Opinion Prone

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.

[View the rest of this entry…]

I saw “Anime Midstream” come up in the titles of a blog or two on my feed today, but didn’t pay much attention until I saw Anime Vice’s post about it, and that’s only because “Raijin-Oh” caught my eye. No one else mentioned that part. …Probably because no one else knows what the hell Raijin-Oh is.

Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh is an old 90’s kids’ super sentai mecha series (you can watch the opening theme here). It’s also one of the first anime series I’ve ever seen way back… in the 90’s. I saw it as a hilarious Chinese dub. It was amazing. I have many fond memories of it. And it’s apparently been picked up by some new company called Anime Midstream. It’s amazing to me that something so old, random, and obscure should be licensed out of the blue, especially by a newbie company, and especially in the middle of this economic crisis. I love Raijin-Oh, haven’t seen it in years, and would love to revisit it, but there’s a lot about this license that concerns me. Taking a peek at Anime Midstream’s website was all it took.

[View the rest of this entry…]

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.

[View the rest of this entry…]

So it seems that Jump’s launched a web site/portal/promo page for the DOGS anime (I can’t tell exactly what it is since I, uh, can’t read it), and it includes our first look at the promotional art for the OAV, which could be indicative of the style they end up with in the actual animation. My first thought is the realization that there are going to be a lot of sacrifices. Miwa Shirow’s style is very detailed, super clean, but occasionally chaotic. He also uses a ton of spot blacks, which is something I think almost always loses its charm when color is added (just take a look at Watchmen; hunt down the inked pages and compare them to the colored ones).

[View the rest of this entry…]

Live action adaptations of anime have been getting a lot of coverage lately. Since that official trailer came out, I’ve given up on Dragonball, or I should say Dragonball Evolution. Piccolo being green is its only redeeming point, but considering that’s how it should have been all along, it’s not really redemption after all. I was a skeptic all along, but originally, I’d been planning on humoring it and going to see it in theatres anyway because hey, it’s Dragonball. I’ll go to make fun of it, but I still would have gone. Not so much anymore. Considering our flailing economy, a few laughs that will undoubtedly turn into uncontrollable tears isn’t worth the ticket price.

That live action Cowboy Bebop movie got a lot of headlines today because it looks like Keanu Reeves really wants that role as Spike Speigal after all. I’m still skeptical about it, but after all the disastrous news for Dragonball, but was a little cheered knowing that Reeves is a fan and hopes to preserve the original integrity of the anime.

Now, TOKYOPOP just sent me an email exclaiming that it’s got a deal for a live action adaptation of Priest, one of its manhwa properties. Apparently, it’s something that’s been floating around for a while, but now it’s got a shiny new director I’ve never heard of so there’s new life to it. I’m not familiar with Priest, but it’s Western horror and vampires. Not really something I’m particularly interested in, so I can’t decide if it’s better suited for Hollywood than, say Dragonaball. If Twilight’s any indication, I guess vampires have a place. Western horror? I dunno. Crappy remakes of Japanese thrillers seem to be big, so even though this is Korean, maybe that appeal will still be there.

I never liked the idea of TOKYOPOP restructuring and making that New Media division. I still think it’s pretty stupid and pointless of them to try and expand into new areas when their core market is suffering so much. I suppose licensing out a property doesn’t really require much effort on their part, but I’d like to think that they have some hand in production to keep the property from deviating too much and going to hell. So I’m not sure how much I actually want TP to succeed in this endeavor because I just want them to go back to focusing on their manga. They don’t need a New Media division if they keep laying people off. I really can’t see this movie being a huge box office success though, even if it stays pretty low budget and B-list like it feels like it will.

It’s probably too early to be speculating, anyway. I wouldn’t be surprising if this title continues to flounder around the next few years, if it gets finished at all.

Well, that didn’t take long.

When Viz broke the news about streaming Naruto Shippuden, I began counting the days until someone would announce a near-simultaneous release for a new series as opposed to an established series. Now, less than a month later and after a good bit of hype, Bandai announces that its new license is Kurokami, an anime based on a Korean manhwa (licensed by Yen Press) set to start airing next season! Apparently, it will also begin airing on IATV next season, with each episode airing in Japan, South Korea, and the United States within 24 hours…dubbed! That’s definitely a huge surprise. To think that they actually dubbed off of pencil tests and unfinished animation just to be able to get this release together on time. That’s all kinds of wow. The domestic DVD release is supposed to follow the airing, so it’s likely we’ll get the DVDs around the same time as well.

Of course, this doesn’t exactly follow the groundbreaking Naruto announcement in that this title won’t be streaming online. A near-simultaneous dub is certainly a more impressive feat, but on a channel that not a lot of people get? I don’t know if my family gets IATV here, but I know for sure that the cable my college supplies isn’t going to have it, so there will be no way for me to catch this on TV. Kurokami was one of the few series I was actually planning on watching next season, so this is really disappointing. But there’s this to consider too: if the whole point of near-simultaneous releases is to deter pirating, why would Bandai skip an online streaming release?

[View the rest of this entry…]

What a huge sigh of relief. Looks like it’s going to be the best case scenario and all my fears from this post have been quelled. The DOGS anime will only be a two-episode OAV, which means we won’t have to deal with filling in a whole season’s worth of episodes with only one manga volume of content! That also means there’s a pretty damn good chance that the anime will follow the manga faithfully… so it’ll pretty much be an animated version of the sound dramas? Haha. It would be pretty hilarious if they used the vocals they already recorded and just put it to some pretty animation.

It might be too early to be speculating, but I wonder what this might mean for future DOGS anime? It’s hard to say how long of a project DOGS: Bullets and Carnage will end up being, but considering it’s scheduled to be at volume four by the time the OAV releases, there’s enough material to fill up a normal season now. Does this mean we’ll eventually see a normal-run series based off Bullets and Carnage? I’d like to think that chances are high…

Yes, yes, it seems we have a confirmed airdate now. Or, well, not a date. A month. April 2009. Fullmetal Alchemist. I find it curious that it’s just “Fullmetal Alchemist” though. There is no “2” tacked on. No subtitle. The ten second clip on the official website doesn’t seem to reveal anything new or big (the video’s also on YouTube since the website’s getting lagged to death by otaku). The character designs are the same as before. Al is still in his armor body. Roy still has both his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say we were just seeing a trailer for the original series. What’s going on here? Am I going to get my wish after all? Is the ending of the first series and that movie going to be retconned? Are we picking up from halfway through the series and finishing it from there?

Or is this not a sequel at all? Are we starting over completely?

Some people seem to be speculating that this series will start from the beginning, but this time, it’ll strictly follow the manga. I haven’t seen anything official regarding this yet, so I’ll believe it when I see it, but I don’t think it’s an unlikely possibility. I still haven’t read the manga myself, but I might have to soon if this is the case. I think it’ll be incredibly weird to go through the anime again with this alternate storyline though — especially if character designs, voices, etc, etc, remain unchanged. Has something like this ever happened before? Has a series that veered off from its source material gotten redone so that it’s now true to the original?

[View the rest of this entry…]

OMG FANGASM NOW.

OMG TAKAHIRO SAKURAI IS HAINE. AKIRA ISHIDA IS BADOU. JUST LIKE THE DRAMA CD. OH MY GOD. And Taneguchi of Code Geass will be involved. Holy shit. This makes me so happy.

I swear I don’t normally post this kind of fantarding nonsense. But I make the exception for DOGS because I love DOGS. I really need to get off my ass, reread everything that’s out and review the sucker because it really deserves more love.

My only concern is [View the rest of this entry…]

edit, follow-up: Crunchyroll just never stops, does it??

I really don’t have time to elaborate right now (lol, class in three hours, what?), but I just wanted to say that:

Viz, I’m so proud of you!

BELIEVE IT!

As Japanator says, this isn’t the first time it’s happened, but there’s never been anything of Naruto proportions, and now we’re going to have Naruto himself! I haven’t watched Naruto since around episode 114, so this doesn’t actually affect anything I do, but it’s still great news all around. I was already surprised that they got Code Geass R2 dubbed and ready to air just a month or so after it finished airing in Japan, but now I’m going to be counting the days until we get official subs a week or less aftering airing in Japan for new series. Sure, they’re new episodes of Naruto Shippudan, but Shippudan has been airing for a while now and they’ve got catch-up work to do. I want official subs for new season series’ episodes! I just almost feel it happening. I can imagine the press releases!

This is exciting.