Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy in Theaters

echocharlie writes "Steamboy is rolling into US theaters on March 18. The movie features the notable return of Katsuhiro Otomo, who hasn't directed an animated film since Akira, so big things can be expected. The film opened in Japan earlier to mostly rave reviews. The english cast features Anna Paquin, Alfred Molina, and Patrick Stewart. That's interesting casting since all three have had prominent roles in comic book movie adapatations (X-men, Spider-Man 2, and X-men respectively), not to mention Mr. Stewart's famous sci-fi ties. Anime films without Pokémon in their titles haven't fared well at the US Box office (see Appleseed, Tokyo Godfathers, Ghost in the Shell 2, et al.). Hopefully with an adequate number of theaters carrying the film, Katsuhiro Otomo's latest opus will gain the exposure it deserves."

Comments

Oh Joy!

[goofyspouse]

Another film full of doe-eyed characters with exclamation point hovering over their heads to express alarm and exaggerated sweat droplets popping out everywhere to show fear? Pass.

stop bringing over garbage

[SuperBanana]

Anime films without Pokémon in their titles haven't fared well at the US Box office (see Appleseed, Tokyo Godfathers, Ghost in the Shell 2, et al.).

With good reason. Before you knee-jerk mod me 'troll' for saying what is bound to be unpopular, take a look at my history and read through this first. I've watched 2 out of the 3 films cited, and they were pretty bad.

Appleseed's "cutting edge CG" turned out to be extremely poorly textured 3D characters with unreaslistic motion. Final Fantasy: Spirits Within was so much better in terms of visuals than Appleseed, it's pathetic (I won't get into story with FF:SW). Seriously- games these days have better graphics.

Ghost in the Shell 2 was another disappointment. I can't put my finger on it...it just never lived up to the hype, and the music was even worse than GITS:1...more of the screechy children. The Major was also a big part of why people watched GITS, and she had little role. Then again, the last few eps of GITS:SAC TV have been pretty bad too.

If the Japanese expect Anime movies to be successful, they need to ship over the very best- and with the exception of Spirited Away, they've shipped over nothing but garbage...and that's more a symptom, IMHO, of an industry focusing on mass-produced crap like One Piece, DBZ, Gundam, Inuyasha, and all the other 100+ episode shows.