When and how the idea of a digital magazine focused on Japanese indie filmmakers came into being is, to be honest, a little unclear. Like the movie on which this post is titled, the thought most likely occured a few layers deep so as to seem almost organic; a matter of course.
I believe the first inkling first happened during my time, first as a volunteer, then as international film programmer for the San Diego Asian Film Festival back at the turn of the milennium. Though I was studying Japanese at the time, searching for Japanese movies online was a frustrating exercise in attempting to translate Japanese websites without the aid of modern web resources. If I was lucky, the movie had screened at an international film festival and someone had already done the leg work of writing a synopsis, introduction, etc. in English. As I often searched for movies off the beaten path, however, I was not so fortunate. If only the information I was looking for were available in English….