Category: TV

  • Debusen Soundtrack

    Yasuharu Konishi has produced a lot of music for TV shows since the days of Pizzicato Five, and the latest soundtrack to get released with his music is for the drama Debusen, that runs on Hulu in Japan. I was listening to samples — which you can do on the CD Japan shop page —…

  • TV Commercials by Studio Ghibli

    Over the years, Studio Ghibli (or its alumni) has produced quite a few animated TV commercials. My friend Christopher was digging these up, and shared a few, like this one for Nisshin (pictured), this one for JR West, this one for sake, for bread, and again for bread.

  • Fall 2016 Anime Season

    Towards the end of 2004 I started writing two monthly columns for a culture site called Tokyo Q, and one of them was about anime. Each edition was usually made up of reviews of shows, as well as news items, but at the start of each Japanese TV season I’d usually do a round-up of…

  • Ani-Kuri 15

    I just watched a fantastic collection of animated shorts called Ani-Kuri 15. Produced for NHK back in 2007-2008, it’s comprised of 15 1-minute shorts each directed by some of the top names in the animation field, including Kon Satoshi (pictured), Mamoru Oshii, and Makoto Shinkai (in fact, it’s while searching for works by Shinkai that I…

  • Yuriko Kotani

    I’m a huge comedy nerd, and love American stand-up as well as Japan-style manzai comedy. It was therefore interesting for me to come across this video clip of UK-based comedian Yuriko Kotani, who brings a Japanese sensibility to the Western art of stand-up. The routine in the video is pretty funny, but the kicker is…

  • 27 Hours

    This past weekend I spent more hours than I should really admit watching Fuji TV’s 27-hour comedy marathon (and even recorded the whole thing). It’s no secret that the only Japanese TV I watch is comedy, and this year’s event was hosted by Takeshi Okamura of the duo 99, who has been my favorite comedian…

  • Favorite Media of 2010

    For some reason I’ve always avoided doing year-end lists of favorite things — I don’t really know why — but I just felt like doing one this year, and so here goes. Now, of course, this is all based on what I’ve actually seen/played/used/listened to, and so consider this a personal compilation of the favorite…

  • Test Patterns Are Everywhere (in the Industry)

    As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the use of test patterns as a graphical element, many people reminded me on Twitter that it’s still very much in use in the industry (video and TV production) or film school, and so a lot of people still deal with these quite regularly, so it’s not that…

  • What Do These Colors Mean to You?

    Last night I was reading through the latest issue of Rolling Stone — really loved the cover feature on Mad Men, as well as the profile on SNL creator Lorne Michaels — and seeing how they branded the issue’s theme (“Fall Television”) made me wonder just how relevant that particular imagery really is these days.…

  • Atami no Sousakan

    I’m not a big fan of Japanese dramas in general, but there are the occasional series that I like to follow, usually something that my wife has been really enjoying. I would include Trick and Jikou Keisatsu in that bunch, and now Atami no Sousakan. Atami is a new Twin Peaks-ish mystery produced by the…