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Hideo Jojo has long left his pinku roots and is currently focusing on more social dramas, frequently involving teenagers, retaining, however, something of his background, even if subtle. Based on Kaeru Inoue’s teen novel with the same name, “Afterschool Anglers Club” eloquently highlights the aforementioned.

Afterschool Anglers Club is screening at Camera Japan

High school student Mezashi was bullied intensely in the school she attended, and so, when her parents move the family to Kansai for professional reasons, she promises to herself not to make any new friends, in order to avoid the torments of her past. However, even from her first day in class, she is swept by three of her classmates, Shiira, Nagi and Akari, who run an unofficial anglers club in the area, supported by Shiira’s mother’s fishing equipment shop. Gradually, the rather timid and reluctant Mezashi begins to overcome her trauma. Her past,...

Acchon burike! Pinoko — Black Jack's pint-sized sidekick — will come to life on television next month as the upcoming live-action adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's classic Black Jack premieres in Japan on June 30. Issey Takahashi (Rohan in the live-action Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan movies) will play the unconventional physician. Today, TV Asahi announced that child actress Yuno Nagao will appear as Pinoko. Nagao recently appeared Osoma in the live-action Golden Kamuy , and can now be seen in a new poster doing Pinoko's signature shocked expression: Related: 1st Black Jack TV Drama in 24 Years Premieres in 2024 Despite looking like a child, Pinoko is technically 18 years old. To be specific, she was once a teratoma living in her twin sister's body. After Black Jack solved the twins' unusual case, Pinoko became his assistant and sidekick. Nagao says Black Jack is a family favorite, and she put a lot of effort into preserving...

Hideo Jojo's career began directing pink films before gradually expanding beyond erotic productions. Projects like “On the Edge of Their Seats” would demonstrate his range as a filmmaker whose work can reach a wider audience. However, a recent feature of his, “Twilight Cinema Blues,” is a mixed bag. It's a well-intended, feel-good drama with a promising set-up that occasionally delivers, yet it comes out being, at best, passable.

Twilight Cinema Blues is screening at Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme

Kondo returns to his hometown and is down on his luck, currently homeless and in debt. Yet, he forms a friendship with similarly struggling locals, including a homeless man and a group of people desperately trying to keep a movie theater in business. Things pick up when the lead takes a part-time job in the theater and is allowed to live there. Despite their differences, they warm up to each other,...

“Snow Leopard,” the last film by Tibetan director Pema Tseden prior to his death in May, was awarded the Grand Prix at the closing ceremony of the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival on Wednesday. Premiering out of competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival and later screening at Toronto, the film depicts the argument between a father and his adult son of how to deal with the title beast, which has descended from the mountains to kill sheep in their village.

Winner of the second-place Special Jury Prize was “Tatami,” a drama co-directed by Guy Nattiv and Zar Amir about an Iranian judoka (Arienne Mandi), who is ordered by her government to withdraw from a match to avoid facing an Israeli opponent and is subjected to increasingly desperate pleadings from her coach (Amir). Premiering at Venice, “Tatami” is the first feature film to be co-directed by an Israeli (Nattiv...

Remake of Pang Ho-Cheung's 2004 movie “Beyond Our Ken”, “Thorns of Beauty” is a story about an unlikely erotic triangle, which has been adapted in a Japanese setting by Hideo Jojo, who is in charge of both the direction and the script (along Kaori Sawai). The movie opened in Japan in January and now finds its place in Nippon Connection.

Thorns of Beauty is screening at Nippon Connection

24-year-old Momo is a timid young woman who works in a public library. She was recently dumped by her fashion photographer boyfriend Kentaro, but is still worried about some explicit photos he took of her and never returned. One day, she has a chance encounter with his new girlfriend Riko, and decides to approach her and ask her help to delete the photos. Riko, an aspiring dancer who doubles as a barwoman, is initially suspicious of the “nerdy” girl that essentially stalked her,...

A tragicomedy about the relationships of a group of people set in a movie theatre that is about to go under. Kondo (Keisuke Koide) is a penniless young man who returns to Ginpei-cho, a town where he spent his youth. He meets Sato (Shohei Uno), who is homeless but loves movies, and Kajiwara (Mitsuru Fukikoshi), the manager of a movie theatre. After deciding to work part-time at the theatre, Kondo faces his past and his own demons through encounters with his co-workers, customers, experienced projectionists, unsuccessful actors and musicians as well as junior high school students dreaming of the world of movies.

Hideo Jojo certainly enjoyed a successful 2022 with three movie releases: Love Nonetheless, To be Killed by a High School Girl and Believers. His latest movie is scheduled to open in Japan on February 10, 2023.

Second part of the “L/R15” project between Hideo Jojo and RIkiya Imaizumi, which aimed at completing two sex comedies with an R15 classification, following “Love Nonetheless”, “Straying” features the latter as director and the former as scriptwriter, in a style of film that reminds intensely of Hong Sang-soo’s cinema.

Straying is screening at Camera Japan

Ako Machido, who works for an erotic manga magazine for ladies, is about to take a divorce from her husband, Hiro, who works for a tabloid. The operation goes relatively smoothly, but an argument ensues over who takes the cat, Kanta, with both parties wishing to keep him, and the cat eventually sharing his opinion by peeing on the divorce papers. The reason for the divorce is that Hiro is having an extramarital relationship with a colleague, Mamiko, who seems to be quite in love with him, not to mention better at their line of work,...