There’s something thrilling about watching a seasoned director’s first film. It’s like discovering the blueprint of what’s to come—a raw, unfiltered glimpse into the voice they’ll refine over the years. Sure, it may be rough around the edges, but you start spotting those telltale signs: the themes, the tone, the obsessions that will come to

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Hotspring Sharkattack (also known as Onsen shâku) is a 2024 Japanese action comedy film written and directed by Morihito Inoue in his feature debut. There have been cases of mysterious disappearances of onsen visitors in Atsumi city in S prefecture. The victims were eventually found dead with signs of severe injuries to their bodies resembling

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Did you know Hideaki Anno, best known for Evangelion, has also tackled themes of inner turmoil and depression in live action? If you don’t, no one can blame you. It’s easy to associate Anno with mechas, apocalyptic imagery, and psychological breakdowns. But in his 1998 live-action debut Love & Pop, he trades in the esoteric

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Missing Child Videotape is a 2024 Japanese supernatural horror film written and directed by Ryota Kondo with additional writing from Suzuyuki Kaneko. Known for directing the short films Akai tegata (2010) and Kyouran (2010), Ryota Kondo has also collaborated on the horror anthology Hyakki Yobanashi (2023), featuring the segment “Oni no Yobigoe”. Whereas Suzuyuki Kaneko

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Japan Visits The Main: Frankfurt Becomes A Hotspot Of Japanese Cinema & Culture. The complete program of the 25th Nippon Connection Film Festival May 27 – June 1, 2025, Frankfurt am Main On Tuesday, May 27, 2025, the Nippon Connection Film Festival in Frankfurt am Main will open its doors for the 25th time! For

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Best Wishes to All, also known as Mina ni sachi are, is a 2023 Japanese horror film, written and directed by Yuta Shimotsu. An up-and-coming writer/director, Shimotsu is known as the creator of the short this film is based on, Best Wishes to All (2022), which won Kadokawa’s 2022 Japan Horror Film Competition. A young

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If you ask a Western horror fan, they can probably tell you exactly when they first heard about Hideo Nakata’s cult classic Ringu (1998). Whether it was due to the release of Gore Verbinski’s remake in 2002 or because a rundown copy of the original was passed along between friends, at some point almost all

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