In Guangzhou last December to test out the new digital payment apps, I decided to visit the Martyrs’ Memorial Garden, built shortly before China’s alliance with the Soviet Union turned sour in the late 1950s, and commemorating the men and women who died in the preamble to the revolution. The park is scattered with memorials and pavilions, and dominated by a giant fist clutching a rifle, which looms over a mass grave of the dead from the Guangzhou Uprising of 1927. Communist historiography recounts numerous squibs and wrong directions, momentary protests or strikes that threaten to break out i ..read more

In the Japanese mountains, Mamoru Yamaemori spends his days tending to his family shrine, fighting Tengu — monsters who feast on human flesh— and, making sure his two younger brothers will never have to pick up his mantle. Unable to escape the life forced upon him by his parents and a dark ritual involving Tengu blood, all he knows is that his existence is a curse: he is destined to die young in the service of others. But to fight monsters, Mamoru must dance that line between loving older brother and mindless beast – or else he risks becoming that which he is sworn to destroy. The first volum ..read more

To Wajima, on Japan’s remote Noto peninsula, where the earthquake on 1st January, caused a short-circuit, or an upturned stove, or something to catch alight, creating a fire that levelled 50,000 square metres of the city. The fire destroyed part of the Asaichi historic area, which included the Go Nagai Wonderland Museum. Once the centrepiece of a series of street-based art installations celebrating the creator of Kekko Kamen, Devilman, Cutey Honey, Mazinger Z and Getter Robo, it is now a burned-out hulk. This isn’t the first disaster to befall a manga creator and certainly won’t be the last ..read more

From the mid-1980s onwards, Inomata was the queen of the sci-fi bookshelves, with her cover imagery dominating works including Alien Cop by Mariko Ohara, Leda by Kaoru Kurimoto, and KLAN by Yoshiki Tanaka. “Each time I have to draw,” she said, “I just read the novel, follow my own instincts, and all of the sudden the images come out. I don’t think about it again afterwards.” Over at All the Anime, I write up the life of the illustrator Mutsumi Inomata ..read more

Grace Rosa is an assassin, driven by a single thing: discovering the secret of her adoptive father’s disappearance. He trained her to become a lethal killing machine, able to wield any weapon she can get her hands on, before inducting her into the ranks of the shadowy organisation known as Alterna. But could the very people she serves as a hired gun have something to do with him vanishing? And to what lengths will she go to enact her vengeance on the people who have wronged her? Out now from Titan, “volume one” (I am not sure there was ever a volume two) of Himuro’s manga Grace Rosa. Motoko T ..read more

We have a van that could seat twelve, but the rear four sets are folded up for all the gear. There are nine of us today. Two drivers (one with a loaner Buick for the beauty shots), the director, the cameraman, the sound-and-drone guy, the grip, the girl with a clipboard and the fixer. Oh, and me – nearly forgot. I am the “talent”, and my talent is having to say precisely the right words, in precisely the right order, in the sole 20-second window I am liable to get in the midst of a quarter-hour’s faffery. This is harder than it sounds, because it is 77 degrees in the shade, I have to wear odd ..read more

“Translator Olivia Plowman delivers an eloquent, mannered text like Downton Abbey with dragons, adding to the believability of Naturu’s weird world. Throughout the novel, I was left with an odd sense of anticipatory excitement, less about the book itself, than about the wonderful anime it could surely become.” Over at All the Anime, I review Takasugi Naturu’s Marriage, Divorce and Beyond ..read more

For viewers looking to find out more beyond the surface of the Netflix series Shogun, there’s a bunch of books from your friendly neighbourhood historian that can help you out. For a sense of how the Shogun fits into the world of the samurai, try A Brief History of the Samurai, selected by the Japan Times as part of its Essential Reading for Japanophiles. For a sense of how the samurai fit into the overall history of their homeland, there’s A Brief History of Japan. “…a compact, exciting, eye-opening vision of Japan’s entire history. The people and events that shaped Japan over millennia are ..read more

On the wall in the Yuxi Bronze Museum is a giant set of bamboo strips, engraved with classical Chinese. This is where I earn my money. “Aha,” I say to the camera, “here we’ve got the entire text of the chapter of the Grand Scribe’s Records about the ‘south-western barbarians’. It starts with a geographical description of the region, the names of the tribes (see, here’s the Dian), and the lay of the land, and then it goes into the story of their first contact with the Chinese. Here we get the emissaries turning up from the Han Emperor, and a fantastic question from the Dian king, when he asks ..read more

Aku Karpala (Aku Korhonen) is a super-efficient, polyglot concierge at the high-end Hotel Lyx, who prides himself on always making his customers’ stays go perfectly. He is just preparing for a holiday of his own, when he is approached by “Birgit Gyllencrantz” (Ansa Ikonen), who claims to be a wealthy heiress in need of a chaperone. Birgit is in the market for a husband, but having been raised as an orphan by prim aunts in Porvoo, she confesses to being clueless about the world. It would really help if Aku could come along with, pose as her father, and vet any potential suitors in order to fil ..read more