Spring in Japan and the cherry blossoms (sakura) are the traditional marker for starting anew. A new school year begins and new university graduates will begin getting their first taste of “the real world.” This is, then, the perfect time to announce Indievisual Digital Magazine is now live! After a lot of work, especially since January, the project I’ve literally been thinking about for years has finally come to fruition. There may be still a few gremlins lurking in unresolved or wrong links, and some typos, but overall, I am quite proud of what has resulted from all the researching, planning, stumbling, and perfecting it’s taken to reach this point–some of which I have illuminated on this blog.

As stated in the featured image, the opening content features interviews with Miyazaki Daisuke, whose Yamato (California) is steadily gaining traction; and the two filmmakers of production company 100 Meter Films, John Williams and Shiozaki Shohei. There is also an extensive special report on the 2017 Osaka Asian Film Festival, which Indievisual was fortunate to be invited to attend as a member of the press. Finally, there are two side-stories: one a profile of SKIP City D-Cinema Film Festival’s current Programming Director, Hasegawa Toshiyuki; and the other, an essay by independent producer/writer/director/actor Tsujioka Masato on his experience at the 2014 Cannes International Film Festival.
There is also a section on movies that have Caught our Eye; whether they’re new, old, or still in production, this section will point out works that look quite intriguing and worth keeping an eye on.

Going forward, I’ll be publishing more interviews at, ideally, a pace of one per month while other sections such as Caught our Eye should be updated more frequently, perhaps weekly. This will, of course, depend largely on my free time to write, edit, and upload these, but my earnest intention will be to keep the website updated regularly with fresh content.

Besides the people, websites, and publications which have inspired and guided me throughout the process of creating this online magazine, I wanted to take a moment to thank a few specific people. Firstly, my wife, for being a constant source of support and encouragement, even when I felt I should probably just ditch this crazy idea. She believed in what I’m doing and told me to persevere. For that, I can say without any exaggeration, Indievisual exists today because of her. Second, my friend, Eric DeSantis, former editor during our Wildstorm days (and indie game developer at Rumblecade) whom I turned to for frequent editorial advice. Also, producer Andrew Kirkham, a fellow filmmaker/translation-service-provider here in Japan, with whom I bounced a lot of ideas and received much needed constructive criticism. Finally, the people who agreed to be interviewed very early on and who will feature prominently in the first several interviews and articles published on the site. They are clients who have become friends and who have believed in what I intend to do with Indievisual. I am extremely indebted and honored by their generosity in allowing me to interview them for this project. I truly look forward to introducing them to you in the coming months.

There’s more work to be done and new interviews to conduct, but the highest hurdle has been overcome. I still have many “process” and “making-of” entries to write on Backstory, but this blog will also become a place where I also talk about anything which may be casually interesting, but not yet worth a full article on the magazine site. Indievisual has only just begun!