LE SSERAFIM’s Sakura on the group’s Coachella debut: “No one is perfect”

Race Across the World made a welcome return to TV screens earlier this month, with a new set of contestants ready to take on the once-in-a-lifetime challenge.The new seasons saw 10 competitors tasked with navigating their way through East Asia in pairs, with limited resources, no credit cards and no phones.The duos have 50 days to travel from Japan to Indonesia with only what they can manage to carry.The winning pair get a cash prize of £20,000. With the BBC show back on screens, many fans have been wondering about certain details of the race.

SHINee singer Onew has announced his upcoming solo 2024 ‘Guess!’ tour, featuring concerts in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and more.SHINee’s Onew and his label Griffin Entertainment announced the K-pop singer’s solo 2024 ‘Guess!’ tour on April 29. The tour will feature 11 concerts across seven countries in Asia from May to July this year.The idol will kick off his tour with a two-date concert in Seoul, South Korean on May 17 and 18.

SEVENTEEN is celebrating their best!

EXCLUSIVE: Artist International Group has signed renowned Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura for representation.

Antonela Roccuzzo is enjoying her time spent as a ‘soccer mom,’ especially if she has a friend to share it with. The social media personality and wife of Lionel Messi shared an adorable post over the weekend, showing her and fellow soccer mom Sofia Balbi as they hung out with their kids and watched them play their favorite sport over the weekend.Messi celebrates his ‘princess’ Antonela Roccuzzo’s 36th birthdayWhy weren’t Messi and Antonela Roccuzzo at Victoria Beckham’s 50th birthday party?A post shared by Antonela Roccuzzo (@antonelaroccuzzo)The post is made up of various photos of Antonela, her kids Mateo, Thiago, and Ciro, and her close friend, Sofia Balbi, who’s also the wife of Luis Suarez, the soccer player who also plays for Inter Miami and is a friend of Messi. The photos show Antonela and Sofia watching their boys play and have fun.

Rudie Obias editor If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. After an impressive box office run at the end of 2023 and winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Film earlier this year, Hayao Miyazaki‘s “The Boy and the Heron” is coming to streaming. The epic animated film — starring Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh and Willem Dafoe (in the English dubbed version) — is available to rent and purchase digitally in 4K Ultra HD on Prime Video and Apple TV starting on Tuesday, June 25.

ZEROBASEONE have announced the dates for their upcoming 2024 ‘The First Tour’ tour, featuring concerts in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and more.Today (April 29), ZEROBASEONE revealed the dates for their forthcoming 2024 ‘The First Tour’ tour, which will feature 14 concerts in seven different countries from September to December this year.The K-pop boyband will kick off their tour with a three-date show at the KSPO Dome in Seoul, South Korea from September 20 to 22. In the same month, the group will also hold a concert at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.In the following month, ZEROBASEONE will bring their 2024 ‘The First Tour’ tour to other cities and countries across Southeast Asia.

Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes joined BABYMETAL during their set at Sick New World 2024 on Saturday – check out footage below. The Japanese band were playing the Las Vegas festival yesterday (April 27), when they were joined by Sykes on a version of their collaborative track.

Greta Gerwig has her jury. This evening, the Cannes Film Festival revealed the rest of the nine-member jury filled with festival veterans and Academy members.

The Cannes Film Festival has named the eight members of its main Competition jury who will join previously announced president Greta Gerwig in deciding the Palme d’Or and other key prizes at 77th edition running from May 14 to 25.

One of the most talked about series of 2024 is FX’s feudal Japan series, “Shōgun,” which just ended its ten-episode run on Hulu. The acclaimed series centers on the collision of two ambitious men, an English sailor (Cosmo Jarvis), who is shipwrecked in Japan, and Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), a shrewd, powerful Japanese feudal lord, at odds with his own dangerous, political rivals.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) South Asia has a sizzling summer slate lined up in the kids space including a mix of anime and homegrown IP. Launching on the Indian animation-focused Pogo channel in May is new Indian IP “Jay Jagannath.” The series portrays the friendship between the Hindu God Lord Jagannath, who has taken the form of a child, Jagan, and his devout follower Balaram.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Epic war-time survival tale “The Guns of Muschu” has already assembled a weighty cast ahead of a production start in the first quarter of 2025. The film is an adaptation of the non-fiction book “The Guns of Muschu,” written by Don Dennis, with an adapted screenplay by Tom Broadhurst and Jack Brislee (“Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan”). The narrative brings to life a pivotal chapter of Australian war history with gritty authenticity, recounting the high body count Operation Copper, a mission during WWII when Australian and New Zealand troops were sent into the jungles of Papua New Guinea. The objective of the mission was to investigate the Japanese defenses on Muschu Island, capture a Japanese officer for interrogation and discover the location of two naval guns on the island that were protecting a harbor.

Let’s catch up on all things Cannes Film Festival. For one, if you haven’t seen it, Cannes recently revealed its 2024 poster, featuring a scene from “Rhapsody in August,” directed by the great Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, 81 at the time (see it below in full).

Netflix will be out in force at France‘s Annecy International Animation Film Festival once again this June, after last year’s high-profile attendance with Nimona as well as teasers for Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget and Blue Eye Samurai.

The Gospel Of The Beast, directed by the Philippines’ Sheron Dayoc, picked up the Golden Star Award for Best Southeast Asian Film at the first edition of the Ho Chi Minh City International Film Festival (HIFF) in Vietnam. 

Coachella 2024‘s first weekend has wrapped, but not without controversy as fans have been taking to social media to voice their disdain for the sound quality at this year’s festival.Throughout the course of day one (April 12), several artists faced sound and technical issues, especially on the main stage – known as the Coachella Stage. Some of these acts include headlining Lana Del Rey, Sabrina Carpenter and The Japanese House.The Japanese House were one of the first bands to take to the Mojave stage.

88rising will return to Coachella over the next two Sundays with a new ‘Futures’ set that will shine a light on four Japanese artists – find out more in NME’s interview with 88rising founder and CEO Sean Miyashiro.First announced April 8, the line-up for 88rising Futures includes viral sensations and NME Cover artists Yoasobi, rapper Awich, J-pop boyband Number_i, and the label’s own boundary-breaking group, Atarashii Gakko!. The set will also include appearances from Korean hip-hop legends Tiger JK and Yoonmirae, plus Chinese singer and dancer Xin Liu, 88rising’s newest signing.The programming reflects Miyashiro’s observations of widespread growth and appreciation of Japanese artists in today’s music landscape, he told NME, and 88rising’s efforts to celebrate and spotlight Japanese music “on what is the world’s most influential, prestigious music festival stage”.“There’s so much music coming out of Japan of all genres, and there’s so many people wanting to make music and be artists,” he said.

After a year of waiting, Race Across the World returned to screens on Wednesday, 10 April. Five teams are taking part in the race that spans across 10,000 miles across Asia.The teams began in Sapporo, in Hokkaido one of the main islands of Japan all the way to Lombok, an island of Indonesia.

Race Across the World is back on BBC One, and among the five teams of two are Londoner Eugenie and her daughter Isabel.The contestants will be pushed to their physical and emotional limits as they leave behind smartphones, internet access and bank cards to cross six seas and eight borders from northernmost Japan.The first team to reach the final destination bags a £20,000 cash prize. Eugenie, 60, hails from Barking and is a teacher, while her daughter Isabel, 25, from Birmingham, is a trainee clinical scientist.They hope that the experience will bring them closer together, despite admitting that their relationship can be fiery at times.