Taro Yabe
2021Toshie The Nihilist
Matthew Chozick
Rino Higa, Taro Yabe
Cryptocurrency exchange secretary Toshie ought to be celebrating the release of her boyfriend from jail. Instead, a freak accident compels her to swim from Japan to Hawaii with the child of an American-Vietcong war hero.
Toshie The Nihilist
北の方へ
Bruce Nachbar
Misao, Yuya Fujita
Ken works at the Konbini and Sho is boring - the boys need an adventure, a road trip. Life is too short for monotony. A ride is quickly found and on their way they meet a beautiful girl, a bad man, an affectionate ballet teacher and a singing cook, among others. And all with what is probably the coolest car in the world.
To the North
Genius Party
Hideki Futamura, Shoji Kawamori
Tomoko Kaneda, Rinko Kikuchi
The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
Genius Party
きまじめ楽隊のぼんやり戦争
Akira Ikeda
Kou Maehara, Hiroki Konno
The soldiers no longer know why they are at war, and when it even started. Daily and dutifully they march to the river and shoot at the opposite village from 9 to 5 – orders are orders after all. They’ve done so for decades. When private Tsuyuki is transferred to the marching band, people keep asking him what use music is in times of war.
The Blue Danube
裏麻雀美神列伝 潰し屋レイカ
Yasushi Koshizaka
Iori Kogawa, Mitani Arisa
"When Ikasama comes out, use your hammer to crush your hands," that is the rule of Ura Mahjong. Reika, a great female sparrow, beat many men and was scared as a crusher. However, as a substitute for Yakuza, Shimizu falls into a mean trap and Reika crushes her right hand. And a year later she came back. In order to save the women who are raped and sold their bodies by making a debt with Ura Mahjong. Before that, it was Shimizu, the nemesis of the relationship. And the last big game begins when the loser loses everything.
Tsubushiya Reika
獣道
Eiji Uchida
Sairi Itoh, Kenta Suga
Born in a small town in Japan, a young girl named Ai is sent to a cult commune by her religious maniac mother and lives there for seven long years. After the cult is exposed by the police, Ai starts a new stage of life, going to a normal school for the first time, but she can’t find her place to fit in there. Ai drops out from the school and society, spending her life living with a rock-bottom delinquent family full of gangsters and call girls. In a strange twist of fate she finds herself back in a new and normal life, living with a middle-class family, but her troubled life continues to follow her into more deep and seedy paths.
Love and Other Cults
蠱毒 ミートボールマシン
Yoshihiro Nishimura
Yoji Tanaka, Tomori Abe
Nobody knows where they came from. They parasitize in human beings, take control of them and change their bodies into hideous monsters (Necro-borg). The Necro-borg fight each other until the other dies. Where did they come from? To what end? Yuji and Kaoru, whom both have dark secrets within themselves, get caught up in the horrific battles of Necro-borg. What will their fate be?
Meatball Machine Kodoku
美人が婚活してみたら
Akiko Ohku
Masaki Sumitani, Asami Usuda
Takako (Mei Kurokawa) is a beautiful woman in her 30's and she works as a designer. Takako has only had relationships with married men. She decides to change herself with the help of her manga artist friend Keiko (Asami Usuda). Takako signs up at a matchmaking site. Soon. Takako meets two men and she takes an interest in the two men. Meanwhile, Takako has an argument with her friend Keiko. (Asianwiki)
Marriage Hunting Beauty
爆裂魔神少女 バーストマシンガール
Yûki Kobayashi
Himena Tsukimiya, Kanon Hanakage
Living in the lawless Ishinari District in a future Japan, sisters Ami (Hina Nagimiya) and Yoshie (Hanakage Kanon) who sold their bodies to help their parents, try to earn a living performing as an idol group in the area. When their performance causes stranger Matsukata (Tak Sakaguchi) a notorious hitman, to notice their condition, the three realize their worth to each other in the fight against Aoyama Dharma (Kimono Negishi), the female boss of a notorious organ harvesting ring in the area. Realizing that even their skills are no match for her army of goons and henchmen, the two are outfitted with special homemade weaponry to their bodies and become the ultimate killers.
Rise of the Machine Girls
月光ノ仮面
Itsuji Itao
Itsuji Itao, Tadanobu Asano
The year is 1947, during the war torn period of the Showa era. The story begins when a man, presumed to have been killed in battle, returns home. Who was this man? Before the war, he had a bright future ahead of him as the proficient and popular rakugoka (comedic story-teller), Usagi Morinoya. However, because of an injury sustained during the war, his face is covered in bandages, and he suffers from total amnesia. As if trying to recover his memory, the man only keeps mumbling in a hollow voice his trademark rakugo, "Sokotsunagaya".
Moonlight Mask
珍遊記
Yudai Yamaguchi
Kenichi Matsuyama, Kana Kurashina
Genzo is a monk on his way to Tianzhu (early East Asian name for India). Along the way, he happens to visit a house and meets an old couple. The couple has an adopted son, Taro Yamada (Kenichi Matsuyama). They ask Genzo to rehabilitate Taro who makes trouble with his magical power. Genzo takes Taro and travels to Tianzhu.
Chinyuki
