough act to get right.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Mirai. Image Credit: Studio Chizu/Madman

Review –

Have you ever walking into a film with absolutely no idea what it was going to be about? No TV ads, no trailers, no opinion peaches, a complete blind experience. For me, it has only truly happened once with The Forbidden Kingdom. Well, today I have another entry for that list with Mirai. Not only did I have no idea what it was going to be about, I had no idea it was about to hit me in the feels in a very complex way.

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Movie Review – Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms (Sayonara no Asa ni Yakusoku no Hana o Kazarō, さよならの朝に約束の花をかざろう)

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TL;DR – While it can be frustrating at times, it is a beautifully created animated film with an emotionally resonate heart that will punch you right in the feels at times.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a final frame after the credits

 

Maquia banner

 

Review –

‘Animation’ is a genre that does not get the credit it deserves, for many it is just the purview of children and as such it is not something of quality. However, this is a real shame because we have seen with films like Coco (see review), Moana (see review) and Studio Ghibli that even when aimed at children, they can still be works of art. As well as this, there are more and more fascinating animated films that are targeted at adults and today we are looking at one such with Maquia.

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Movie Review – Isle of Dogs

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TL;DR – There are some aspects, like the animation which are superb, but also some things like some of the story aspects that leave you wondering why did they make that choice.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Isle of Dogs

Review –

Hmmm, this is a difficult film to review because as much as it is unique work of art celebrating a form of animation that you don’t see much these days. It is also a deeply problematic story with regards to some aspects of its narrative and characterisation, and as such, it is hard to rectify these two halves. Well, it might be difficult, but then that is what we are here to do today so it is time to rise to the occasion and dive into the world of dogs.

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Movie Review – JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Chapter I (JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken Daiyamondo wa Kudakenai Dai-Isshō, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 ダイヤモンドは砕けない 第一章)

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TL;DR – This feels like a very respectful translation of the manga, but that also shows that what works on the page does not always work on the screen.

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene near the start of the credits

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

 

Review –

Have you ever watched an adaption of something and gone “this looks like a faithful adaption but it just not for me”? Well, I had that experience this week with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. I should start by saying that I am coming to this film not having read the Manga or seen the Anime, so beyond the name recognition I had no idea what I was walking into. As such, this is a review coming from a first-time entrant into the world of Stands, and how well the film did bringing me into this universe. Manga and Anime are one of the areas that have yet to really find its feet when adapted to live action on the big screen, especially when it is Hollywood doing the adaptation, see Ghost in the Shell (see review), and the less said about Dragonball Evolution the better. Like video game adaptations it just feels like it is missing it moment genres like comic books have had. With that in mind, today we are going to take a look at what things translated well into film and what aspects really didn’t.

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Map-It: Civilization VI Cities (Base Game up to the South East Asia DLC)

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TL;DR – Today we chart out the Civilization VI City List in Map form

Civ banner

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So today I continue with my Map-It series by following up on our Civilization Map-It project by this time looking at the city lists of each civ.  It was originally my aim to have all the cities on the big map, but after trying that out with just America it quickly became apparent that it would be hard to read and would clutter an already full map, and this is not taking into account the same city might appear on many different city lists. However, after a while I continued to want to see how the city lists come together and how they play out in geographical space so I decided you didn’t need to put them all on the one map, I could create an individual map for each civilization. Now naïvely I just assumed that I could just cut out the civilization maps from my big map, do a little touch up in places and go for it. Well … that was not the case, with most maps needing to be recreated from the ground up. Now pf course past me was a real pain for present me, but the lure of maps was too strong so here we are with every civilization’s city lists mapped out. Now before we start, I just want to point out that these city locations are not meant to be pinpoint accurate, the groupings and questionable locations of some cities make that impossible. Just think of this more of a general guide of where they are located.  Also for our mobile guests, there will be a lot of images incoming, so even though I have tried to keep them small, now would be a good time to check that you are using wi-fi and not data

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Article – The Beauty of Ghibli

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TL;DR – Art, Story and Music
Studio Ghibli

Article –

So it has been an amazing few weeks here in the great Down Under as local cinemas have brought all of Studio Ghibli’s (株式会社スタジオジブリ) films back to the big screen. This has meant that for the first time I got to see some of my favourite films on the big screen and it has had me thinking, what is it about these films that has engendered so much love around the world? For many people in the world, Studio Ghibli films are their first introduction into the world of Japanese animation or anime, and what an introduction they are. After much thought as to why they work as well as they do, for me, I think it distils down to one factor, on the whole, Studio Ghibli films are full of beauty. So today we are going to look at the different factors that make that so, by taking a broad brush stroke across Studio Ghibli’s entire catalogue from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind¹ (風の谷のナウシカ) to today. To do this we are going to look at the stories, art, and music. Now while we will be talking about these components there may be some minor [SPOILERS] ahead for some of the films.

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