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Despite various voices from left and right, Japanese cinema seems to be a in a good place, particularly during the last few years, and Nippon Connection proved the fact quite eloquently, with a truly brilliant selection for its 2025 editions. Either comedies or dramas, anime or shorts or documentaries, all categories included a number of movies of quality, in a testament to the job done by the programming team. The restrospectives and the screening of movies like Mizoguchi’s “The Water Magician” with accompaniment by benshi Ichiro Kataoka and live music by Günter A. Buchwald were the cherry on top. The audience filled the screening rooms, with them particularly enjoying two comedies, “Kaiju Guy“, which eventually got the audience award, and “Hotspring Shark Attack”.

Check our full coverage in the articles below.

1. Short Film Review: Confession (2025) by Mai Nakanishi

Mai Nakanishi crafts a haunting work that excels particularly in its atmosphere.

On the occasion of their anime film “The Birth Of Kitaro: The Mystery Of GeGeGe” screening at Nippon Connection, director Go Koga and producer Keisuke Naito talk about the procedure of shooting an anime, the local film industry, the franchise that has been running since the 60s and its appeal today, the funeral scene, big companies in Japan, small societies and their characteristics, and many other topics.

“GeGeGe no Kitaro,” originally known as Hakaba Kitaro, is a Japanese manga series created in 1960 by Shigeru Mizuki. It is best known for popularizing the folklore creatures known as yokai, a class of spirit-monsters to which all the main characters belong. The series has been adapted for the screen multiple times, including anime, live-action, and video games. The latest adaptation began in 2018 with an anime series that ran for almost two years and totaled 97 episodes. “The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe” is a prequel to this series, released in Japanese cinemas in 2023 to strong box office performance, followed by an uncut version a year later.

Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of Gegege is screening at Nippon Connection

The story is set in 1956 and initially follows Mizuki, a blood bank employee who travels to a remote village after the death of the patriarch of the Ryuuga family, a man...

Frankfurt am Main celebrates Japanese cinema with numerous premieres, guests and a cultural program

The countdown has begun! In just a few weeks, Frankfurt am Main will once again become the unofficial capital of Japan. From May 27 to June 1, 2025 the Nippon Connection Film Festival will celebrate its 25th anniversary, presenting a diverse program all about Japan. Founded as a student project, Nippon Connection is now the world’s largest platform for contemporary Japanese cinema, screening around 100 short and feature-length films. The film program is complemented by over 70 cultural events, including artistic to culinary offerings.

This year’s film program once again features films from a wide variety of genres. Whether it be touching dramas such as Mipo O’s Living In Two Worlds, gripping animated films such as Go Koga’s The Birth Of Kitaro: The Mystery Of Ge Ge Ge, or Kazuya Shiraishi’s visually stunning samurai film Bushido,...

The official website for The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe (known as Kitaro Tanjou: GeGeGe no Nazo in Japan) announced today that its R15+ version, subtitled Shinsei-ban ("genuine edition"), is set to release in Japan on October 4, 2024. The Shinsei-ban will be screened with 327 scenes retaken and sound re-dubbed to express “the horror story as originally envisioned by the production team.” A trailer and a poster visual for the R15+ version have been released. "Shinsei-ban" poster visual Japan's Film Classification and Rating Organization defines the “R15+” rating as: "Films in this category contain materials that are highly stimulating in its depiction of theme or subject matter and is not suitable for children under 15 years of age in terms of comprehension and judgment. Therefore, this rating is intended for audiences 15 years of age and older, with no one under 15 years of age allowed to see the film." To commemorate...

The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe , the newest prequel movie based on the GeGeGe no Kitaro manga by the late Shigeru Mizuki, continued the summer interview series at the latest Annecy Festival. The film, which was selected in the Contrechamps category , was represented by some of the film's crew who joined the event in France for a screening. Crunchyroll News sat down with director Go Koga , Toei Animation producer Keisuke Naito , Shigeru Mizuki's daughter Naoko Haraguchi and Mizuki Production director Tomohiro Haraguchi , to discuss the 100th anniversary of Mizuki's birth, the film's production and Yokai in modern Japan. While celebrating the 100th anniversary of Shigeru Mizuki's birth, how do you approach this story? Go Koga : The movie was based on the sixth series, and Kitaro's birth was unknown to the public. The manga has been adapted several times, including Hakaba Kitaro and Gegege no Kitaro , which...

Since its theatrical release in Japan on November 17, 2023, the all-new anime feature film Kitaro Tanjou: GeGeGe no Nazo has continued to do well at the box office and has received critical acclaim. Thanks to strong critical response and word of mouth, the film had stayed in the Japanese weekend box office top ten for 11 consecutive weeks and won the Excellent Animation of the Year award at the 47th Japan Academy Film Prize . According to the latest report by Animate Times , the film has earned 2,531,116,700 yen (17.03 million Usd) on 1,771,490 admissions in 80 days from November 17, 2023, to February 5, 2024. It has already become the top-grossing film in the whole GeGeGe no Kitaro franchise, including live-action films. The previous top-grossing anime film in the franchise was Gegege no Kitarou: Nippon Bakuretsu released in December 2008 and earned 420 million yen (2.84 million Usd). Related: Kitaro Tanjou: GeGeGe no Nazo Becomes Top-Grossing Film in Series Franchise The film, set in the 1950s,...

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the GeGeGe no Kitaro original manga author Shigeru Mizuki 's birth, the all-new anime feature film Kitaro Tanjou: GeGeGe no Nazo opened in 253 theaters in Japan on November 17, 2023. According to the latest report by Animate Times , the movie has earned 2,344,966,920 yen (15.83 million Usd) on 1,643,274 admissions from November 2023 to January 2024 — becoming the top-grossing film in the whole GeGeGe no Kitaro franchise, including live-action films. Thanks to strong critical response and word of mouth, the movie has also stayed in the Japanese weekend box office top ten for ten consecutive weeks since its opening. Related: Kitaro Tanjou: GeGeGe no Nazo Anime Film Reaches 2 Billion Yen in Japan The previous top-grossing film was the first GeGeGe no Kitaro live-action film starring Wentz Eiji as Kitaro, which was released in April 2007 and earned 2.34 billion yen (15.8 million Usd) from its total domestic run. The second live-action film starring Wentz,...

It's not an exaggeration to say that Bleach has a complicated legacy among its fans. The nostalgia and excitement that Bleach inspires are not enough to make up for the fact that it has poorly written characters. In fact, Bleach's harshest critics went as far as saying that its characters were some of the worst-written in all anime.

Related: 12 Best Anime Series Ruined By Their Popularity

While some of this questionable writing could be blamed on Bleach's infamously lacking anime adaptation, most of their problems stem from the manga itself. That's not to say that these characters are terrible or offensive. But if they had just a bit more work and thought, they could've been more than just bad examples to cite occasionally.

Updated on June 1, 2023 by Angelo Delos Trinos: Bleach has one of the biggest character rosters in anime history. This unfortunately meant that some characters were simply written worse than others.

Of the many groups in Bleach, the Bounts are probably one of the most hated by fans, since they have their origins in an anime-exclusive "filler" arc. However, that doesn't mean they should be totally overlooked, as the Bounts actually managed to pull off some impressive accomplishments first.

Like the Visored, the Bounts aren't a group that emerged naturally, but rather are a result of experiments in the Soul Society gone awry. While attempting to discover a means of granting a soul eternal life, a device in the experimented overflowed with power, accidentally irradiating some souls being reincarnated to the world of the living. These souls became Bleach's Bounts, beings which can become immortal by feeding on the souls of the living or dead. It's said that the Bounts were the origin of the vampire myth, and Bounts were run out of society as a result. Bounts are unable to breed,...