Opinion Prone

October 2nd was this year’s 24 Hour Comic Day, a day where comic artists everywhere break their backs and their wrists by attempting to produce, in its entirety, a 24-page, standalone comic in twenty-four consecutive hours. And, by amazing coincidence, it was also the debut of the highly anticipated, at least on my part, Bakuman anime — the animated adaptation of a manga about some kids drawing manga.

The Bakuman manga, licensed by VIZ Media, recently made its US debut. I picked up the first volume and intended to write some kind of review, but at this point it probably isn’t going to happen. However, with the first volume relatively fresh on my mind, I approached the anime with every bit of my usual neurotic purist caution. I was psyched about the anime, but I have a tendency to be disappointed by adaptations, even when I try my hardest not to be. Surely the anime would lose something on the meta level, now as an anime about manga, rather than a manga about manga.

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You know, it’s funny. I went into this with the full intention of not taking the film adaptation too seriously so maybe I could enjoy myself for once. A lot of people who haven’t read the books tell me that the movies are fine, that they aren’t confused or lost, and that they completely understand what’s happening. I can appreciate that. I don’t really want to be a hater. In fact, I spent most of the previews making sure my brother was sufficiently calmed since he didn’t like the sixth book much at all and therefore probably wasn’t going to enjoy a movie made of it. Within the first ten minutes, our positions were swapped and it was him trying to convince me that it really wasn’t that bad. I try to shelf my purist fanrage. I really do! It’s just very, very hard for me (apparently).

(this review briefly mentions minor spoilers for HP1-5;
spoilers for HP6: Half-Blood Prince are contained under spoiler tags)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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You know, I almost didn’t want to write this review because it meant I had to keep thinking about this movie, and all I want to do is forget that it exists. My immediate thoughts after viewing Dragonball Evolution were: “LET’S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED.” Sentiments haven’t changed much since then, but I’m pleased to hear that it’s bombing at the box office. I hope pray this means that they’ll put to rest their undoubtedly terrible sequel/trilogy plans. Anyway… this review. It’s obviously not going to be pretty, but I’m going to at least try and shelf some of the fan rage in favor of a coherent analysis. Try.

Dragonball Evolution

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Okay. You know, now I’m just kind of confused.

We had our first look at the art of the DOGS OAV back in December. It was questionable, particularly for Badou and Haine’s designs, but I decided to be optimistic. This optimism seemed to have paid off, as the short trailer that surfaced last month looked brilliant. There actually aren’t many shots of Haine in the trailer, but Badou, at least, looked terrific. (Camoflague print is still missing from jacket, but I’ll live.)

Now, some character sketches seem to have surfaced, and it looks like we took three steps forward just to take ten steps back?

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Well, it looks like all those rumors were true, and TOKYOPOP hadn’t been jumping the gun after all. ANN announced this morning that Sunrise has officially confirmed the live-action Cowboy Bebop project as a collaboration between itself, 20th Century Fox, and 3 Arts Entertainment. And whaddaya know, Keanu Reeves is going to be Spike after all.

I can’t say I’m really surprised, but with every bit of news that comes up, I find myself getting a little more optimistic about the prospects for the film. It’s a cautious optimism, but it’s optimism all the same. At the risk of repeating myself, I’m going to give Reeves a chance. It’s true that almost all of the roles I’ve seen him play (which admittedly, isn’t many) all have the same general personality — that stoic, reserved, almost confused kind of person that doesn’t really suit Spike Spiegal at all. But nevertheless, if Reeves is really an actor, then he should be perfectly capable of acting outside of his comfort zone, especially if it’s for a character he actually likes and admires. I had huge doubts about Heath Ledger being cast as the Joker, but look at how that turned out. I think it’ll be really interesting to see if he can pull it off and perhaps grow as an actor.

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Being on TOKYOPOP’s mailing list sure brings interesting news sometimes. According to this most recent email, it seems like Keanu Reeves as Spike Spiegal is a sure thing:

Spike and friends are blasting off on a new adventure as plans for a live action film adaptation of TOKYOPOP’s Cowboy Bebop have just been announced! Keanu Reeves (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Matrix trilogy) will star as Spike Spiegel with Erwin Stoff (I Am Legend) to produce.

Of course, TP can’t be considered a reliable source as they have nothing to do with the film at all. (I love how they claim Cowboy Bebop as their property.) They’re just using the tidbit to promote the Cowboy Bebop manga they have. The article they link doesn’t explicitly cast Reeves as Spike either (or at least, it cites an interview that’s already been torn apart by the aniblogosphere and the general consensus seems to be that he really wants the role, but it isn’t a sure thing yet).

I think they’re just jumping the gun on that announcement, but I don’t think I really care at this point.

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Earlier this week, Japanator posted about how the Latino Review got a hold of a working script for the upcoming live action Akira movie. Apparently, it comes down to this:

Good news: They appear to be sticking very close to their source material, even taking the initiative in incorporating parts of the manga that never made it into the animated version. This is fantastic because even though I’ve yet to get around to reading the manga, it’s obvious that there’s a lot of storytelling and explanation missing from the movie. To make room for all this extra stuff (after all, the manga is kind of long), they’re making two movies. I’m a little more skeptical about this if only because I feel like they might shit out on a second movie if the first one doesn’t fly far, but if they film them both at the same time, then it might not matter all that much. But in any case, sticking to the script and being faithful to the source material is usually the #1 concern of existing fans, and it seems like things are so good so far.

Bad news: Regardless of how faithful any adaptation is, there are always at least a few changes, minor as they could be. [View the rest of this entry…]

You know. I’m actually surprised about the number of posts I’ve already made about the upcoming Dragonball movie, but I can’t seem to help making posts when stuff like this comes up:

If that’s Goku’s oozaru form, I think I’m gonna cry.

Okay, okay, so they say that it may not be a final shot, but if Fox requested that it be taken down, then it must be official in some way shape or form, right? Or they might just want the general bad impressions of the movie to slow their rampant circulation. Still… this screenshot makes Goku look more like a creepy lizard than a gorilla. I always wanna say this would have made a better Piccolo, but it wouldn’t really. I can live with Nosferatu!Piccolo all right enough.

In any case, I look forward to any follow-up screenshots that come from this and/or seeing the final product if this is indeed a work-in-progress…

I was actually going to sit down and watch some more Spice and Wolf, but for one reason or another, my mouse went and clicked on this instead. So what the hell, here’s the sequel to NANA and what will probably be my last dose of shoujo slice-of-life for a while.

Okay, non-anime topic time. Hey, Japan loves the four-eyed wizard boy too.

Now and again, I like to keep up with news in the Potterverse. I could get into a detailed ramble thousands of words long about exactly what I think of the series, but I’ll spare us both the trouble. Suffice to say that I’m a fan of the books. Despite my best efforts, I’m rather purist about it all and so most of the movies don’t sit well with me, but I’ve really come to love to hating them. (Oh, man, making fun of the Order of the Phoenix movie was great.) As such, I was kind of looking forward to the 6th movie’s release in November and was very surprised to find today, quite by accident, that it’s been pushed back eight months to July 2009. And why? Not because they’re not finished with it. They’re done. It’s just…they want a summer blockbuster instead of a winter-release film. …Wait, What? :|

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