title: WataMote

One of the smash hit shows of the year that's both fun to watch and touches on deeper things without getting lost in the weeds

Kei Kumai's chilling film version of Shūsaku Endō's equally grim novel remains all but unseen outside of Japan, but deserves a wider audience despite its queasy subject of wartime culpability

Katsuhiro Otomo's anthology project dazzlingly animates three of his stories, showing more sides to the man most only know through 'AKIRA'

Calling it an anime 'Clash Of The Titans' falls far short; this staggeringly ambitious respinning of Greek mythic adventure is a must-see

A splashy but unmoving look at the last years of Osamu Dazai's dissolute life, with much screen time sensibly devoted to the women he manipulated on the way down

A deeply unappreciated David Lynch-esque jolter, from two major writers of anime live-action adaptations; a horror-feminist project that deserves reexamination with fresh eyes

A classic 1980s Japanese horror effort, a ferocious Dario Argento homage that invents at least as much as it borrows or nods at

Gakuryū Ishii's wild adaptation of the equally wild cult novel is one part 'Gojoe', one part 'Burst City' and two parts Coen Brothers

An attempt to both modernize and partly Westernize Edogawa Rampo's thriller falls flat on both counts

A wildly stylized project that bodes well for future trans-Pacific productions -- but which might have been just as good without being wildly stylized