azoland pictures

Azoland Pictures is bringing Fukuda Yuichi’s live-action manga adaptation, Gintama, to the big screen in the U.S. and Canada beginning this Friday. It’s a film that I’ve especially waited for and have cheered on if only for the fact that the animated series, currently on its final arc from TV Tokyo, is my most favorite of all the shows I myself have seen, even as some who’ve seen cuts of the film since its rollout starting last summer in Japan have fallen short of some expectations despite becoming a regional box office hit. Oguri Shun, best known for roles in other adaptations like Miike Takashi’s first and second Crows Zero films leads the narrative based on Sorachi Hideaki’s long running gag manga set in an alternative universe where aliens have conquered Japan. The story, previously summed up in an animated feature edit in 2010, takes its cues from the Benizakura […]

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Late last year a good friend of mine sent me the most adorable Kagura keychain in the world. I sent her a video of a partially-teared thank you because as it stands, Kagura is the most loveable and adorable character in the TV Tokyo anime series, Gintama, which is on track to debut its final story arc on January 8. The show took off from the genius mind of manga creator Sorachi Hideaki and in the most admirably meta of ways, became a sprawling hit. It was an easy sell for me from late 2016 and onward as I binged heavily and caught up long before Fukuda Yuichi’s live-action adaptation starring Oguri Shun, Suda Masaki and actress Hashimoto Kanna who plays the aforementioned Kagura-chan who plays central to the Battle On Rakuyo story arc. Needless to say, I’ve been waiting for the film’s transition to the states since its release […]

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