“Revisiting the film in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s surprising how many resonances seem very much of our time. Stink Bomb begins in a doctor’s surgery, as the sniffling Tanaka gets his flu jab, and locals grumble about the virus that’s going around. He walks out into the snowy streets wearing a face mask – an entirely everyday sight in 2022, but something of an Asian peculiarity in 1995. The custom of wearing a medical mask when ill to protect others, was commonplace in Japan, China and South Korea, but had yet to spread around the world.”

Over at All the Anime, I cover “Stink Bomb”, the often-overlooked second story in Katsuhiro Otomo’s Memories anthology movie.