Japanese anime has found many takers in India and a recent animated sports film, The First Slam Dunk, winner of the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year in 2023, justifies the hype. The coming-of-age film is directed by the Japanese manga artist Takehiko Inoue and is based on his Slam Dunk manga series, which spanned 31 volumes. The film, which features some beautiful animation and is playing on screens, describes the action from a final basketball tournament match between the Shōhoku High School and reigning champions Sannoh School. It focuses on Ryota Miyagi, Shōhoku’s point guard, who uses his love for the sport to cope with a personal loss. The movie matches flashback scenes with fast-paced action from the game. The soundtrack, featuring music from the Japanese rock band 10-Feet, is enthralling. —Nitin Sreedhar
It’s the little things that make an experience more memorable. Like a little shelf under the bar for the phone. Or, a tiny chair meant just for your bag. Such chairs or stools, which have been a regular sight in high-end restaurants, have also started occupying space in more casual cafés, at least in Delhi. During a visit to a Khan Market restaurant, I requested a chair for my tan tote (bags deserve care) and a tiny stool was presented. Since then, at three restaurants across the National Capital Region, my bag has been hung on a hook attached to the dining table, has occupied a small green velvet chair and has lounged on a wooden stool. Hopefully, the trend will catch on elsewhere too.—Pooja Singh
After a 13-year gap, Anohni and the Johnsons released their fifth album, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross, last week. Happily, not much has changed—their sound is still robust vintage soul with a side of alternative rock and Anohni’s voice, with its distinctive quaver, is as searching as ever. The new album harks back to the R&B of Otis Redding and Al Green, though it’s never deliberately “retro”. Producer-guitarist Jimmy Hogarth contributes neat Steve Cropper-like riffs and fills on soul workouts It Must Change and Can’t and the touching closer, You Be Free. The most surprising track is the minute-and-a-half Go Ahead: Anohni bellowing over fuzzy, squalling guitars: “Go ahead, burn it down/ Go ahead, kill your friends.” —Uday Bhatia
Silo on Apple TV may be on its way to becoming the most popular show on the platform so far but I was left craving more detail in this fascinatingly dark and dystopian world. I turned to Wool, the first part in the trilogy of books by Hugh Howey on which the show is based. It is set in an indeterminate, post-apocalyptic time in the earth’s future, within a society of humans who live in a vast underground silo, where quite advanced technology and a seemingly basic, almost regressive, way of life coexist. It is an authoritarian world where asking questions about how they ended up here will get citizens banished to the unliveable “outside”. Howey expertly peels back the layers to answer these questions for the reader and I had to jump right into Shift, the next book in the series, to find out more.—Shrabonti Bagchi
