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Although there are just a few of them produced nowadays, Japanese period drama, especially jidaigeki, remains one of the most popular genres within the Japanese film industry. While audiences enjoy taking a deep dive into another time, witnessing sword fights and ancient traditions, actors and directors also look forward to presenting their take on the samurai genre. At the same time, much like the yakuza film, it has proven to be a very versatile genre if features such as Ken Ochiai‘s “Uzumasa Limelight”, Gakuryu Ishii‘s “Punk Samurai” or Hiroyuki Nakano‘s “Samurai Fiction” are any indicator. In his latest feature, director Junichi Yasuda (“Gohan”) blends the conventions of the genre with the idea of time travel, culminating in story which has a lot to say about the principles of the samurai as well as the “reality” of filmmaking and how it may serve as time capsule into another era.

One of the biggest anime and manga franchises to date, One Piece, has a new industry insider calling some of the shots. Former Weekly Shonen Jump editor Hiroyuki Nakano has been hired on as its official One Piece Media Editor-in-Chief -- a new position dedicated exclusively to the franchise.

Shonen Jump, the publisher of the vastly popular series One Piece, has selected arguably the perfect person for the job in Nakano, as he has already accrued plenty of previous experience as the previous Editor-in-Chief of Weekly Shonen Jump -- easily one of the biggest manga magazines worldwide. The publication has given rise to some of the most popular shonen series in history, from Dragon Ball and Naruto to Demon Slayer, making it a household name among fans of mainstream manga.

Related 25 Years Ago One Piece Officially Joined the Ranks of Animes Big Three of the 2000s

One of the most...

As One Piece sails toward its final destination, fans are bracing themselves for the end of an epic journey that has spanned over two decades. The series has been a huge cultural phenomenon in addition to being the foundation of Shonen Jump. As the series’ eventual climax draws near, many fans and industry insiders have the same question: would One Piece continue even after Luffy discovers the legendary One Piece and fulfills his dream of becoming the Pirate King?

One Piece | Credit: Toei Animation

Similar to other major Shonen heavyweights continuing with new stories, One Piece has the potential to live on through spin-offs or sequels after the conclusion of its main story. However, the creator of this massive tale, Eiichiro Oda made it clear that any continuation of the series would solely be his decision; a statement that places a question mark on One Piece‘s future trajectory.

Eiichiro...

The One Piece anime has been airing almost nonstop for more than 20 years, giving fans extra content on top of the manga by Eichiro Oda. However, this is about to change as the anime has been officially confirmed to be going into a long hiatus, which is the worst possible news given how good the series is currently.

It was recently announced that One Piece would be revealing huge news about both the anime and the manga on October 12, after episode #1122 aired. Editor-in-chief, Hiroyuki Nakano, has confirmed that the One Piece anime will be going on a 6-month hiatus and will return in April 2025. The anime will receive a broadcast timeslot change, and in the meantime, the Fishman Island arc will be rerun.

One Piece's Anime Enters Its First Ever Long-Term Hiatus The Anime Needs To Wait For the Manga To Accumulate More Chapters TV 20254 20254 # 2025 #Onepiecenews#Onepiece pic.

The long-running episodic anime series One Piece has announced a shocking delay to its current "Egghead" arc, marking the first delay of this degree in its history.

The One Piece anime's current "Egghead" arc will resume in April 2025, as announced via the Eiichiro Oda staff's X (formerly Twitter). Further details were revealed during the One Piece News broadcast on YouTube, which announced that a special-edited version of the "Fishman Island" arc will air in place of "Egghead" until its return. It will feature upgraded anime visuals and audio compared to its first broadcast. Readers can check out the One Piece News broadcast below.

Related Longtime One Piece Voice Actor Bows Out Over Poor Health

Poor health has caused longtime One Piece voice actor Kazuki Yao to step down and be replaced in the upcoming airing of Episode 1121.

The announcement follows a slew of One Piece news and events on Oct.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Yokai Buster Murakami chapter #1!!

Yokai Buster Murakami is an educational yet entertaining satire of Japanese yokai mythology. Murakami ruthlessly tears down yokai myths, while Kuin plays a vital supporting role. The series blends humor, deconstruction, and history, making it an exciting read outweighing potential cancellation.

It should come as no surprise that I initially stopped reading Shonen Jump because of Shueisha's unrelenting practice of axing manga for ostensibly failing to meet certain monetary thresholds at critical milestones. There was just an overabundance of series I'd gotten heavily invested in and spent time writing about extensively, such as Candy Flurry, The Hunters Guild: Red Hood, and Pppppp, only for the publisher to rip them away. Although the recent announcement of Shonen Jump Editor-in-Chief Hiroyuki Nakano's departure could spell the end of this practice, a new series called Yokai Buster Murakami might be the...

The Bleach anime and manga series, originally created by Tite Kubo, is losing arguably its biggest supporter at Weekly Shonen Jump. Hiroyuki Nakano is stepping down from his role as Shonen Jump's Editor-in-Chief after seven years.

The Shonen Jump News account on X (formerly Twitter) reported Nakano's departure from the weekly manga magazine. Yu Saito, a Shonen Jump editor who worked on series like Kuroko's Basketball and Nisekoi, is taking over Nakano's position. According to the Japanese website Seventietwo, Nakano is now instead acting as Editor-in-Chief for all media related to the One Piece franchise.

Related Massively Popular Bleach Game Announces New Worldwide Console Release

The popular anime game Bleach: Brave Souls is finally heading to Nintendo Switch and Xbox, receiving a fast-approaching new console release window.

Hiroyuki Nakano has officially left its position as Editor-in-Chief at Weekly Shonen Jump after 7 years of tenure.Yu Saito, editor of...

Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball Z is still as popular as the day it was aired for the first time. The show is often seen as one of the most popular Shonen series and is primarily responsible for making anime so popular back in the day. Toriyama’s series features Kakarot as its protagonist, and a majority of Dbz is driven by him and the Z Fighters training themselves and getting stronger to stop the lifeforms that pose threats to planet Earth.

The Z Fighters

Toriyama-Sensei has decided to keep the story more Goku-centric, where he is given more iconic moments such as him turning Ssj 1 for the first time during his climactic battle with Frieza on Planet Namek. Despite giving so many iconic moments to Kakarot, the mangaka has also given him the most useless Saiyan transformation, which was hated ardently by the editors.

Akira Toriyama Gave Fans...

The Straw Hats are ready to set sail! Despite being one of the longest-running anime and manga in the world, it took nearly a decade for One Piece to finally get a live-action adaptation. One Piece will join the growing list of live-action adaptations of anime and manga series from Netflix, following in the footsteps of 2017's Death Note film and the 2021 series Cowboy Bebop. The Netflix adaptation of One Piece is being produced in collaboration with Tomorrow Studios with Eiichiro Oda, creator of the One Piece manga, serving as an executive producer. The series was first announced back in July 2017 by Weekly Shōnen Jump editor-in-chief Hiroyuki Nakano to commemorate the manga's 20th anniversary. One Piece made its debut on July 22, 1997, in an issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump, and over 1,000 chapters of the manga have been published, along with 95 volumes, and it is currently in its final arc.

Few figures have inspired artists and people in general more than the rockstar, both as a performer as well as a symbol of (sexual) attraction. Whether we are talking about Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley or Johnny Rotten, they have become an integral part of popular culture, of rebellion and admiration, further highlighted by their superior status indicated through them being on stage looking down on the cheering, dancing crowd. Japanese culture is no different as many musical trends have either made their way to the country or have originated there, while also being one of the key elements for other forms of art. The 1990s has seen its fair share of music and the figure of the rockstar being featured in movies, such as Hiroyuki Nakano’s “Samurai Fiction”, a chanbara infused with a distinct music-video-aesthetic, or Tetsuro Takeuchi’s “Wild Zero” which combines elements of zombie horror, comedy and musical,...

Von kaum einer anderen Figur des vergangenen Jahrhunderts geht eine solche Anziehung aus wie vom Rockstar. Egal, ob Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison oder Johnny Rotten, als Musiker wie auch Performer definiert diese Figur eine Verbindung von Bewunderung und Rebellentum, was nochmals verstärkt wird durch seine oder ihre höhergestellte Position, beispielsweise bei Konzerten. In Japan, wie auch in anderen Kulturen, war und ist der Rockstar vielleicht gerade deswegen eine feste Größe innerhalb der Popkultur geworden, nicht nur der Musik, sondern zugleich in der Literatur wie auch im Film. So implementierte Regisseur Hiroyuki Nakano in „Samurai Fiction“ (1998) Elemente des chambara, des Samuraifilms, mit einer Ästhetik, die zugleich an jene Musikvideos erinnert, die er vorher gedreht hatte. Nur ein Jahr später kombinierte Regisseur und Drehbuchautor Tetsuro Takeuchi in „Wild Zero“ Aspekte des Zombieflms und der Komödie, wobei die bekannte Garage Rock Band Guitar Wolf eine wichtige Rolle in der Geschichte spielte.

Kauf Diesen...

“It’s bad for your health thinking about revenge and killing all the time.”

Japanese director Hiroyuki Nakano had directed several music videos for artists like Tomoyasu Hotei (who also plays the part of the villain in “Samurai Fiction”), Dee-Lite and Bjork but had always wanted to make a feature film. During the shooting of a music video for drum and bass artist Photok, Nakano was reminded of the great samurai Musashi Miyamoto, who has developed his famous two sword-technique observing drummers during a village celebration. With the additional inspiration from the works of Shugoro Yamamoto, whose work had also inspired the film by Akira Kurosawa, Nakano slowly developed the idea for a modern samurai film, which would blend the ideas the samurai and the times they lived in stood for but which would also use a modern sensibility, music, editing and use of camera.

The second...

Director: Hiroyuki Nakano. Review: Adam Wing. With a glimmering blade in hand, we head back to the forest for more swordplay shenanigans and epic romance. Loosely based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short stories ‘Rashomon’ and ‘In A Grove’ (most famously adapted for the screen by Akira Kurosawa in 1950), Tajomaru stars Shun Oguri (Sukiyaki Western Django), Kyosuke Yabe (Samurai Zombie) and Hiroyuki Ikeuchi (Ip Man), available now on R2 DVD courtesy of Manga Entertainment. Two brothers, Naomitsu and Nobutsuna Hatakeyama, are born into a wealthy and powerful family and both destined for greatness. However, when the father of their lifelong friend dies, a decree is made that has a profound effect on all their lives. The conditions of the decree force Nobutsuna to betray his brother by taking Ako as his own in order to inherit her late father’s wealth and position. However, driven by his love for Ako, Naomitsu...

Director: Hiroyuki Nakano. Review: Adam Wing. With a glimmering blade in hand, we head back to the forest for more swordplay shenanigans and epic romance. Loosely based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short stories ‘Rashomon’ and ‘In A Grove’ (most famously adapted for the screen by Akira Kurosawa in 1950), Tajomaru stars Shun Oguri (Sukiyaki Western Django), Kyosuke Yabe (Samurai Zombie) and Hiroyuki Ikeuchi (Ip Man), available now on R2 DVD courtesy of Manga Entertainment. Two brothers, Naomitsu and Nobutsuna Hatakeyama, are born into a wealthy and powerful family and both destined for greatness. However, when the father of their lifelong friend dies, a decree is made that has a profound effect on all their lives. The conditions of the decree force Nobutsuna to betray his brother by taking Ako as his own in order to inherit her late father’s wealth and position. However, driven by his love for Ako, Naomitsu...

Tajomaru: Avenging Blade

Stars: Shun Oguri, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Yuki Shibamoto, Kei Tanaka | Written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Shinichi Ichikawa | Directed by Hiroyuki Nakano

Tajomaru follows the exploits of a pair of brothers, Naomitsu and Nobutsuna (Oguri and Ikeuchi) their female childhood friend Ako (Shibamoto) and the street urchin they welcome into their family, Sakuramaru (Tanaka). When the quartet grow up, Ako’s powerful father dies. Although Naomitsu loves Ako, as the elder brother, Nobutsuna decides to take Ako as his own by force for political and monetary benefit. Naomitsu flees with Ako into the forests but are apprehended first by a shock betrayal and secondly by a bandit named Tajomaru. Although Naomitsu eventually defeats him in battle, Ako deserts him. Having bested the bandit, Naomitsu earns the man’s name and his legendary blade and finds himself in charge of a band of outlaws. Later, events conspire to compel Naomitsu to reclaim what he has lost.

Manga Entertainment are continuing to vacuum up any stray Asian action movies they can get their hands on, and the latest to appear is Hiroyuki Nakano’s Tajomaru: Avenging Blade. Loosely based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short stories ‘Rashomon’ and ‘In A Grove’ (most famously adapted for the screen by Akira Kurosawa in 1950), Tajomaru stars Shun Oguri (Sukiyaki Western Django), Kyosuke Yabe (Samurai Zombie) and Hiroyuki Ikeuchi (Ip Man). Tajomaru arrives on sale today. Two brothers, Naomitsu and Nobutsuna Hatakeyama, are born into a wealthy and powerful family and both destined for greatness. However, when the father of their lifelong friend and Naomitsu’s love interest Ako dies, a decree is made that has a profound effect on all their lives. The conditions of the decree force Nobutsuna to betray his brother by taking Ako as his own in order to inherit her late father’s wealth and position. However,...

Oh how we have waited with bated breath for the return of Japanese director Hiroyuki Nakano to return with another film. I am a mighty fan of both Samurai Fiction and Stereo Future. I gave Red Shadow a miss and I haven’t been able to see any of the short film work he has done in recent years so his record is pretty much unblemished in my opinion. And it has been long enough since he last did a feature film perhaps all this short film work in the meantime has put him back on track to deliver us another gem. We hope Tajomaru is that film, Nakano’s adaptation of the short story “In a Grove” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. I’m a bit mixed about the new trailer, some parts seem a bit silly and Jpop gets me every time, but final judgment is reserved for when I...

[The first teaser for this one just arrived via the official website! Find it below the break!]

2009 is poised to be an excellent year for once-prominent, long absent Japanese directors returning to the big screen. We wrote about the imminent return of Blue Spring‘s Toshiaki Toyoda last week and now it seems that Samurai Fiction helmer Hiroyuki Nakano is ready to return as well. Nakano won fans the world over with Samurai Fiction - a film that honors the traditions of samurai film while simultaneously updating them - a film that would eventually be ‘borrowed’ from quite liberally by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill but he has been quiet for quite some time. Samurai Fiction launched his Sf Project series that also yielded feature film Stereo Future - also excellent - a short film collection titled simply Short Films and a photo book titled Sweet Female. At the peak of this run it seemed Nakano could do no wrong but then he did, his ninja film...

Warner Japan has released a first teaser trailer for Hiroyuki Nakano’s Tajomaru. The film is based on the short story ‘In a Grove’ by Ryunosuke Akutagawa which Akira Kurosawa also based his 1950 Rashomon on.

Luckily, this won’t be another remake but rather a new backstory for the bandit Tajomaru that takes place before the crime discussed in Kurosawa’s classic.

[See post to watch Flash video] [via Nippon Cinema]

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The Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival in Bucheon, South Korea is one of the premiere genre festivals of the year. And other than providing a venue for some of the top genre films of the year they also have a program in place that will help other Asian genre filmmakers get their projects off the ground, wrapped up or distributed. The project is called ‘It Project’ and it is a competition of 17 feature films and 2 animated features from 10 countries. These films come in many different styles including thriller, horror, action, black comedy and so on. During the festival, It Project, which runs from July 19 to 23, will provide one-on-one business meeting opportunities with Asian/international film producers and key investors as well as jury deliberation with cash awards and post-production supports to advance filmmakers’ projects.

Of particular note for Twitch readers is one of the finalists is Hiroyuki Nakano who made Samurai Fiction and Stereo Future.

From April 15th to 19th, Frankfurt transforms into the center of the Japanese film world when the Nippon Connection 2009 opens its doors once again. After giving us a first look at the highlights of the largest festival for Japanese film worldwide, the official site has now been updated with the full program that includes more than 150 feature and short films.

Nippon Cinema 20th Century Boys (Niju seiki shonen), R: Yukihiko Tsutsumi, J 2008

www.20thboys.com All Around Us (Gururi no koto), R: Ryosuke Hashiguchi, J 2008

www.gururinokoto.jp Detroit Metal City, R: Toshio Lee, J 2008

www.go-to-dmc.jp Genius Party Beyond, R: Masahiro Maeda, Koji Morimoto, Kazuto Nakazawa, Shinya Ohira, Tatsuyuki Tanaka, J 2008

www.genius-party.jp/beyond Genius Party, R: Atsuko Fukushima, Shoji Kawamori, Shinji Kimura, Yoji Fukuyama, Hideki Futamura, Masaaki Yuasa, Shinichiro Watanabe, J 2007

www.genius-party.jp/genius01 Gs Wonderland, R: Ryuichi Honda, J 2008

www.gs-w.jp Hells Angels,...

Yes, yes, technically Samurai Fiction director Hiroyuki Nakano officially got back into the director’s chair with his destined-for-pachinko screens remake of Seven Samurai but unless some brave DVD label takes a flyer on that one - Hey Bci! It’s got Sonny Chiba in it! And the trailers look great! - this is the first new Nakano film that people might actually have a chance of seeing.

Now, details from those more knowledgable than I would be gratefully accepted as I stumbled across the website purely by accident and speak not a lick of Japanese but it looks like what we’ve got here is an expansion of Nakano’s 2006 short film Iron, a film that played Critics Week at Cannes in 2006. Beyond this and the fact that the trailer is filled with the sort of sumptuous black and white photography that made Samurai Fiction such a treat to look at,...

Yes, Akira Kurosawa must be spinning in his grave right now thanks to the disrespect his son is showing by selling off remake rights to his films to seemingly anyone who comes knocking and, yes, it’s sad to see that Samurai Fiction director Hiroyuki Nakano has slipped to this but damn if it doesn’t actually look pretty good.

What is it? Hiroyuki Nakano - once an international darling, now absent from the feature film world for several years - has directed a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai starring Sonny Chiba and Nagase Masatoshi with several of Kurosawa’s original creative team on board in key support roles. As you’d expect from a Nakano film, it looks fantastic. And as you’d expect from a Nakano film it has a killer soundtrack - in this case all Rolling Stones tunes. The weird bit? It was prepared...