Buta-ya was meant to be a retirement office, where Miyazaki could pursue personal projects. He built it in 1998, after announcing that he would make no more feature films, then returned to Studio Ghibli the next year with the story idea that would become “Spirited Away,” the highest-grossing movie in Japanese history until last fall’s “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” (an extension of a popular manga franchise and part of a different strain of Japanese anime, focused on action and vengeance, with a video-game-like feel). “Spirited Away” won the 2002 Academy Award for best animated feature, the only film from outside the West to ever do so. In 2013, he said again that he was done with film, and that time, having directed 11 features in 34 years, he was taken seriously: Studio Ghibli shut down its production department.
Yet here he is now, making a new film. “Because I wanted to,” he says, and grins, like a grizzled thief come back for one last heist.
It’s this very vulnerability — her warmth, sincerity, and lack of pretension — that makes her a trustworthy guide. She’s a narrator who takes her readers by the hand, leading them through life’s ordinary events and spinning these events into something magical. Unlike many essayists today, Patchett does not fixate on polarization, the climate crisis, or global instability. Or, perhaps, she approaches these pressing issues from the other side. Through her eyes, the global pandemic offers a glimpse into our humanity. It is an opportunity for a new connection. It offers someone a new lease on life.
For years, fans have searched for clues about what happened to the comics and their author. Sometimes, they would be hot on the trail — finding Pictures for Sad Children living somewhere on the internet, under an assumed name. But that, too, would go offline. The network of fans worldwide would form something between a detective agency and a book club.
Now, seven years after she first vanished from the internet, the author is opening up about the experience and sharing some new art. And, given the particularly dark and absurd era, she’s just in time.
Friends of mine in China who lived through the Cultural Revolution describe a contagious zeal that drove them to act on beliefs they did not share. This process is brilliantly caricatured in Eugène Ionesco’s play “Rhinoceros,” in which people who seem perfectly normal transform into violent beasts, more and more of them caving as the play goes on. A parallel process has taken place as an increasing number of Americans seem willing to abandon previously hallowed democratic norms, including freedom of expression. Krause has not banned the books on his list because he is not in a position to do so, but the chilling effect of such lists is incontrovertible.
It has been 25 years since the first Tamagotchi cracked out of its egg. That’s right, 25 years. If you’re a ’90s kid, you either owned one yourself or spent every recess looking over the shoulder of someone who did. But while the toy has pretty much disappeared from schoolyards these days—replaced by smartphones—many of its key features had a significant impact on the video game industry and live on in major games today.
I’m not promising too much by claiming that Sarah Winman’s “Still Life” is a tonic for wanderlust and a cure for loneliness. It’s that rare, affectionate novel that makes one feel grateful to have been carried along. Unfurling with no more hurry than a Saturday night among old friends, the story celebrates the myriad ways love is expressed and families are formed.
In a business that encourages writers to repeat themselves, to stay relentlessly on brand, it’s exciting to see artists take a chance, cast off the dictates of publicity and marketing, go rogue. The results are sometimes catastrophic but often lead to the creation of singular and surprising works. “Pilot Impostor,” James Hannaham’s follow-up to his acclaimed novels “God Says No” and “Delicious Foods,” is one of these singular works, a book impossible to categorize.
“Termination Shock” deals brilliantly and innovatively with our era’s most pressing existential matter — while delivering stratospheric gigatons of carefully engineered delight.
But at their best, they are a catalogue of all the unexpected ways love can look, if you're imaginative and brave enough to try it — even while knowing that love and grief are two sides of the same coin. "Death always thinks of us eventually," Patchett writes. "The trick is to find the joy in the interim, and make good use of the days we have."