This animated short is too adorable for words! The audio is Moses Supposes from 1952’s Singing In The Rain, the animation itself is very well done. Thanks to GoBoiano for the heads up on this one, and thanks to Bowing for doing the animation and posting it. At least it looked like he was one of the creators when I fed his statements through Google Translate.
The Western releases are all animated this time around. Justice League Dark has Batman teaming up with various DC heroes with supernatural powers to fight a demonic assault on Earth. It seems like Dreamwork’s Trolls was just in the theaters, but now it is coming out on Disc as well. I should also mention Disney is re-releasing 1940’s Pinocchio in Blue Ray format, for those who appreciate classic animation.
In Anime God Eater Pt 2 is the second half of a 12 episode series, but with a list price of $89 for 6 episodes, I will be watching it on Daisuki or Crunchyroll until the distributor comes to their senses. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei Herz continues the Magical Girls story begun in season 1, where the unasked-for powers continue to turn the most mundane tasks into adventures to be survived. I don’t think this last one is really genre, but the story line of Shomin Sample: The Complete Series is off the wall enough to be considered fantasy, so I am including it here.
Japan’s number 1 film of 2016 was Your Name from Makoto Shinkai, and it will be in movie theaters in the US beginning on April 7th. Funimation Films is presenting it, with the options of seeing it in the original Japanese with English subtitles, or with an English language soundtrack. If you don’t know Makoto Shinkai, you have probably already seen one of his groundbreaking animations, such as 5 Centimeters Per Second or the Children Who Chase Lost Voices, or the amazing Voices of a Distant Star which he did entirely himself. He is being referred to as the Next Miyazaki by a number of critics and reviewers around the world, and he has also written novels, stories, and Manga, and helped create video games. If this movie is playing anywhere near you, you should absolutely check it out. Did I mention the RADWIMPS had a hand in the soundtrack for this one, and are translating four of their songs into English for the English language version? I added the full length version of Zenzenzense as the last video in this post, the tease in the trailer was not enough.
Amazon streaming video is releasing Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter next Friday, the 27th. Based on the Astrid Lindgren fantasy novel and put together by Goro Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli, with Gillian Anderson narrating the story. On that same day, Netflix will launch iBoy, a movie about a teen with cell phone superpowers running around London. I plan to check them both out, as they both look interesting in completely different ways. The Ronja trailer is here, see my previous post for the iBoy trailer.
I found this video amazing; it is an explanation of how they used a real person to create a game character, and in the process invented the combination of technology needed to allow that person to act in real time in the game. Which means that anyone with deep enough pockets (which would have to be very deep, at this point) could schedule time to get themselves scanned and processed, buy the gear including the head mounted camera system, and do the same thing. It allows you to be fully immersed in the 360 VR game environment as yourself, with everyone able to see and hear you, right down to your current facial expression. Of course, it will be a decade or so before the price comes down enough that the rest of us get to try this out, but its good to know it is on the way.
The dialog-free feature animation The Red Turtle was created by teams from France Belgium, and Japan. As the trailer makes obvious, the Japanese partner on the project was Studio Ghibli, nice to know I can see a new film by them this long after the studio closed. Also this week, the Lost in London LIVE experiment, where Woody Harrelson will create a movie live and stream it into theaters in real time. That one is on Thursday the 19th, and I might have to go see it just to find out it he succeeds.