Director Satoshi Kon blazed a brilliant animation career before his tragic death in 2010 at age 46. Now Dark Horse is privileged to remember him and his works through The Art of Satoshi Kon, a beautiful book of Kon’s illustrations for his movies Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers, Milennium Actress, Paprika and his televison series Paranoia Agent, plus his unfinished The Dreaming Machine, his manga, commercial art, and several little-known and incomplete projects by the creator! Includes a special message from Academy Award nominated director Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler, Black Swan, Noah)
Brilliant anime director Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Paranoia Agent, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, Perfect Blue) died tragically young in 2010 at the age of forty-six. But before he became a director, he was a manga artist, and Dark Horse is honored to remember Kon with the release of Satoshi Kon’s OPUS, an omnibus collection of a two-volume manga from 1996, created by Kon on the eve of his first film. OPUS contains the mastery of both realism and surrealism that would make Kon famous in Perfect Blue, as a manga artist planning a shocking surprise ending to his story gets literally pulled into his own work—to face for himself what he had planned for his characters! * Satoshi Kon was a Time magazine 2010 Person of the Year. * Kon was eulogized by director Darren Aronofsky. * Kon was a chief assistant to Katsuhiro Otomo on the Akiramanga.
Yosuke's family has a strange tradition - once every sixty years they receive an egg from a mermaid. When the egg matures his family dutifully returns it to the sea, where the whole process is then repeated. In exchange for this favor, the mer-people bless his coastal town with bountiful catches of fish and calm seas. But as a commercial development encroach on the sleepy seaside village and Yosuke's father is lured away from tradition towards modern prosperity, and turns the egg into a tourist trap, what will happen to the promise their family made to the mermaids generations ago? Tropic of the Sea Satoshi Kon's first feature length manga, includes a dozen black and white art plates from his original release, along with a 5-page essay written by Kon in 1999 detailing his transition from the manga industry to the animation business.
Brilliant anime director Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Paranoia Agent, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, Perfect Blue) died tragically young in 2010 at the age of 46. Before he became a director, he was a manga artist, and Dark Horse is honored to remember Kon with the release of Satoshi Kon's OPUS, an omnibus collection of a two-volume manga from 1996, created by Kon on the eve of his first film. OPUS contains the mastery of both realism and surrealism that would make Kon famous in Perfect Blue, as a manga artist becomes drawn into his own work and realizes the deadline he's up against is to stop a vicious serial killer before he can spill more innocent blood--not merely ink!
Kirigoe Mima is in the third year of her career as a pure and innocent pop idol. Feeling like something big needs to change, she plans to give her image a major update. When the new Mima is revealed--complete with a sexy outfit and a risqué photo book–one of her most obsessive fans refuses to accept her transformation. To restore Mima to the innocent girl of her debut, he puts a terrifying plan to action that throws her life into chaos and mortal peril.
Contemporary Japanese pop culture such as anime and manga (Japanese animation and comic books) is Asia's equivalent of the Harry Potter phenomenon--an overseas export that has taken America by storm. While Hollywood struggles to fill seats, Japanese anime releases are increasingly outpacing American movies in number and, more importantly, in the devotion they inspire in their fans. But just as Harry Potter is both "universal" and very English, anime is also deeply Japanese, making its popularity in the United States totally unexpected. Japanamerica is the first book that directly addresses the American experience with the Japanese pop phenomenon, covering everything from Hayao Miyazaki's epics, the burgeoning world of hentai, or violent pornographic anime, and Puffy Amiyumi, whose exploits are broadcast daily on the Cartoon Network, to literary novelist Haruki Murakami, and more. With insights from the artists, critics, readers and fans from both nations, this book is as literate as it is hip, highlighting the shared conflicts as American and Japanese pop cultures dramatically collide in the here and now.For more information visit http://www.japanamericabook.com/
Revised and updated - includes Miyazaki's new masterpiece, The Boy and the Heron. Explore the films of magical Japanese animation masters Studio Ghibli in this film-by-film celebration for newcomers and long-time fans alike. Ghibliotheque reviews each Studio Ghibli movie in turn, in the voice of expert and newcomer. The lively text delves into production details, themes, key scenes and general reviews, as well as Ghibli-specific information. It's beautifully illustrated with stills and posters from each movie. Written by the hosts of the acclaimed Ghibliotheque podcast, this is the first and last word on the films of Studio Ghibli.
A one of a kind, oversized hardcover exploring the newest addition to the Masters of the Universe world! Diving deep into the process of the show, this tome features detailed explorations into your favorite aspects of the show. Explore character art from the development stages to the finished product, as well as extensive looks at the world and locations of Eternia! Dark Horse Books, Mattel, and Powerhouse Studios proudly present The Art of Masters of the Universe: Revelation. A look into the world that will leave you yelling “I have the Power!”
The Two Truths: Of Dario Argento's Opera and Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue is a wide-ranging exploration of the remarkable connections between the film-works of two seemingly disparate directors through discussions of psychology, philosophy East (from which this book takes its title) and West (including integral theory), physics, film theory and other systems related to reality, thought and consciousness. Art-horror director Dario Argento and animated fantasy film director Satoshi Kon receive treatment of comprehensive scale and astounding breadth and depth in this whirlwind analysis of their filmographies (and many other directors' works including Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch).Fans of Dario Argento will enjoy the meticulous investigation of Opera and its connections to other Argento films, including Tenebrae, Phenomena and The Stendhal Syndrome. The book starts out with an elucidation of some of the major themes in Argento's often-overlooked Trauma to set the stage for drawing out further connections to the films of other directors, starting with Magnetic Rose written by Satoshi Kon.For fans of Satoshi Kon, The Two Truths marks a first, including not only analyses of Kon's films at the high level of resolution they warrant but also in-depth summaries of both the Japanese source novel, Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis, and the Japanese-only companion audio drama Double Bind -The Looking Glass of Perfect Blue-.Author Gino C. Mongelli brings together diverse concepts and systems to present an important work in terms of both analysis of Argento's and Kon's filmographies and attending to our human abilities to think, self-reflect and grow.Themes specific to The Two Truths were heavily researched over three years, including poring over academic, filmic and other sources in five languages (especially English and Japanese). There are over 200 references cited including, among many others, Joseph Campbell, Freeman Dyson, Mircea Eliade, Richard P. Feynman, Sigmund Freud, Douglas Hofstadter, William James, Carl Jung, Hayao Kawai, R.D. Laing, Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich Nietzsche, P.D. Ouspensky, Jordan B. Peterson, Chögyam Trungpa, Ken Wilber and Slavoj Zizek.The Two Truths is an augmented spin-off of the previously released The Delicate War: Knowing in oneself the angel from the beast through the films of Dario Argento. In that volume, discussion of Argento's Opera received one chapter. Here, that chapter and many other elements are remixed and expanded by over five times in length to bring out the similarly fractal qualities of Kon's Perfect Blue and to use those two films as a foundational hologram through which to explore most of the other films in these two directors' brilliant oeuvres.