Opinion Prone

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…

“WTF Japan!” is actually a phrase that leaves my mouth rather frequently. American otaku like to think they’re hot stuff sometimes, but they will never be able to match up to the ridiculousness of the original breed, least of all the country that it all came from. No other countries takes its cartoons and comics as serious as Japan. You don’t hear about the Disney museum nearly as much as you hear about the Ghibli museum. The Japanese will riot and petition for the forest that inspired Totoro to remain as it is, but no one in the States could care less about whatever the heck inspired Walt Disney to draw Mickey Mouse. And what in all of the western world could compare to the otaku paradise that is Akihabara? We don’t have vending machines that sell action figures or crane machines full of high-quality collectables outside of every grocery store, and I could go on and on and on about how outrageous Japan is. I’m sure you could too.

But this is a new high bar for the absurdity that happens over there. Japan, you’re wacky and hilarious and I love you, but really. What the fuck?

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Wow. I’m a year late on this news, but this was brought to my attention by the SEQALAB podcast: they’re making a World of Warcraft movie.

I can’t decide whether I should be confused, perplexed, amused, or exasperated. Or all four at once!

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Okay. You know I’m all for product placement and hand-in-hand promotions. Code Geass has been especially apt at this, seeing as it was my example for that article too, but there is a point when the product associations just get… really weird. Sure, it’s a side thing and isn’t woven into the fabric of the show like the Pizza Hut nonsense was, but… c’mon. Can you really imagine the Ashford kids chillin’ on a rolling golf course? Okay, so actually, maybe it’s right up there with all the Mario Sports games… I’ve always thought those were kind of weird too, but Mario is a much more versatile property because it’s about plumbers saving a fantasy world. Code Geass, with all its quirk and crack, is still a show about terrorism (kind of). Besides, its main character is thoroughly established as someone not meant for physical activity.

So my first thought was this:

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I’m back from AWA. I somehow managed to miss every single panel that I had wanted to attend; managing an artists’ table was just far more time-consuming than I’d anticipated. I couldn’t step away for more than ten minutes at a time without feeling horribly guilty. In retrospect, I’m not sure I would have wanted to be in the room when Cartoon Network dropped the ball that they were canceling Toonami after its eleven year run. This so soon after the injustice they’re doing to Code Geass and Moribito? I’m sure that panel room exploded into rioting. And I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have been among the rioters if I’d been there, even though I personally haven’t watched Toonami in years.

It’s a Catch-22, I suppose.

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I’m currently in Houston and frantically hoping that my flight out of here tomorrow won’t be affected by Hurricane Ike. All flights are canceled starting from tomorrow at noon and well into Saturday. My flight’s at 10:10am. Sigh… Either way, I’ll be extremely busy for the next week and a half and likely won’t be posting much here.

Some interesting bits of stuff today though.

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I can’t help but laugh a little (and maybe cringe a little too) at the idea that Marvel is teaming up with Madhouse to create an Iron Man anime. Or, it seems that Iron Man might be sharing the the same anime as Wolverine? There will apparently be four series in total, but other characters involved have yet to be announced. It all seems rather jumbled to me right now, though whatever it is, the first series is due out in 2010, following/coinciding with the releases of the Wolverine movie and the Iron Man sequel.

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I was pretty annoyed a month ago when that alleged Bones document was leaked. I haven’t seen Darker than Black, but I definitely knew that I didn’t want a Fullmetal Alchemist sequel. The ever on-going status of the manga is irrelevant because the anime veered away from it a long time ago. FMA is done. It had a shitty-as-hell ending, but it was an ending, and I was done mourning the fact that such a wonderful series should have such a crappy conclusion (one that was further supplemented with crap via the movie). So I breathed a sigh of relief when Bones came in to trump the rampant rumors… only come back now and say, “lol, jk, it’s true after all!” Seriously, what the hell? Why would you do this to us? Why??

I have yet to see an originally unplanned sequel that is not complete trash. Storylines that are tacked on later just because the original was popular just don’t work. Look at Gundam SEED Destiny. Look at Dragonball GT. It has been four years since FMA finished airing, three years since Conquerer of Shambala. It can’t be more obvious they’re just milking this.

(The rest of this entry contains spoilers for the FMA anime.)

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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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I wasn’t expecting the rumor mill to kick into gear so soon, but it looks like some “reliable source” has said that Keanu Reeves has been “attached” as the role of Spike Spiegal in the recently revealed FOX Cowboy Bebop live action movie. Huh. Well, that’s interesting. I don’t really think anyone expected any big name actors to sign on for any of these upcoming US-made anime live action movies. I certainly didn’t, anyway, and I’m not quite sure that I want Mr. Reeves to be Spike. I’m having a hard time picturing it — what about you?

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