10/10 would recommend as a fun and easy GE if you like Japanese history/anime. No prior knowledge is needed and I especially enjoyed the films we covered later in the quarter. The writing assignments(Midterms/Finals and Weekly Discussion Questions) are graded extremely leniently(Shoutout to my TA Suong Thai) and are not very demanding on time/length.

Professor Shima is the best lecturer I've met in UCLA. Interesting content, clear lecture, no crazy heavy workload, just write your weekly journal 300 words and one midterm and final paper. He also teaches stuff about Japanese manga, which is naturally more interesting than Japanese movies.

TAKE IT.

I was a bit nervous when I first enrolled in this course because it had no reviews and there were only a couple of comments on another class that Professor Shima taught. A quarter later, I'm so glad I gave it a chance! In my opinion, the workload for the course is a little bit on the heavier side; however, Professor Shima was willing to make adjustments as the quarter progressed. Moreover, he and the TAs (shoutout Kristin!) were both very understanding and accommodating towards student needs and circumstances. Points were awarded for short weekly responses, discussion participation, in-class quizzes, presentations in small peer groups, and two essays (a midterm and a final). The assessments were both fair and manageable, and the professor provided the prompts for them well before their deadlines. Overall, Japanese 70 with Professor Shima has it all - great lectures, awesome TAs, fair assessments, and a top-notch professor!

Interesting class that involves watching a lot of interesting and unique movies and some short stories/parts of books. Topics ranged from the supernatural to manga to gender. Many involved an uncomfortable amount of suffering, but I feel like most humanities are like that. Watching all the films can take a decent chunk of time. Really opened my eyes to a lot of different perspectives though.
Lectures were recorded and involved discussions about the context and history surrounding the topics. Professor Shima had students do group discussions about whatever they wanted to promote socialization.
Quizzes were easy and based on just identifying the text/movie based on a passage/scene. Weekly Discussion Questions were graded fairly generously. Midterm and Final paper with no written tests. I'm not a great writer, so I think the grading was not too harsh based on what I got.
My TA was great and I heard nothing but good things for the other TAs as well. Discussions were based on one of the works and pretty casual, but mandatory.

TLDR; Pretty interesting class that I do not regret taking. Pretty easy but can be a bit time consuming if you try to watch and read everything.

Overall I'd recommend taking this class. Interesting GE. There were usually 1/2 movies and 1/2 readings per week. The movies took time to watch--some were nearly 3 hours--but were enjoyable nonetheless. I highly recommend watching the movies at 2x speed. There were two papers and 3 quizzes. The midterm and final papers were short and fairly straightforward. The quizzes were also super easy. I think prof actually said that anyone with a pulse should get above an 7/8 out of ten on them. lol. My TA Yasmine K. was amazing. One of the most down to earth TAs I've ever met. She's very helpful and wants all of her students in her section to do well.

I totally recommend this class. Even if you have no prior knowledge of Japanese culture like me, you can do extremely well in this class.

The class has a somewhat heavy workload with the readings and films but everything else has appropriate/easy difficulty (ie. quizzes ). My TA Yasmine was amazing and so understanding of students, take it with her if you can. I learned a lot and it felt rewarding.

Loved this class so much! Didn't have any expectations but came out with a greater sense of appreciation for Japanese culture and history, as well as film analysis! Prof Shima is a wonderful, engaging lecturer who was super lenient with assignments and late submissions. although I personally never submitted late, having that reassurance that you wouldn't get docked made for a very stress-free and enjoyable experience. There were assigned readings and movies every week, but the stories were really interesting and the movies could be watched at 2x speed if you're an avid anime watcher and are used to reading subs fast lol.

Coursework includes: 3 class quizzes throughout the quarter (screenshots of a film or quotes from a text to ensure you've been on track), peer review workshops (breakout rooms where you get to socialize with classmates, which was really pleasant even for someone like me who doesn't actively seek socialization lol), weekly responses (200-400 words per week, lowest score dropped), midterm paper (900-1200 words) and final paper (1200-1500 words). word count might intimidate you like I was at first but I always ended up struggling to cut back paragraphs to fit into the max word limit by the end because of how engaging the material prompts were, haha. grading on responses and papers were also super lenient (shoutout to Suong, best TA!! her discussion sections were also very engaging, insightful, and full of eager participants :D).

if you're even remotely interested in Japanese culture or film analysis, I highly recommend this course and Prof Shima! I'll never be able to watch another film the same way after this course since it's changed my understanding of cinema so much; it's really eye-opening!

Professor Shima was amazing and I thought that all of his lectures were super interesting! I had no background other than being a high school weeb when I took this class, but actually learned a lot about Japanese culture represented in film/literature. You also get to go over a small snippet of anime/manga at the end of the quarter. The only downside I would say is that the professor rambles a bit, making it a little difficult to know what we really need to understand about Japanese culture. But otherwise, the workload was fairly light and you can get away with not reading/watching a lot of the media given since he usually goes over it in class (I missed about half). You also can get away with not going to lecture a lot since he records his lectures, but you must be present for Peer Groups. Super easy and great GE to take!
The class grade breakdown:
3 Quizzes: 15%
Participation in discussion: 10%
Participation in peer groups: 10%
Weekly Discussion Questions: 25%
Midterm Paper: 15%
Final Paper: 25%

This class was a complete breeze. A couple readings and viewings per week, and then two papers and a midterm was all that the course required. I will give this warning, however: don't expect to be watching great anime all the time. This course is focused as much on Japanese history as it is on anime itself, and some films/episodes that we watched were either painful to get through or just plain weird. Some really good anime are still watched however, including 'In This Corner of the World' and 'Akira'.