Bandai Namco Games has announced on Monday that production on 30 minutes of new animation footage has been green-lit for the Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 fighting game, which will ship for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles in Japan on November 11.
The new "Dragon Ball: Super Saiya-jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku" (Dragon Ball: Plan to Destroy the Super Saiyajin) animation will remake the story first told by the 1993 Nintendo Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System) game Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiya-jin Zetsumetsu KeikakuOVA) project, but the new game's "revival animation" is being produced with all-new footage.
The Dragon Ball Kai television anime series is now running in Japan (and in the United States under the name Dragon Ball Z Kai). However, unlike Raging Blast 2's all-new animation footage, Dragon Ball Kai is mostly composed of remastered archival footage with new digital effects on selected scenes.
Bandai Namco Games has already confirmed that the Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 game will ship in North America this fall.
1993-94 anime about ghost-hunting duo was created by Zettai Karen Children's Shiina
The North American anime licensor Sentai Filmworks has announced on Wednesday that it licensed the Ghost Sweeper Mikami television anime series. The 1993-1994 supernatural action comedy adapts Takashi Shiina's manga about an avaricious ghost hunter named Reiko Mikami and her loyal yet hapless assistant Tadao Yokoshima. Manga Entertainment had once licensed the 45-episode television anime and its 1994 film spinoff, but only released the film in English.
Shiina's original GS Mikami Gokuraku Daisakusen!! manga ran in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine from 1991 to 1999, and 39 book volumes were compiled and published in Japan. Shiina has since created the Zettai Karen Children manga which inspired its own anime franchise.
Story of violent winner-takes-all game set in streets of Tokyo
Actor Yuya Yagira will be starring this fall in Tokyo23: Survival City, WOWOW's live-action television series version of the manga Tokyo23 by writer Takeshi Arashida and artist Eiji Hashimoto. The story takes place within the 23 wards of Tokyo and centers on Noboru (Yagira), an unemployed youth whose dream is to become a martial arts fighter. Noboru and fellow competitor Dan (Kanata Hongō) enter the "X Game," a deadly competition where participants are given a mysterious bracelet at the beginning. Those who are still wearing the bracelet at the end of the competition are awarded with a prize of 100 million yen (about US$1.1 million). However, the prize for those who cannot keep up is death in the most unusual manners.
The original manga ran in Coamix's Weekly Comic Bunch magazine from 2008 to 2009, and three book volumes were compiled and published. The television series is scheduled to run for five episodes in WOWOW's Saturday midnight timeslot starting on September 4. Ryō Nishimura is directing off scripts written by Yūsuke Watanabe (20th Century Boys trilogy, Robo Rock, Bloody Monday, Kami no Shizuku, Yasuko to Kenji, Gantz). Other cast members for the show include Maho Nonami, Rin Takanashi, and Yoji Tanaka.
All of Daycon's proceeds slated to go to local animal shelter
The Leaf Chronicle newspaper reports that a "mini" anime convention will be held on Saturday, August 7 at the Customs House Museum in Clarksville, Tennessee. Daycon's proceeds are slated to be donated to Clarksville's Cats Are Us animal shelter. The event was conceived by four anime fans who wanted to create an anime convention in their area, and they decided to donate any money made by the event to the shelter.
The entry fee for the one-day event is US$5.00 and includes access to all of the convention's activities, which run from 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. These include a cosplay contest, a raffle, karaoke, and a Monsterpocalypse game tournament, as well as panels on cosplay, Para Para, Japanese cooking, and other topics. An official website for the event has launched with a schedule, location information, and a video tour explaining the location and parking for the event.
Other anime-related charity functions include the auctions at many conventions such as SPJA's 2002 charity auction to benefit victims of 9/11, 2009's online charity auction hosted by a collection of American anime companies and professionals, and the 2009 charity screenings of Evangelion 1.0 and Metropolis.
Funimation also starts streaming of Okamisan, Blessing of the Campanella this week
The North American anime distributor Funimation began streaming promotional videos for Hetalia and Birdy the Mighty Decode on the YouTube website this week. Videos include a Hetalia (pictured at right) Season Two trailer and a Season One promo that focuses on the character Sealand, as well as a Birdy the Mighty Decode (pictured below) trailer.
Along with the trailer, Funimation posted the English dub cast of Birdy. Luci Christian, will voice Birdy, an interstellar federation agent, and Micah Solusod will voice Tsutomu, a high school student who has his mind hosted within Birdy. The rest of the cast is as follows:
Tuto: J. Michael Tatum
Bacillus: Chris Ayres
Sayaka: Brina Palencia
Natsumi: Cherami Leigh
Irma: Wendy Powell
Gomez: Newton Pittman
Geega: John Swasey
Hetalia Season One will be available on DVD on September 14, and Season Two will be available on DVD on October 12. Birdy the Mighty Decode will be released on DVD on October 26.
Funimation began streaming the first two episodes of the ongoing Okamisan (Ōkami-san to Shichinin no Nakama-tachi) television anime series at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, and it will launch its streaming of Blessing of the Campanella (Shukufuku no Campanella) on 2:00 p.m. EDT on Friday.
10th Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai volume to add prologue for romantic comedy TV anime
The limited edition of Tamiki Wakaki's 10th Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai (The World God Only Knows) manga volume will ship on September 17 with a bonus DVD. The DVD will include an exclusive "Flag 0" prologue to the upcoming television anime series, which will premiere on TV Tokyo in October. Ayana Taketatsu will voice the heroine Ayumi Takahara, and Aoi Yūki will play the character Mio Aoyama.
The romantic comedy manga centers on Keima Katsuragi, a high school boy who is known as the "Capturing God" for his success at romance simulation games. However, thanks to a contract with a devil, he now has to capture the hearts of real girls to catch the runaway spirits hidden in those hearts.
Also on Kindle: more Youka Nitta, Shiuko Kano, Makoto Tateno
ANIMATE USA has announced on Wednesday that it is releasing "Pet in Love," a bonus Pet on Duty boys-love story by Nase Yamato, exclusively as an electronic book on the Amazon Kindle Store. ANIMATE USA is also releasing Youka Nitta's Sound of My Voice Golden Goose Part 2, Shiuko Kano's P.B.B. Play Boy Blues - Act 2, and Makoto Tateno's See You in the School of the Muse Volume 1. (See You in the School of the Muse is a full-length book, but unlike the other releases this month, it is in Japanese.)
ANIMATE USA is the American arm of Japan's ANIMATE retail chain for character goods. The company already released the main Pet on Duty book and the first installments of Sound of My Voice Golden Goose and P.B.B. Play Boy Blues on the Kindle Store. Broccoli Books' Boysenberry boys-love imprint had previously released Pet on Duty in print, and Central Park Media's Be Beautiful boys-love imprint had previously released Sound of My Voice and P.B.B. Play Boy Blues in print.
Kindle Books can be read on Amazon's own Kindle devices (in several different versions), a free App for iOS, Android, and Blackberry mobile devices, and the free Kindle application for Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.
Story of 50-year U.S.-Japan alliance by manga creators who teach "Marine's English"
On Wednesday, he Headquarters of the United States Armed Forces in Japan has posted the first manga issue that it developed with the Maritan manga creators to celebrate the 50-year alliance between America and Japan. Our Alliance — A Lasting Partnership (Watashi-tachi no Dōmei — Eizoku-teki Partnership) features the work of artist Yukio Hirai, Hobby Japan
The Maritan franchise was launched by Mahō no Kaiheitai Pixel☆Maritan (Magical Marine Pixel*Maritan), a manga/CD set that teaches Japanese people how to talk like a U.S. Marine — with profanity. The official Maritan web diary announced on Tuesday that the U.S. Armed Forces will host a booth with the Maritan staff and the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) in the Chara-Hobby 2010 convention during the August 28-29 weekend. The Maritan staff and the JSDF have already been jointly hosting a booth at the same convention every year.
Thanks to military/manga translator Anastasia Moreno for the news tip.
1-shot Rakko 11-gō gag comedy to run in Weekly Shonen Jump on August 9
This year's 35th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine has announced on Monday that the next issue will ship on August 9 with a 15-page story from Rakko 11-gō (Otter #11) — the manga from the fictional world of the Bakuman. manga series. Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's Bakuman. story revolves around two aspiring manga creators in high school. In the world of Bakuman., a professional artist named Kazuya Hiramaru created Rakko 11-gō, a hit gag comedy manga about otter people. Rakko 11-gō was even made into an anime in Bakuman.'s world.
Viz Media announced at Comic-Con International last year that it licensed the Bakuman. manga for North America. An television anime adaptation of the manga has been green-lit
Risque story of high school boy who turns invisible after eating salmon roe
The Japanese distributor Interfilm is revealing on its website that Yasuhiro Nakanishi's Oh! Toumei Ningen (Oh! Invisible Man) manga is being adapted into a live-action film, which will open in Japan this fall. The risque comedy centers around a high school freshman who is boarding with an all-female family. One day, the boy sudden turns invisible after eating salmon roe. He uses his newfound power and gets himself into risque situations, especially with the girls in his house.
The original manga launched in Kodansha's Monthly Shonen Magazine in 1982, and 11 book volumes were compiled and published. Nakanishi later continued the story in the 21st century with Oh! Toumei Ningen 21. The sequel picks up a decade after the original manga when the protagonist is a company worker. Oh! Toumei Ningen 21 launched in Shueisha's Super Jump in 2002 and later ran in Oh Super Jump magazine. 8 book volumes were then compiled and published. More details about the film version will be announced in the near future.
10th Anniversary work with original character designs by Mel Kishida
The official website of the animation studio P.A. Works (true tears, CANAAN, Angel Beats!) is hosting a webpage and promotional video for the studio's 10th anniversary work, Hana-Saku Iroha. The project, which the video describes as "steadily in the works," features original character designs by Mel Kishida (So-Ra-No-Wo-To) and an image song, "Patricia," sung by nano.RIPE. The story centers around Ohana Matsumae, a 16-year-old Tokyo native who ended up working at a onsen ryokan (hot spring inn). Matsumae has yet to decide her future.
OVA modeled after computer game; 2nd DVD OVA re-imagines Alice in Wonderland
The third Black Butler II ( Kuroshitsuji II) DVD volume will ship in Japan on November 24 with the fourth television episode and a new original video anime (OVA) called "Welcome to the Phantomhive Family." The new video episode will be modeled after romance simulation games such as Angelique or Fantastic Fortune; the story will unfold from the perspective of the audience as the unseen "O-jō-sama" (Milady). The viewer is invited to a ball being held by the Phantomhive family.
The second DVD volume will ship on October 27 with a previously revealed OVA episode called "Ciel in Wonderland (Part I)." This episodes re-imagines the cast of Black Butler II as characters in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland story. Specifically, the main character Ciel (as Alice) is bored reading a report in his room one day when he spies his butler Sebastian wearing rabbit ears. Ciel follows The White Rabbit (who is muttering "I'm late, I'm late") down a hole into Wonderland. The rest of the cast appears as The Mouse (Elizabeth), The Dodo (Paula), The Fish-Footman (Bardroy), The Frog-Footman (Finnian), The Flamingo (Maylene), The Hedgehog (Tanaka), The Mock Turtle (Viscount of Druitt), The Duchess (Soma Asman Kadar), The Cook (Agni), The Cheshire Cat (Grell Sutcliffe), and others.
The producers of Black Butler II have not announced when the rest of the "Ciel in Wonderland" story will be presented on DVD. (The first DVD volume, which ships with the first two television episodes on September 22, is pictured at right.) Funimation is simulcasting Black Butler II in North America, and Yen Press is publishing Yana Toboso's original manga.
All video, TV episodes in Winter box set with Japanese, English dubs
The anime distributor Aniplex of America has announced that it will release the R.O.D -The Complete- Blu-ray box set this winter. The five-disc set will include the original three Read or Die video anime episodes as well as the 26 episodes in the R.O.D -The TV- anime sequel. The set will have Japanese and English language soundtracks.
Manga Entertainment once released the 2001-2002 Read or Die video anime series in North America, and 2003-2004 Geneon Entertainment (then known as Pioneer) released the television series sequel.
Synopsis: Boy wizard and schoolteacher Negi Springfield has come to the magical world in search of his father—but those plans have since been derailed by the machinations of villain Fate Averruncus. Some of Negi's students still need rescuing, and to do that, he must win a martial arts tournament in the historic city of Ostia. Jack Rakan, an old friend of Negi's father, has given the boy the tools to succeed in battle ... not to mention some vital knowledge about the heroic exploits of the elder generation. However, an unexpected maneuver by Rakan suddenly makes Negi's path to winning the tournament a lot more difficult! Now Negi must meet the challenge of fighting the best that the magical world has to offer—or be crushed under the pressure.
Review: Over the years, the Negima manga has had its share of watershed moments—those soaring, electrifying plot twists where everything comes together and you can even remember the exact time and place you were sitting when you read that chapter. New adventures beginning, epic battles coming to a close, and remarkable turnarounds that no one ever saw coming: Negi's saga has everything to offer to fans of magic, action and adventure.
But not in this volume.
Sadly, the 26th installment in the series is more of a placeholder, a mix-and-match of storylines that rounds up the current situation before diving into something more exciting. If anyone was expecting an epic magical-combat matchup between Negi and the one guy who can truly test his powers, well ... sorry, but that comes in the next volume. This one, on the other hand, is full of time-filling preparations for the big fight, which include: (1) Negi overthinking things (his response to just about everything), (2) a couple more of his dad's friends stepping in to help him out, and (3) training. Lots and lots of training. At least these chapters have the good sense to speed through the things that have already become familiar, and there happens to be one surprising turn of plot, but the tired old feeling of "We've been through this before; why do we have to do it again?" still remains.
Even the opening chapters, which finish up Rakan's flashback about the original Ala Rubra faction, fail to add any real punch to the story. The previous volume already covered all the good stuff in Rakan's flashback—the truth about Asuna, the origins of Negi's father and his friends, and the great war in the magical world. This section of the story, by comparison, is more style than substance, with a lot of cool poses and mind-blowing fight scenes but not much in the way of story development. Then there is the one utterly gratuitous chapter shoehorned into this story arc, a hot-springs visit that basically serves as an excuse to show some naked breast-groping and remind us of the reasons why Ken Akamatsu rose to fame in the first place. Honestly, Akamatsu is better than this, and he ought to know it as well—but with a shounen series being what it is, one has to throw a bone to the slobbering horndogs every now and then.
All right, so we already know that the fanservice quota has been met (and lines of decency have been crossed) for this particular volume. As for other aspects of the series' artistry, Akamatsu once again shows his obsessive-compulsive attention to detail in the backgrounds. Admittedly, most of it is computer-generated, but after getting over the "CGI is cheating" mentality, one realizes the level of effort that went into modeling the magical world. Certainly, the fantastical nature of these battlegrounds allows for a wider range of imagination than old Mahora Academy. Meanwhile, the character designs—although visually appealing—can still be hard to keep straight due to the sheer number of them (seriously, it's like Negi has more girls than that super-huge J-pop group). The most maddening thing about the artwork, though, continues to be the clutter and compression of the layouts—some of the finest fight scenes and magic spells are ruined simply because they have to share space with the twenty other things going on in the story. Sometimes it feels like Akamatsu's attention to detail and flair for special effects can only be enjoyed with a magnifying glass.
Magnifying glasses may also be necessary for deciphering some of the dialogue in this volume, which has a way of shrinking into corners and disappearing into the margins when the characters have a lot to say. Yes, some of it is vital—for example, any discussion of Negi's father, his associates, and their past—but there's also a lot of filler that's been heard before, like Negi waffling about whether he's strong enough to win, and the good guys vowing to do their best. Because of the crowded paneling, this boilerplate dialogue has a way of turning into walls of text a la Death Note or Ghost in the Shell. The sound effects end up like that too, often being overshadowed by artistic clutter and adding little to the action. There is at least one area where obsessive details are a plus, though: Akamatsu's appendices on magical theory provide unique insights on the use of sorcery in world cultures. This and other bonus features almost make the translator's notes look like an afterthought (but still, a useful afterthought for those who want to know the ins and outs of the Japanese language).
Clearly, there have been better volumes of Negima than this one. Not that anyone was expecting some kind of heart-wrenching, earth-shattering revelation—those things lose their effect if doled out too liberally—but the kind of churning and plot maintenance going on in this installment doesn't make for very effective storytelling. It tries to do too much, but accomplishes too little—one moment there's a dramatic flashback, then there's sexy hot springs action, then there's training for a grand upcoming battle, and who knows what else. This set of chapters tries to be all things to all readers and loses its cohesiveness as a result. With the series' artwork having the same pluses and minuses that it's always had, everything eventually comes down to how the story is handled, and right now it's not being handled all that well. Best to keep one's fingers crossed for a much more exciting Volume 27. Good luck, Negi.
Grade:
Overall : C
Story : D
Art : B-
+ Dazzling scenes of combat and sorcery, plus stunning backgrounds, continue to pop up regularly.
− Storyline doesn't really go anywhere aside from preparing for the big fight. Also, get ready once again for epic eyestrain.
Production Info:
Story & Art: Ken Akamatsu
Full encyclopedia details about
Negima! Magister Negi Magi (manga)
Synopsis: Dyed-in-the-wool punk Hanamichi Sakuragi hates basketball. It's a petty grudge—the girls he likes always seem to prefer basketball players to him—but a deep one. Let the word slip, and he'll headbutt it back into you. That changes when he meets cute and available Haruko Akagi. She loves basketball, and thinks Hanamichi has the height and prowess to play. Hanamichi, quite willing to settle for collateral affection, immediately takes up the sport. No matter that he doesn't know the rules, can't so much as dribble, and is constitutionally unsuited to teamwork and sportsmanship: if playing basketball will get Haruko to look at him, he'll be a basketball star goddammit. But a weird thing happens to him while he's struggling to make the team and play the game: he kind of starts to like it.
Review: If Touch is the honor student with the perfect personality and Fighting Spirit is the jock who is friendlier than his adrenaline addiction might indicate, then Slam Dunk is the class clown whose dark secret is that he's actually kinda smart. Maybe he isn't flawless, and maybe he won't do anything that'll make your heart try to leap up your esophagus, but darned if he isn't a boatload of fun to hang with.
Led by its overconfident dolt of a protagonist, initially Slam Dunk has more pratfalls and comedic disasters than sports action. Hanamichi's interest in basketball is purely carnal, his purpose in life not to excel at the sport, but to snag Haruko's heart. Being an ignoramus, this leads inevitably to him assaulting her crush, depantsing her brother, and insulting her favorite sport with his casual dismissal of its rigors. All to quite humorous (if not necessarily high-brow) effect. During these episodes, Slam Dunk resembles a romantic comedy more than a sports anime. Clashing sports titans are less important than the succession of romantic misfortunes inflicted on Hanamichi; thrills less important than laughs. Basketball figures into it, of course, be it Hanamichi's disastrous shoot-off with Haruko's brother or his departures from, and returns to, the sport. But the first actual game only comes thirteen episodes in, and Hanamichi doesn't take to the court until two episodes after that.
It's in that delay, however, that the class clown's dark secret betrays itself. While the series is goofing off, Hanamichi and his teammates are insinuating themselves on us. As we laugh, Hanamichi's potential—smothered under layers of braggadocio—bubbles slowly to the surface. When Haruko tears Hanamichi's heart out and stomps comically on it, we come to care for the big doofus and his equally oblivious objet d'amour. We learn the rules and quirks of the sport as Hanamichi struggles against the team's strictures, understand the dynamic of his team as he gets to know (often in less than optimal circumstances) the players on it. Only when we, like Hanamichi, are properly prepared does the series let us onto the court. And it is then that its dirty little stratagem becomes clear: It hasn't been larking about, wasting time until it gets to the good stuff. It has been systematically, even coldly, putting us in Hanamichi's shoes. When the game finally rolls around, we want Hanamichi in the game as much as he does. And when it ends, his triumphs lift and his defeats crush as if they were our own.
Even in the heat of basketball battle the series keeps a firm grip on its sense of humor, deftly shuffling the tense and bitter with the rueful and silly. Nevertheless, once the game starts, the show stops fooling around. No longer is the series a comedy; it's a sports drama with a sense of humor. When it returns to school life post-game, it does so with renewed comic vigor (the episode in which Hanamichi and a returning athlete bond over their rejection-rates is enough to rupture organs), but with sneaking tendrils of substance throughout. Hanamichi's growing love of the game is one, as is his best friend (and fellow brawler) Mito's protective regard for Hanamichi's new basketball-centered life. And when time comes to bring the school-life story to a boil, it's no rooftop spat; it's a brutal assault on the team, with their entire future and some heavy pasts on the line.
Slam Dunk dates from the early 90s, and it shows. The character designs (male) are pure yankee, all pompadours and sneers. The girls have bodies and eyes that cleave closer to reality than is presently the norm, and the whole thing, naturally, is animated cel by gloriously hand-drawn cel. You also get a full 90s complement of cheapo shortcuts, including such nostalgic stinkers as montage movement (where entire sequences play out in nothing but stills) and 50% SD rates. Body proportions can be pretty variable as well, especially Hanamichi's—though that is at least in part because he spends so much time in various stages of deformation. The series is definitely fun to look at (call me a reactionary, but I'll take cel over digital animation any day), but the basketball and hand-to-hand action get their impact more from timing, pacing and good old-fashioned narrative buildup than from technical prowess. Even the score is a vintage but purely functional mix of driving tech-rock and dippy musical humor—exactly the kind of do-your-job-and-forget-about-CD-sales soundtrack that dominated series prior to the age of multimedia anime empires.
Setting Slam Dunk alongside Touch and Fighting Spirit isn't necessarily fair. By episode twenty six Fighting Spirit already had possibly the finest fight in anime under its belt (okay, episode twenty-eight...so sue me). And by episode twenty-six Touch had already earned Mitsuru Adachi a place in my personal pantheon of gods. Slam Dunk... By episode twenty six it's done nothing more than provide twenty-six episodes of excellent humor and superior sports action. Rather plain in comparison. In fact, with its simple characters, love of gags and focus on straight-up basketball competition, Slam Dunk is a very bread-and-butter kind of show in general. You shouldn't, however, underestimate bread and butter. Empires were built on that stuff.
Grade:
Overall (sub) : B
Story : B+
Animation : C-
Art : B-
Music : C+
+ Basketball drama with a finely tuned sense of humor, excellent lead, and more patience and intelligence than its fun-loving nature might lead you to believe.
− Can get antsy waiting for the basketball action to begin in earnest; not exactly pretty to look at; ultimately pretty conventional.
Production Info:
Chief Director: Nobutaka Nishizawa
Screenplay:
Nobuaki Kishima
Yoshiyuki Suga
Music:
BMF
Takanobu Masuda
Original Manga: Takehiko Inoue
Character Design: Masaki Sato
Art Director: Nobuto Sakamoto
Producer:
Yoshifumi Hatano
Taro Iwamoto
Shigeki Nakamura
Nobutaka Nishizawa
Kiminobu Sato
Robot Damashii EVA-01 Movie Version
Series: Evangelion
By: Bandai
Cost: $50
Okay, guys. For once in this column, here's something you've actually seen before. As you're probably aware, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a serious merchandising force. Nobody's made anything quite like it since 1995, and geeks around the world haven't forgotten it in the slightest over those fifteen years. It's speculated that the huge amount of money Eva pachinko makes in Japan funded the new movie series, and I believe it. They may have built a life-size Gundam, but Eva is not too far behind: they also just finished a life-size Eva bust.
Today we have the latest in a fifteen-year stampede of action figures of Evangelion Unit 1. Boy, I remember being a junior high kid in the late 90s saving up for that piece-of-crap old Sega EVA-01. It was a lousy toy, but it came from Japan! You couldn't get stuff from Japan back then, so I convinced myself it was special. Don't make that same mistake yourself, kids: you can buy a lot of bad toys that way.
(This time I'm using the back of the box because I wanted you to see the silly pose that the Eva is in in the lower right corner.)
Anyway, here Bandai is taking yet another shot at EVA-01-- the movie version this time-- in their Robot Damashii line. We previously looked at Bonta-kun from this line, but this is the first time I've cracked open a Robot Damashii that wasn't a gag.
I mentioned this in an aside in a previous review, but just as Evangelion was an anomaly in the history of robot anime, the Evangelion units are anomalies in the larger history of the Japanese giant robot. Their design consciously avoids both the Heinlein-and-Gundam-informed Real Robot look and the brightly colored kids’ toy appearance of the Super Robot. While humanoid in shape, the Evas really aren't that far off from the monsters they fight, and the battles between Eva and Angel look more like particularly vicious deleted scenes from Ultraman than anything you see in a typical robot anime. The Eva is very much its own thing, and like the show itself, it spawned ripoffs for years and has been milked to death in merchandising for as long as it's existed. Of course, with Eva movies being made, the design of the Eva had to be changed somewhat so another legion of figures could be sold to people like us.
The same approach was unfortunately not taken with the Evangelion's jutting knee armor. It can't be moved and sits at an unfortunate angle that impedes crouching and kneeling movements, like any cool rifle pose you were thinking of. It's workable, as you can see here, but it's a little annoying and I wish it popped up.
The figure's not too great on armament (did I really need two prog knives and two pallet rifles or is Bandai just meeting a plastic quota here?) but boy, it's got a lot of hands. Gun hands, knife hands, a few open hands, and most importantly, flat hands for Jojo poses.
We've also got one pair of hands specifically molded for the Eva's silly gimmick: as you can see, the figure comes with a plastic AT Field with an opening that you're supposed to stick the monster's prying hands into. Fans will immediately recognize this from any number of sequences in the TV series and the films where Shinji and the Eva have to tear open an enemy Angel's AT Field with their bare hands before mauling it. Honestly, taking this shot I thought of the image from a certain classic Internet shock site: sorry, there isn't a ring to put on the Eva's finger.
Once again, though, I must raise my pet objection to the Robot Damashii line: while necessary for the gimmick, it's completely embarassing that the AT Field (a sheet of plastic) is given a stand and the robot is not. Especially with import markup, paying extra for a stand is just nuts. How am I gonna make this thing line dance?
Now I don't do numbers or letter grades, but allow me to change my mind for a moment and rate this figure “decent”. At this price, and without any particular attachment to the character, I can take it or leave it.
Want this figure? Well, while I (slowpoke) was writing this review, it sold out everywhere I could find it online. I think I bought the last one they had at Big Bad Toy Store, and Hobby Link Japan and Amiami say they're not restocking until September. Happy hunting at your local comic shop or convention! I'm sure you'll be able to find another Eva figure in the meantime... but will it be good? Don't ask me!
(PS: Will you be at Otakon next weekend? Will you be at Otakon early next weekend, like say walking into the place the very moment it opens on Friday morning? Great, great! I will be running a panel with Ogiue Maniax blogger Carl Li called “Riichi! Japanese Mahjong, Anime, and You.” If you're awake, come learn about this sport of kings with us at 9:30 AM in Panel 4!)
Review: When the last TV episode of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann finished airing in 2007, the series had all but established itself as the most bombastic, most over-the-top, most ridiculous giant robot anime of the modern era. But what if someone dared to surpass it? Such impertinence could not be allowed—surely this franchise must reign supreme atop the giant robot pantheon. And so, just in case anyone tried to outdo it ... just in case anyone tried to top that which could not be topped ...
... that's what Gurren Lagann: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars is for.
This raucous follow-up to Childhood's End is Studio Gainax throwing fuel on the fire, making absolutely dead sure that their work would have the final say in intergalactic mecha warfare. Imagine the spectacle of the final episodes, then add in new animations and new fight sequences, multiply it several times, and condense it into the length of a feature film—that is how one arrives at this movie. However, such a chaotic approach does not lend itself to elegant storytelling, and the first forty minutes are an unholy mess of rushed exposition and abridged plotlines from the TV series. The gleaming towers of Kamina City rise into the sky, the Anti-Spirals launch their attack, Nia turns evil and disappears into space, morally ambiguous Rossiu turns against Simon, Simon goes to jail, and at this point the only people who understand what's going on are probably the ones who watched the original in the first place.
Luckily, it gets better once they stop caring about the plot.
After all, this tedious churning is simply a pretext to send Simon and the gang into space to defeat all the bad guys in the universe. That's where the movie really hits its stride, charging full speed to the end credits with robots piloting bigger robots piloting even bigger robots, and trans-dimensional travel, and pocket universes, and space-time distortion so thick it moves like seawater, and basically every single law of physics being violated (plus several new ones being made up on the spot). But amidst such showboating, one must not forget the true soul of this saga: the characters, who despite their lack of nuance are still able to stir honest emotions in the hearts of viewers. How can anyone not be moved by heroes who stand up for what they believe in, friends who lay down their lives for each other, and a love that transcends multiple dimensions? Even at the end, with all guns and lasers blazing, there are moments of tenderness: the freshly-added "parallel worlds" sequence, the finale where Simon walks off into the sunset, and a surprisingly mellow epilogue.
Still, the story itself is only half of Gurren Lagann: this grand adventure would never be complete without the spectacular visuals that illustrate Simon's journey. Although the newly imagined world of seven years later is shiny and ambitious, with Jetsons-like cityscapes and revamped character designs, it still can't hold a candle to the sensory overload of deep space. As the battles and environments get more outrageous—in about two hours we go from standard human-piloted mechs to giant super-beings flinging galaxies at each other—the animation technique goes through similar levels of escalation. The final battle for the universe is fought in wild shades of technicolor (except when it changes to black and white for dramatic effect), with loose pencil-sketch lines and abstract shapes destroying any preconceived notions of "the anime look." Even the appearance of the final Anti-Spiral villain—a vague, humanoid apparition—redefines the idea of what a "Big Bad" ought to look like. With director Hiroyuki Imaishi at the helm, every fight becomes a showcase for Imaishi's frantic sense of motion; this is enhanced even further by additional scenes and new robots not seen in the TV series.
The movie soundtrack is similarly grand in scope, encompassing genres from pop-rock (mainly in the Shoko Nakagawa insert songs) to hip-hop to full orchestral soundscapes. As a composer, Taku Iwasaki knows exactly how to get that extra layer of emotion out of each scene, although the film ends up recycling many of the cues and themes heard in the original. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing—the reuse of "Sorairo Days" as an uplifting battle theme is a fine choice, and in fact ends up trumping the melodically weak songs that were written specifically for the movies.
As the end credits roll and heightened emotions die down, one has to wonder if Gurren Lagann: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars has truly set an insurmountable bar for bombastic, over-the-top, ridiculous mecha anime. It wasn't enough for the TV series to make its mark; Gainax just had to have the last word by producing these summary movies as well. For those who enjoy the thrill of massive robots fighting each other, this feature is pure animated bliss, although the act of cramming a TV story arc into two hours does hamper the plot. Not that anyone really watches this for plot substance anyway—it's for the emotional uplift and sheer unbelievability of it all, that there can be robots the size of the universe, that pure willpower works as an energy source, that there can be heroes and friends with the power to conquer time and space, heaven and earth. Not every masterpiece has to engage the brain. Some of the best ones engage the heart—a passionate, burning heart.
Grade:
Overall (sub) : B+
Story : C
Animation : A+
Art : A
Music : B
+ Takes the spectacle of the TV series's back half and makes it even more spectacular (if such a thing can be imagined).
− Does a sloppy rush job in trying to summarize the plot during the early part of the movie.
Production Info:
Director: Hiroyuki Imaishi
Series Composition: Kazuki Nakashima
Script:
Kazuki Nakashima
Masahiko Otsuka
Shouji Saeki
Kurasumi Sunayama
Hiroshi Yamaguchi
Storyboard:
Masayuki
Tadashi Hiramatsu
Yasuyuki Honda
Hiroyuki Imaishi
Shin Itagaki
Ryuichi Kimura
Tetsu Kimura
Osamu Kobayashi
Ayumu Kotake
Tetsuji Nakamura
Katsuichi Nakayama
Ken Ootsuka
Masahiko Otsuka
Kikuko Sadakata
Shouji Saeki
Hiroaki Tomita
Kazuya Tsurumaki
Episode Director:
Yasuhiro Geshi
Hiroshi Iketomi
Hiroyuki Imaishi
Shin Itagaki
Tarou Iwasaki
Ryuichi Kimura
Osamu Kobayashi
Ayumu Kotake
Hiroshi Kurimoto
Takashi Morimiya
Katsuichi Nakayama
Masahiko Otsuka
Shouji Saeki
Toshiya Shinohara
Seung Hui Son
Hiroaki Tomita
Hiroyuki Yamaga
Yorifusa Yamaguchi
Akitoshi Yokoyama
Toru Yoshida
Music: Taku Iwasaki
Character Design: Atsushi Nishigori
Art Director: Yuka Hirama
Animation Director:
Sushio
Shingo Abe
Akira Amemiya
Nao Chikaoka
Akemi Hayashi
Tadashi Hiramatsu
Katsuzo Hirata
Mitsuru Ishihara
Fumiko Kishi
Osamu Kobayashi
Chikashi Kubota
Ikuo Kuwana
Kouichi Motomura
Takashi Mukouda
Shouko Nakamura
Yuichi Nakazawa
Atsushi Nishigori
Shinobu Nishiyama
Takeo Oda
Kikuko Sadakata
Yuka Shibata
Kazuhiro Takamura
Masanori Yamada
Yusuke Yoshigaki
Yoh Yoshinari
Mechanical design: Yoh Yoshinari
Sound Director: Toru Nakano
Director of Photography: Toyonori Yamada
Producer:
Takami Akai
Yasuhiro Takeda
The retail Special Edition of the Black Rock Shooter anime will include a stop-motion video as a bonus extra, and the video extra will feature a remix of supercell's "Black Rock Shooter" song by Joe Hahn, the DJ of the American rock band Linkin Park. The announcement was made during the Asa Made Nama Won-Hobby TV 8 web show on Sunday and in the September issue of Hobby Japan magazine on Saturday. The stop-motion film extra was "made in Hollywood."
Hahn had previously directed an award-winning animated music video for Linkin Park's "Breaking the Habit" song. Hahn worked with animator Kazuto Nakazawa (Kill Bill Chapter 3: The Origin of O-Ren, Samurai Champloo, Genius Party Beyond's "Moondrive") and Tokyo-based G.D.H. International on the music video, and the video inspired a graphic novel by Tokyopop.
Hobby Japan magazine bundled the Black Rock Shooter anime on a free DVD with its September issue, and the anime will also be included in free DVD extras in Gakken's Megami Magazine (July 30) and Gakken's Monthly Animedia magazine (August 10). The project's website had already announced in March that this anime based on huke's character illustrations will be streamed for free to "everyone." The anime is slated to have subtitles in seven languages, and the official website launched an English version on Friday.
Evangelion: 2.0 film screened in Australia & NZ in August, September
ReelAnime 2010 has listed the locations of its festival screenings in Australia and New Zealand and announced its special guests. Yuko Miyamura, the Japanese voice actress who played the character Asuka, will be present in the Australian premiere of Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Ha). Miyamura also performed as Asuka in the Evangelion television series and The End of Evangelion film. Another guest will be Tiffany Grant, who voiced Asuka in the English dub of the television series. They will appear at the Dendy Newton theater in Sydney on August 5 at 6:30 p.m.
All of the locations for ReelAnime 2010 have been listed for Australia and New Zealand in September. Other films included in the festival are King of Thorn, Summer Wars, Redline, and limited screenings of Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone.
East Coast premiere of Goro Miyazaki & Ghibli's film on August 1
The New York International Children's Film Festival announced that it will screen Studio Ghibli's Tales from Earthsea (Gedo Senki) on August 1 in New York City. The 2006 movie is the first feature directed by Goro Miyazaki (studio co-founder Hayao Miyazaki's son), and it adapts the Earthsea fantasy novels by Ursula K. Le Guin.
This East Coast premiere of the film will take place on August 1 at 11:00 a.m. at the IFC Center theater. (The film will launch its regular run in New York City and other American cities on August 13.) The film is dubbed and features the voices of Timothy Dalton, Mariska Hargitay, and Willem Dafoe. The first families in line will receive Miyazaki DVDs and Earthsea posters.
Tales from Earthsea is set in a medieval world with castles and dragons. The world is threatened by an imbalance of magical forces when a dark sorcerer seeks to attain immortality. Three people rise to fight the sorcerer, including troubled young Prince Arren, master wizard Sparrowhak, and a young woman named Therru.
