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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.
So what is the greatest full-length anime film ever made? Ghost In the Shell? Akira? Metropolis? Spirited Away? Wings of Honneamise? Anywone Know? I always figured it was Akira, but that's just me.
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?"
Personally, I find it interesting to see how anime is having a greater influence in all art forms with time. It has gone from a cult-ish art form to now being featured in music videos (Linkin Park's sensational "Breaking the Habit") as well as a majestic scene in Tarantino's Kill Bill. And these are the obvious ones. As the article says, we have seen it in the Matrix, etc. This is not something that is going away anytime soon...
...which discusses numerous things happening on the anime front...
I'll venture a guess that the top story on the anime front is some guy hovering in the air screaming at another guy hovering in the air - with various colorbursts displayed behind them all the while. They continue this for several minutes, building up to a short, rather anti-climactic fight.
But I could be wrong.
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Although I did like Spirited Away, it had a very Alice in Wonderland sort of feel. I can't stand listening to the English dubs though- that little girls voice in the English dubs is so whiney and annoying. But yeah, Akira is the best. It is just fantastic. It's like blade runner and clockwork orange all in one. The manga is much better (because there is just so much more there), but the movie is just drop dead amazing. Next I would say Vampire Hunter D, and the sequel as well. Then would come Macross Plus. Then would Lupin the third and the castel of Caligastero The list goes ever onward after that, including some pretty weird and obscure ones.
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Lots of ASCII-art type Anime characters there, except that all of it is source code.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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.
Innocence
/. anyone who can't handle it...
Steamboy
Howl's Moving Castle
You'll find links onward to trailers from here...I'd paste the direct links, but I don't want to
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Ah yes, the words of someone who has not actually sat down to watch a good amount of it. Actually watch the movies. Get something directed by Miyazaki. Castle in the Sky. Princess Mononoke. Grave of the Fireflies. Nausicaa. You will understand.
(This comes from someone who spent about US$2000 on anime related expenses in their first year as a fan. And that's only moderate. I know hardcore people who spend $6K and more on DVDs, artwork, posters, figurines, toys, accessories, etc.)
It happened at DragonCon in 1996 when this 260 pound, middle-aged, hairy guy walked past me dressed as Sailor Moon.
...... gotta be End of Evangelion, folks.
Because- Hey, what are you doing? I'm using this thing!
No! I don't wanna go back there! I WANT TO BE FREE, NOT IN REHAB! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO #@$@&(#$(*@#^# - NO CARRIER
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
A lot? I'll give it to you that there are a few out there but when you look at the ratio of good anime titles to the entire catalogue and do the same comparison with a comparable movie category, I believe anime wins by a landslide. If nothing else, you have a large volume of enjoyable material.
I think the downside to Anime is the translation factor. I know that when I'm watching even the good flicks that I'm missing so much because I don't speak the native language. The phenominal visuals and character depth can easily be undermined by poor dialogue.
My favorite plus in regards to Anime is that it offers the ability to have rediculous character/monster design that would be impossible to fund/produce in the same live action genre. (At least in volume anyway.)
Are there any live action movies out there that have ninja's fighting horribly grotesque monster villians? Not that I know of... (If there are, I would bet the production quality and special effects are very poor compared against something like Ninja Scroll for example.)
::signature space for rent::
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.
Not that I didn't like some anime movies I've seen, but a lot of people seem to be really obsessed with it. And a lot of those obsessed seem to fall into the geek category.
So here is my question:
What is so fascinating about anime (as compared to other movie genres) and why do animes have such an geek appeal?
An acquisition and release date haven't been announced, but are basically formalities. For comparison, it took about a year for Spirited Away to make it from Japanese theaters to US theaters.
The film is already scheduled for theatrical release in France early in 2005.
It's also making an appearance at the Venice Film Festival. I don't expect it to win 'Best in Show' like 'Spirited Away' did at the Berlin Film Festival, but it's great to see animation put on equal footing with live-action unlike the Acadamy Awards.
Ninja Scroll. That movie got me started on Anime. Will always be my favorite.
I scanned the article and saw no mention of the new ghost in the shell tv series, "Stand Alone Complex."
If you like anime, or liked the original movie. Go buy this on dvd. Now. Its simply the most remarkable anime I have seen in more then 5 years (and ive been doing this for more then a decade)
At a million-bucks-an-episode budget, this title is visually incredible. Almost movie-quality effects everywhere. The soundtrack is haunting and fits so well, as does all of yoko kanno's work.
The themes of the movie are better fleshed out, and the characters more developed. (and more accurate to the manga, by many accounts)
Oh yeah. The DTS track on the LE dvd blew my mind.
I was shocked to see this anime. Its the best Ive seen since Cowboy Bebop.
no
Coming to the Staples Center! Stare in amazement as the Giants of Anime take on the Monsters of Rock! Can the vixens of Sailor Moon survive in the Spiked Cage of Death for three minutes with the hellcats of L7? Cringe in horror as the KISS Army takes a full frontal assault from the Red Ribbon Army!
As allways, we'll sell you the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge!
The TV series is 95 episodes long. The last third of the series has a bi drop off in story quality because the show outran the Kenshin manga that it was based on, so the storyline was no longer based on it.
-MDL
Happy meals fund terrorism
Even then you aren't finished. Exactly what do you find entertaining. What does make a story involving. What stuff have you already thought about and don't need to be reminded by a movie?
The one that made me think was "Grave of the fireflies" a movie you could compare with the western "Empire of the sun". Both tell the what happens to kids in times of war. I liked one review that claimed fireflies was the best movie he ever watched and never wanted to watch again.
Of course if you like Akira and Ghost in the shell you might find fireflies very slow moving even boring. Perhaps. Depends for what reason you like the first two.
Another highly regarded movie you don't list is "Angels egg". One of the few movies you could watch without knowing any japanese and still be able to "understand" what is going on.
This will probabaly get me modded down but the movies you list are the typical "hollywood approved" anime movies people in the west have heard about. Doesn't mean the movies are bad or any less then their more unknown, in the west, siblings but if you really want to find the greatest anime movie ever you need to do a little bit more watching. Akira may then still be the greatest to you but at least you will have a longer list to show you watched anime other then the ones with a western approved release.
Oh and my favorite movie? I don't really have such a thing. There are far to many great movies I have seen that I like for different reasons. I am afraid that if I pick a single movie that "scores" best in all my catogories that I am falling into the hollywood trap of creating movies to appeal to everyone that end up appealing to no-one. Just saw a docu on Red Dwarf. American movie studie wants to cast Hugh Grant as Lister.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"Who needs the opposite sex, I've got you Jessy!"
Spirited Away has nothing on Team Rocket.
fortune -o
Anime geeks rejoice, your time has come!!
^_^
-_-;
>_<
<('_'<)
^('_')^
(>'_')>
Gundam barely got a mention. No shoujo (girl's) anime mentioned at all. Not much mention of anime TV series...
Lot of good anime is based on novels too, though they're rarer. I feel that most novel conversions are great (though my Japanese isn't good enough to read novels) but I often feel let down by anime based on an original manga series. Patlabor, Hellsing, Azumanga Daioh and Gunslinger Girl are good examples of manga conversions though. I'm probably picker than average though.
Some examples of anime based on novels: Slayers (TV series a lot more slapstick than novels though), Read or Die, Scrapped Princess, Crest of the Stars (and follow-ons), The Tweleve Kingdoms.
Crest of the Stars is one of my favourite series - battles in a 2D universe, the interesting Abh culture and language (the author made up his own language and character set), and some very interesting characters. In pretty much any western series, if you have a race of genetically engineered people, it pretty much has to be a distaster - not so in CotS. Also, democracy vs royalty - democracy has to be superior... but not in CotS. Pretty fun. Ahh... if they'd only make another series...
The Tweleve Kingdoms is awesome too. Doesn't seem that way at the start, but it has some incredible plots and character development. More!
I am not talking giant robots here. I am talking far simpler things. Scene at an airport. Scene at the busiest crossing in tokyo. Scene with a kid.
Ever notice how many of the live action series take place INSIDE? Because it is cheaper to film in a studio then on location. Canadian cities are very popular to shoot series that pretend to be in american cities because it is cheaper to close down a street for a shoot.
You might also notice that many anime involve childeren as the leads. This is a huge problem in live action as there are very strict laws about what you can and cannot make a child do. You might have noticed that series in the west about high school students have actors in their 30's.
Ultimately anime is just another media through wich a story teller can tell their story. There are a lot. Just like you can be told the story of "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" through a radio-play, a series of books, a series of comics, a tv series, an upcoming movie and even a computer game. All have their own charms and give their own capabilities to the story teller.
I get the idea that you can't imagine those capabilites as you seem to think that only "real" movies are worth it.
Animation comes in with the live action but removes the need to find suitable looking actors and the need to build complex sets or get permission to film in real world location.
Animation gains the power of movie images without the restraint on the imagination of the author. If the author can imagine it then it can be done in animation.
As I said before this isn't just about special effects but about simple things like a war movie involving childeren. Filming in real life locations.
Ultimatly only a snob would dismiss a story telling media. It is the story that matters and how well it is told. If war and peace had been done in a comic would you not have read it? Read Lone wolf and cub sometime
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
An excellent film that my wife will never ever watch again. Another good one is Chinese Ghost Story.
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Wired ignores the most creative figure involved with anime today -- Yoshitoshi Abe. Abe was scarcely out of school when his character designs helped bring "Serial Experiment Lain" to life. This groundbreaking work would have been a far more arid exercise had it not been populated by Abe's characters.
Abe (and part of the Lain team) went on to make the interesting, but not entirely successful "Niea_7". For this, Abe contributed not only character (and environmental) designs, but the basic story.
Abe then went on to create one of the most beautiful and moving animated series ever -- "Haibane Renmei". Inspired more by the films of Angelopoulos and Kore'eda than other anime, this understated story of young people reincarnated in a bucolic limbo is not only wonderfully animated but remarkably sophisticated theologically (in a fundamentally non-denominational fashion).
Most recently, Abe has teamed up with much of the crew from Lain to make his most visually compelling work yet -- "Texhnolyze". This dark dystopian work adapts the fragmented narrative methodology of John Brunner's greatest sf novels ("Stand on Zanzibar", "Sheep Look Up") in a thoroughly cinematic fashion.
Any discussion of anime giants that doesn't include Abe (and his colleagues) is incomplete.
Credo quia impossibilis -- Tertullian
I get the impression that Hollywood is blocking Anime. Could it be that they see it as a threat? My experience is telling me that Anime is no longer a cult thing. I'm 27, and my youngest brother (11 yrs) to people my age (30s) are watching and collecting anime. It's available in mainstream stores now (Best Buy, movie stores) and video rental places offer them.
But I don't see them in theaters. Spirited Away didn't even make it into as many theaters as Gigli! Live-action anime-like movies get even worse treatment. Granted, Kill Bill was successful, and the comic movies do well. But Shaolin Soccer was a hit in China and Japan, but it can't seem to make it over here. My younger bros wear Naruto t-shirts to school, but I hear that will never be licensed in the US.
What's going on?
Sincerely,
Japan
excelent post. but i will hold off on modding it to add to it.
I havent seen this movie listed in anyones posts:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0093207/
Wings of Honneamise. its such a simple movie, with little action, but it was the first anime I had ever seen that had a "normal" plot. It told a story and did it extremely well, held my attention without resorting to giant robots and the like. much like some of the movies you listed.
Just wanted to through that out there... since noone else has.
still, my favorite movie might be Akira. I have seen it so many times I cant even count... The first time I saw it was in jappaneese without any sub-titles (I dont speak jappaneese) and I have seen it many many times since, every translation, every dub. I still notice something new every time.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Tatakae! Dainippon Teikoku (The Japanese Imperial, Go!) by Shintaro Kago. This story is an alternate history of WWII by one of the artists who appeared in Secret Comics Japan. The Japanese army have perfected a technique that turns human beings into giants, but for some reason they can only enlarge females. Patriot girls dedicate themselves to their great emperor and become giant weapons against the inhuman Allies. The girls are customized for each purpose. Some girls are made into tanks and some girls are made into battleships. Their guns are their asses and their bullets are their hard constipated shits.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
For some reason the idea is in the west that only live action is capable of telling "real" stories. These people just like the author of this article always have to point out the turd fighting super giant robot girls. At the same time neatly forgetting that this kinda stuff appears in hollywood movies as well. Or exactly what is "Attack of the 50 foot woman" about again?
There are other reasons to, so here is my bullet lists of reason why anime isn't being seen in the rest of the world.
But while nudity and sexyness is more accepted in japanese anime, sex itself is far more restricted. Not at all unusual for at least one of the leads to be a virgin.
Simply put the people in manga/anime can behave to different for western tastes. Or at least that is what tv/movie bosses think.
All this may make it difficult to show most manga/anime in the west. Exactly how do you market an extremely popular series like Ranma? At kids? It got nudity. At adults? The main chars don't even kiss. Do you translate typical japanese things to their western equivalent even if that ruins any chance of the joke coming across? Do you explain the joke? Make up your own?
I already see such things when I watch The Muppets on dutch tv. 2 stories for the price of one. The english audio and the dutch subs.
Disney was a business man and story teller who really studied the art of animation. He certainly has tried to create animation that was not just for kids but sadly most people think disney == kids. There fore cartoon == kids.
To bad those people will miss out but it is there loss not mine. Disney isn't to blame. People that dismiss intresting forms of story telling because it takes a certain form are. It is like saying casablance is slapstick because laurel & hardy is black & white.
If you are going to blame anyone blaim the catogorirs. Who on earth would put Shindlers List in a category with Police Academy? Then why is Grave of the fireflies listed in the same category as Pokemon?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you are going to watch this movie I do recommend that you know this. It is not a feel good movie. The most important mistake you can make is to see it as important wich side the kids are on. It is easy to shrug off their suffering as the result of japans own actions. It is an absolute fact that japan has only the historians to thank for the fact that most of their war crimes are forgotten. They were in no ways less then those commited by the germans/austrians. In my personal opion in fact worse. The germans just gassed childeren. They didn't rape them time and time again in pleasure houses for their soldiers. The germans also have paid billions in damages. The japanese haven't even admitted that raping childeren is bad.
It is al to easy to go into this movie with the feelings that japan deserved to be bombed. It did. But these kids were not part of it. They had no more choice then the kids being raped by japanese soldiers. They are ultimately the victims of things outside their controle.
Just as the movie Tora Tora Tora shows how a series of events leads to the start of the pacific war, a series of events where at any time someone might have stopped it all from happening. Grave of the fireflies shows a series of events where two childeren end up dead. Not because of evil actions but because at several steps no-one took action.
Others are angry that the boy took not better care. This boy is not a movie hero, he is based on the author of the story. His owned sister died of starvation because he would when searching for food would feed himself first. He survived. She died. Just as he might have been able to save his sister in real life if he had been a better human being the movie brother might have made smarter choices. What I do think is missing in the movie is the emphasis that there simply wasn't any food to buy. Rice is not enough.
Ultimatly I think this is a road movie. You know from the beginning how it is going to end. What you watch the movie for is the journey. Do not judge the travellers. If you want to do that you better be 100% sure that you are a better human being then the characters. It is easy to blame someone in this story. That takes the guilt away from us. Because the real guilt is that this story is happening all around us today.
This is not an anti-war movie. That is to simple. It is a "this is what war is really like" movie.
If you have read the reviews and still go "but it is a cartoon" then you are one hell of shallow thing.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I like how articles like these focus on anime productions that exist outside of the mainstream. Flicks like Innocence, Howl's, and Steamboy are about as far from regular Japanese animation as you can get. Innocence and Steamboy mostly failed at the Japanese box office, but hope to do well internationally. Howl's will do as well as any Miyazaki film, but Ghibli movies have an appeal that reach far outside the anime fandom.
Contrast those works and some of the others mentioned here (like Yoshitoshi Abe's stuff) to what we typically see in the Japanese anime mainstream: giant robot that, magical girlfriend this, harem anime that, 150-episode fighting anime this. Sturgeon's Law applies here.
anyone else amused at how the article calls Production-IG the "Miramax of Anime"? I'm sure they meant that in a nice way...