by Nathaniel R
Last week we had the pleasure of an invitation to the East Coast premiere of the anime rock opera Inu-Oh, which opens in theaters today. It's distributed by GKids, a company which has long championed non-Hollywood animation for US audiences who we all know can be stubbornly myopic about animation, viewing it as a genre rather than a medium capable of all kinds of genres and visual experiences. The screening was at Japan Society here in Manhattan. I bring this up primarily because I had somehow never been there and must highly recommend the venue which has monthly screenings of both anime films and acclaimed live action Japanese films, too (recent films included everything from Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke to the kaiju film Mothra, to Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha). Seeing specialty films, which generally play to tiny arthouse crowds, in a beautiful respectful context to a large packed crowd is always a thrill (one of the reasons film festivals, never lose their thrill).
And Inu-Oh deserves a big screen so don't wait until streaming if it hits a theater near you...
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