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The Giants of Anime are Coming
Wired is running a story about the Giants of Anime which discusses numerous things happening on the anime front, including the new Ghost in the Shell movie, and the upcoming Miyazaki release "Howl's Moving Castle". This is something of a background piece for people somewhat unfamiliar, but it also covers a lot of interesting bits that the fans might enjoy as well.
I think that one of the best things that could happen to Anime is the spotlight that Cartoon Network has put on it with Adult Swim.
I think that they should find more quality shows and expand Adult Swim.
"What the hell is an aluminum falcon?"
I saw Steamboy a month ago, and wrote a small review for my friends on my blog. May be of interest to some here:
[Steamboy] is a new anime by Katsuhiro Otomo (of Akira fame), set in England in 1851, around the time of the world exhibition in Londons Crystal Palace.
Visually, the movie is stunning. The characters are expressive and individualistic, the backdrops are beautiful, and, of course, the movie is replete with larger-than-life nineteenth-century steam technology. There is enough dramatic machinery and unlikely "science" in this movie to sate even the most rabid steampunk fetishist.
The story is complex and varied. I'm not going to detail it here - mainly because my Japanese just isn't up to the task of actually understanding all the twist and turns. I lost track about halfway through, to be honest, and Ritsuko too had trouble follwing it, in part because the speech tended to be fast and garbled. Nevertheless, they have managed to create believable characters with at least some depth, while at the same time all the clichés we know and love are well and truly fulfilled. The villain, for example, has an partial facemask and mechanical hand - I guess that adding a white cat and a monocle would have been a little over the top.
Did I like it? Yes, with a few reservations. This is a looong movie - 2h20m to be more precise. A bathroom break before seeing it is advisable. An of course, I can't really judge the story fairly when I don't really understand it - the end seemed to me to be a little artificial (not to mention wildly contrary to any scientific intuition), but as I couldn't follow the character motivations and interactions by that time, I can't be sure I understood it correctly.
Should you see it? If you like anime or steampunk, absolutely! And even if you don't, it has enough of an Indiana Jones kind of feel to it that I think you'll be entertained in any case.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
On the other hand, geeks are remarkably fickle about anything percieved as mainstream. I'm not saying that we automatically dismiss anything that is popular, but there is a strong preference for the exotic and unusual. Even when something is both normal and loved by geeks, we tend to take it to the next level (ala Star Wars/Star Trek and the flamewars fought over which is better).
/.? I don't know if we can overcome this attitude that popular = bad, and unfortunately I'm not sure that this perception isn't justified in many cases; obscurity _is_ frequently good for artistic integrity. You might regret it if the genre becomes mainstream.
For Amine, I really can't see the genre maintaining it's geek cred as it becomes widely accepted and influential (note: I'm reffering to the west here, not Japan where Anime is obviously percieved quite differently). Ask youself: if this was Pokemon specifically, would it be featured on
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
I believe that it was the Spawn movie that first used CG in a well stated and obvious manner - and they did some amazing things with that cloak of his, but it still somehow looked "out of place" because of the unrealistically bright shading used in the coloring.
and really, anime isn't about the drawings, it's about the story and the charecters. It's those same basic elements that drive the appeal of the movie, it's just that using animation removes all restrictions on visuals because you can make whatever you want look however you want without having to make any sacrifices in trying to find a location or actor that fits the director's vision - they can simply DRAW exactly what they want to show.
Animation in movies is beginning to become very widespread in the past few years now that computers are capable of producing some very realistic looking renders. you didn't actually thing that was Toby Macguire or a stuntman doing all those amazing acrobatics did you? Even only a few years ago, you could not have readily achieved those effects on a believable level.
Even if you prefer live action, and that's your perrogative if you do, you're still seeing the effects of animation in live action.