Steve Moore passed away last weekend. It's strange, but having learned so much about him through the lens of Alan Moore's Unearthing, and about himself through his own book, Somnium, I've always sort of hoped to meet him one day. Under unspectacular circumstances, perhaps, like a second before getting off the bus when you notice the guy at the seat closest to the door, but almost definitely in the vicinity of Shooter's Hill. He had been working on the Big Bumper Book of Magic, along with Alan Moore, when he died.
David Bowie, side-by-side Utagawa Kunimasa's 三代目市川八百蔵の梅王丸, who, judging solely by his name, would be the grandson ofIchikawa Ebizō (Utagawa's rendition of whom can be found here). Found in the pages of 2013's final issue of PEN, where the detail leapt right off the pages.
Bit of a time loop for the voting period, too. How apt: Online public voting on the International Category shortlist begins at
00.00.01 EST on December 20, 2013 and ends at 11:59:59 EST on January
10, 2013 (the "Voting Period").
The last movie I caught before leaving Japan in July of this year was the anime anthology, Short Peace, featuring, among the anime heavyweights, Otomo Katsuhiro. Each of the four films differed respectively from one another in terms of setting and theme, although in the line-up was explained to trace a coherent (if faint) line from the past and into the future. Of the four directors Otomo-san is slightly over-represented, having his hand in at least two of the stories, 『火要鎮（ひのようじん）』 and 『武器よさらば』, the last of which was adapted from a strip penned by Otomo-san long before I knew which end was supposed to go onto the paper. Technically five pieces, with an opening by Animatrix: Beyond director, Morimoto Koji, the piece that stands out the most in memory has to be Morita Shuhei's 『九十九』or, Tsukumo. Following an Edo-period tailor who gets waylaid in the middle of a stormy night, and is therefore forced to seek refuge in an old, abandoned temple, the film's delivery was singularly refreshing, in apparent answer, it seems, of the slogan that accompanied the anthology's publicity posters ("For the grown-ups who have forsaken anime"). The results was a little too successful, perhaps, although the darker themes explored immediately after could be seen as an exercise in range, if nothing else. The DVD hits the shelves in Japan, early January in 2014.
