Katsuhiro Otomo’s Manga for Akira was impressive, and when they rolled out the Akira Anime it totally changed the way the world viewed Anime in general and Japanese Science Fiction in particular. Several years ago some folks in Hollywood bought the rights to turn it into a live action movie, but so far haven’t done so. Now the fans over at The Akira Project have made their own crowd funded live action trailer, and it looks amazing. If the official Hollywood version ever gets made, I hope it looks half this good. Thanks to the folks at Japanator for the heads-up on this one.
In movies we have I, Frankenstein topping the list with its near-Dean Koontz like premise, great cast, and excellent special effects. In a completely different style but still with excellent production values there is Her, a touching story about a man who enters into a relationship with his household operating system. This Spike Jonze movie won a ton of awards, and is more than worth your time to check out. Goodbye World is one I missed in the theaters about the world ending while some old friends hold a reunion, and while the premise sounds ordinary it has the potential to be interesting if they did it right. Special ID has Donnie Yen as an undercover cop with some serious Kung Fu fighting for his life against China’s most ruthless crime syndicate. This looks to be the best week in movies we have seen in a few months.
In TV… not so much. In Anime, the Armed Librarians are back, with the The Book of Bantorra: Complete Collection. When you die, your soul becomes a book that anyone can read, and only the Armed Librarians can keep your secrets safe from the world. This series seems to have a lot in common with Black Lagoon (the anime, not the creature) in my mind. And then there is Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends NEXT, the 2nd season in the story of the school club that is supposed to be about making friends. They receive a warning that some of their activities (stalking, taking candid photos of their peers, playing adult video games, watching adult anime, and building time machines) are not approved club activities at their school. And finally, Deltora Quest is the complete series, 52 episodes of gem seeking adventure, striving to release everyone from tyranny once all the magical jewels are collected. And yes, this series is based on the Australian children’s book series written by Emily Rodda.
There is not much in Movies this week, other than another slew of re-released Godzilla films packaged up two movies to a box to take advantage of the forthcoming new movie version. There is also the western animated Son of Batman, an adaptation of the 2006 Batman and Son storyline which looks pretty good. Western TV series seem to be notable for their absence this time around.
In Anime, Persona 4: Complete Collection is a surreal tale of murder, mystery, odd weather patterns, a self-willed TV show, and clues from an alternate reality. Fusé: Memoirs of a Huntress is a historical fantasy about the shogun’s vendetta against a group of human/dog hybrids known as the Fuse. The huntress who joins in the search ends up befriending one of them, and begins to question everything about the persecution of the group. Finally, Aria the Origination also includes an OVA, continuing the stories of gondoliers on Mars.
If Miyazaki Films Were Like Other Anime is the name of this hysterical video, made by the folks over at College Humor, a site I tend to visit pretty much every week to see what new silliness they are up to this time. Of course, Hayao Miyazaki never made an ordinary anime in his life. Each work he crafted was amazing, and are some of the best animations in the world.
He is called the God of Manga because he not only wrote some of the most iconic Manga of all time, including Astro Boy, but he basically invented the system of Manga and Anime creation and marketing in use to this day. Earlier this month Google opened up an online version of the Tezuka Osamu Manga Museum with a huge number of exhibits and displays for those of us who can’t get to western Japan and see the real thing. If you are a fan of Manga and Anime, you want to check this one out. Expect to spend some time there, because there is a lot to see and read. You could always follow your visit by getting some of the original Manga and reading it, even a lot o the older stuff is still available.
In movies, the 2010 live action version of Space Battleship Yamato is finally coming to the US. The original Anime series, begun in 1973, changed Japanese science fiction profoundly, bringing a more complex and serious storyline than had yet been seen. It influenced and inspired many anime series to come after it, including Neon Genesis Evangelion. There have been many sequels and some animated feature films over the years, but this is the first live action version they have ever done, and I can’t wait to finally see it. Probably the strangest selection this week, Escape from Tomorrow is a comedy/horror film that takes place in a famous theme park owned by a media conglomerate. The most recent interpretation of The Legend of Hercules will also be on the shelves this time around. It is noticeably closer to the original story than the TV show was, but I really enjoyed the Keven Sarbo version. I also have to mention the Gamera Legacy Collection 1965-1999, with 11 films compiled into a single 4 disc set. I know these have all been released before, but I don’t believe you could get the majority of them in a single box. They only seem to be missing the 2006 reboot, Gamera: The Brave, which is a shame, because that would be the completest collection. The same group, Mill Creek, is also releasing them remastered in Blue Ray, breaking the set apart into a couple of boxes for that version.
In TV, Star Trek Enterprise: The Complete Series is finally being released in a Blue Ray version. It has been available since 2005 in SD, and you could get the individual seasons on Blue Ray, except for season 4, which is also coming out this week. The other show is Godzilla: The Complete Animated Series, the 1998 show meant to continue the story from the Mathew Broderick movie version. Like Enterprise and Gamera, it was previously released, just not all in one box set.
In Anime, Amazing Nuts! is a 4 tale anthology, each done in a different animation style, and each featuring a different contemporary musical artist setting up the audio track. Yes, that does mean it is essentially a collection of animated music videos. This one has been available as an import for years, but this is the first North American release I am aware of. The pieces average 15 minutes each, so it isn’t very long, but this project is a great sampler of what Studio 4C is capable of. If the name sounds familiar, perhaps you have seen some of their other projects, like the Animatrix, Tekkonkinkreet, Steamboy, or Memories, to name a few. Cuticle Detective Inaba is an artificially created half-wolf private investigator (a former werewolf police dog) out to stop the criminal segment of the half-human portion of the population of his city. Expect to laugh your ass off and enjoy the adventure, but don’t be surprised if you are groaning a bit as well, since this show is a high-density pun environment.
There are two shows being released in a S.A.V.E. edition this time around, allowing you to add them to your collection for about $20 each or less. Cat Planet Cuties has a bevy of alien Cat Girls descend on Kio’s house to use it as an embassy, quickly followed by a large assortment of female secret agents and cultists of various types. I particularly liked the tip-of-the-hat of the dog planet bad guy’s laugh, being an exact duplicate of another famous bad-guy animated dog; see if you can name the dog it came from, or at least the show he was on. Shangri-la is a story of poverty and desperation vs. wealth and technology (medical and otherwise), made even worse by the destruction of the environment. Kuniko isn’t going to stop fighting until she gets all of her people to safety in whatever way she can, and the orbital city looks like her best option.