2016 Japanese animated film A Silent Voice (聲の形) in Pittsburgh, December 15 and 16.

The acclaimed 2016 Japanese animated film A Silent Voice (聲の形) will return to Pittsburgh on December 15 and 16.

“A Silent Voice” follows the poignant and moving story of Shoya Ishida, a school bully, and Shoko Nishimiya, a young girl with a hearing disability. Their story begins in sixth grade when Shoko transfers to Shoya’s elementary school and quickly finds herself bullied and isolated due to her hearing disability. Years later, the tables turn, and Shoya finds himself the victim. “A Silent Voice” depicts the struggles and challenges of adolescence alongside coming-of-age outside the norm.

It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and tickets are available online.

Four films comprise this year's Studio Ghibli Week at Row House Lawrenceville, from November 29.

The Row House Lawrenceville has announced its lineup for Studio Ghibli Week starting later this month: 1998's Kiki's Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便), 1984's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ), 2001's Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し), and 2023's The Boy and the Heron (君たちはどう生きるか).

Studio Ghibli Week begins November 29 and runs through December 5. Tickets and movie information is available online. The single-screen theater is located at 4115 Butler St. (map).

Asian beauty store Maison Beauty opening in Squirrel Hill on November 16.

Asian beauty store Maison Beauty will open in Squirrel Hill on November 16, and will have a number of specials to mark the occasion.

Grand Opening Day Special Offers: First 48 customers who spend $25 or more will receive a free keyring lip gloss!! Available in two different colors!!
First 25 customers who spend $40 or more will receive 5% off their purchase!!

It describes itself as "Pittsburgh’s one stop shop for all Asian Beauty products," and signage went up for it earlier this month at 2021 Murray Ave. (map). It will open at 11 am on the 16th.

2024 Japanese animated film Ghost Cat Anzu (化け猫あんずちゃん) in Pittsburgh, from November 14.

The 2024 Japanese animated film Ghost Cat Anzu (化け猫あんずちゃん) will play in Pittsburgh from November 14. A synopsis, from the distributor:

Precocious tween Karin finds herself abandoned by her father in rural Japan. Living in a temple with her grandfather, she meets Anzu, a giant “ghost cat” and notorious layabout tasked with looking after her. Distrustful of her new guardian, Karin sabotages Anzu’s odd jobs for the townsfolk and befriends the eccentric local forest spirits. In an effort to win Karin over, Anzu accidentally makes a deal with the devil, and all Hell breaks loose. 

Ghost Cat Anzu is co-directed by renowned artist Yoko Kuno, who makes her feature directorial debut, and Nobuhiro Yamashita, the acclaimed director of Linda Linda Linda. Co-produced by Shin-Ei Animation and Miyu Productions with music by legendary musician Keiichi Suzuki (EarthBound), Ghost Cat Anzu is a wildly funny ride in the countryside.

It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and tickets are available online. Please note, some shows are in Japanese with English subtitles, while others are dubbed in English.

Japanese animated movie OVERLORD: The Sacred Kingdom (劇場版 オーバーロード 聖王国編) in Pittsburgh through November 20.

The upcoming Japanese animated movie OVERLORD: The Sacred Kingdom (劇場版 オーバーロード 聖王国編), which oepned in the Pittsburgh area on November 7, will remain here through at least November 20.

After twelve years of playing his favorite MMORPG game, Momonga logs in for the last time only to find himself transported into its world playing it indefinitely. Throughout his adventures, his avatar ascends to the title of Sorcerer King Ains Ooal Gown. Once prosperous but now on the brink of ruin, The Sacred Kingdom enjoyed years of peace after construction of an enormous wall protecting them from neighboring invasions. But, one day this comes to an end when the Demon Emperor Jaldabaoth arrives with an army of villainous demi-humans. Fearing invasion of their own lands, the neighboring territory of the Slane Theocracy is forced to beg their enemies at the Sorcerer Kingdom for help. Heeding the call, Momonga, now known as the Sorcerer King Ains Ooal Gown, rallies the Sorcerer Kingdom and its undead army to join the fight alongside the Sacred Kingdom and the Slane Theocracy in hopes to defeat the Demon Emperor.

It is scheduled to play locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and, until the 14th, the Cinemark theater in Robinson. Some screenings are in Japanese with English subtitles while others are dubbed in English, and tickets are available online.

Andrea Gevurtz Arai and "The 3.11 Generation: Changing the Subjects of Gender, Labor, Environments" at Pitt, November 14.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will host Dr. Andrea Gevurtz Arai and her talk "The 3.11 Generation: Changing the Subjects of Gender, Labor, Environments" on November 14.

Andrea Gevurtz Arai teaches Japan and East Asia anthropology and society courses in the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. Arai’s first book, The Strange Child: Education and the Psychology of Patriotism in Recessionary Japan (Stanford U. Press, 2016) is a long-term multi-site fieldwork study of the social and cultural effects of the bursting of the financial bubble in the early 1990s in Japan and the protracted recession that followed. This ethnography delves deeply into how the recession provided the conditions for government and corporate “neoliberalization,” replacing former support and security in education and labor with new logics of self-responsibility, self-development and patriotism, privatizing public services; shifting cultural ideologies and producing a profound “uneasiness” about everyday life. The book traces the way that the young became the subjects of these unfamiliar or “strange” conditions and the objects of blame for not being able to fulfill new requirements of human capital development. The Strange Child tracks the hardships of this altered national-cultural environment as well as introduces some of the surprisingly creative responses of the recessionary generations.

Upcoming Philippine film Hello, Love, Again in Pittsburgh, from November 14.

The upcoming Philippine film Hello, Love, Again will play in Pittsburgh from November 14.

After fighting for their love to conquer the time, distance and a global shutdown that kept them apart, Joy and Ethan meet again in Canada but realize that they have also changed a lot, individually.

It plays locally at the Cinemark theater in Robinson, in Tagalog with English subtitles, and tickets are available online.

"Sounds Upstairs: Flying Strings Youth Ensemble," November 10 in Oakland.

The Flyinkg Strings Youth Ensemble will perform November 10 at the Carnegie Library in Oakland.

The Flying Strings Youth Ensemble is a talented group of musicians blending traditional Chinese and Western music. With members from across the U.S. playing diverse instruments, including pipa, guzheng, erhu, zhongruan, flute, violin, cello, and piano, the ensemble is committed to both musical excellence and community service. This program takes place in the South Wing Reading Room

The event runs from 2:00 to 3:00 pm and is free and open to the public. The Oakland branch of the Carneige Library of Pittsburgh is located at 4400 Forbes Ave. (map), accessible by numerous city bus lines.

Album making-of documentary RM: Right People, Wrong Place in Pittsburgh, from December 5.

The upcoming film RM: Right People, Wrong Place will play in Pittsburgh-area theaters from December 5.

A film that chronicles artist RM's eight-month production of his second solo album, “Right Place, Wrong Person,” while candidly recording the endless concerns of the person Kim Namjoon, and the things he immerses himself in and loves.

It plays locally December 5 through 8, and December 14, at the AMC Loews Waterfront and the Cinemark in Robinson, and tickets are available online.

"The Promise of Intimacy: Digital Lives of Queer Filipinx/a/os in Manila and Los Angeles" at Pitt, November 7.

The University of Pittsburgh's Gender, Sexuality, & Women's Studies Program will present Dr. Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza and his talk "The Promise of Intimacy: Digital Lives of Queer Filipinx/a/os in Manila and Los Angeles" on November 7.

Mobile digital technologies are transforming how people communicate with one another. They offer a promise for quick and easy platonic, romantic, and/or sexual connections. With the intensification of people’s reliance on and everyday engagement with mobile digital media platforms, the study of mediated intimacies is relevant and needed more than ever before. Spanning several years of ethnographic research, both in Manila and Los Angeles, queer Filipinx/a/o men in my study complained that it was difficult to find meaningful connections through socio-sexual apps. In their pursuits of intimacies, queer Filipinx/a/o men in my study experienced frequent forms of failure, generating various affective responses that shape their actions and beliefs. In the accounts of these experiences, failure is not a totalizing experience. Nor do these experiences necessarily lead to definite endpoints. Such possibilities still create many forms of exclusions to intimacy, yet the queer Filipinx/a/o men who shared parts of their lives continue to aspire, to hope for an experience of intimacy. Some openings and possibilities inspire responses and alternative paths toward the realization of brief moments of connection, and small moments of pleasure. My study seeks to understand queer Filipinx/a/o men’s digital lives and how their experiences inform complex negotiations on and offline in the search for connection, especially when feelings are amplified and complicated by social categories of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality.

It runs from 1:00 to 2:00 pm in room 2322 Cathedral of Learning.