My personal view on anime, as it is become a visible media niche in the world. Just like any other medias, it have its share of pukes and good ones....this is my view on it. Whimsical? Informative? Overly serious? Too silly? What the hell I still watching anime? Thoughts like this runs through my mind here.
Zombieland? Land of the Dead? Dawn of the Dead? Shawn of the Dead? Left for Dead?
Lately zombie genre has doing pretty well and guess what, anime now jumping into the bandwagon. Highschool of the Dead is zombie apocalypse mixed with Japanese school girl and katana slashing action. The manga is great for shits and giggles, not meant to taken seriously. Heck the illustrator, Shoji Satoh used to draw for hentai stuff.
Likewise, I would expect the anime not to be taken seriously, it is a roller coaster ride ala Zombieland (which btw an awesome movie). Boobs, tits, skirts, pantyshots and zombie chomping action coming in your way, soon! Yeehaw!
She is famous for her work on Shuffle! series. Her works also featured in many eroge games and been active since 1994.
Her first well known moe project is Ugo Rice where her illustration is said to be key factor reviving the dead town of 16,000 people into a happening place with anime fans flocking there to buy the rice thanks to her illustration. From there, the ball starts rolling where now there is even battery laced with moe drawings. Some people credited her as the catalyst of this phenomenon. What amuses me the most is the watermelon moe edition by her.
"The story is set in Shanghai in 1931, when the Imperial Japanese Army has been dispatched to mainland China due to the relatively recent First Sino-Japanese War, Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. In this cosmopolitan city of intrigue, there is a special military spy organization called "Sakurai Kikan" that has since been buried in history."
Basically it is an espionage drama during interwar years (1919-1939) situated in what then cosmopolitan city of Shanghai. During that period, spies from various Great Powers came and doing intrigue (cloak and dagger stuff) against each other since China was a failed state with bountiful resources. Usually a favourite epoch/genre for many Chinese dramas from Hong Kong, it is rather unusual for anime to do a story from this era of this genre.
Now though question is how Imperial Japan will portrayed in the series. They are not nice bunch of people during those years in reality so I assume the anime will somewhat tone it down and make them the good guys who scheming against voracious Western Powers especially Russia. Or even the treatment of Chinese in the story going to matter or not.
Jun Matsumoto (Persona -trinity soul-) is the director with A-1 Pictures funding on this series. Shinsuke Onishi (The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye, New Getter Robo, 009-1) is supervising the scripts.Staff wise it looks pretty ok but what I wondering if it will be historically fair or not. But again, if Hollywood can make historically biased movies, I am not counting too much on Japanese anime to give it an even tone. Soon to be aired in 2010 spring.
This is rich! Chinese animation now is coming up with mecha anime; Astro Plan.
It is heavily influenced by Gundam Seed to Macross. The hero even looked like the dude from Gundam Wing. Need I say more?
This habit never gets old. More pictures can be seen here. Have to say this though, they have technical skills and know how but they have to keep copying other people? I don't understand.
For past 1 month I have been reading this manga slowly. My verdict so far?
Not bad.
The mangaka is obviously a big time dog lover, while the characters were quite generic in presentation; the dogs were given such lavish and detailed drawings. She is more interested in depicting earthly realism of people's relationship with mongrel pets, likes to pay attention to issues of adopting a dog as part of life in modern Japan. This is what escalates this seemingly dog centric manga into more interesting read since it focuses on the humans more instead of spending time on dog fetishism. The characters are alright but the male lead is kinda annoying to me though. He just rubs me in wrong way. Lupin, the heroine's dog is pretty funny though.
Sprinkled with occasional fan service (which is pretty mild for me) and off beat humor, the manga promises a slow but interesting read for casual fans, hardcore fans might find it a bit too mundane though. The mangaka did not mince words about mortality of pet dogs too unlike Hollywood's big taboo about depicting dead dog in the movies (I mean there is even a movie about dogs go to heaven made in Hollywood). That is what clinches this manga for me. The author did veer into more spiritual factor of the relationship which many dog owners will insist it did happen.
I would endorse this manga for casual readers, buy it or rent it. Hardcore, very specialized manga reader might give this a miss though.
Animesuki forum has been buzzing excitedly about this upcoming series from creator of Bakemonogatari (Ishin Nishio). From this review, it does have a promising story with interesting hook and unique art style, but, my initial positive response is kinda dimmed when I don't see Shinbo or Shaft Studio here. Not helping when looking at the attached director (Motonaga Keitaro) is the dude who did few lemon series like boring Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka, overhyped School Days and horrid Amaenaideyo. In his defense however, he did direct some episodes of my top favourite space opera series, Seikai no Monshu and Senki. A relatively unknown studio WHITE FOX will be handling this series, their most recent release is Tears of Tiara TV. There are 12 light novel volumes out for Katanagatari with one spin off volume. So far from what I read or heard, this is not exactly his/her best work but this is just second hand opinion.
It has ambitious release schedule of 1 month per episode in OAV/OAD format with 20 expected total. One wonders if it is for quality control purposes or some new marketing idea to prevent pirating of the series. Or it could mean investors are confident this baby will make money. Afterall, it is kinda hard to miss Aniplex in the trailer.
Until then, it is remains to seen if this series able to give surprises like Bakemonogatari did in 2009.
As 2009 closing to its end, this been a great fun writing the blog. And I hope it is fun for readers too though admittedly the content could be longer.
Makoto Shinkai is now on a new project, did not say what its name and reveal only barebones of the upcoming story. Another story that dwell on lost and nostalgia, it seems. Don't be surprised with skyshots of gorgeous clouds and blowing wind.
Studio Ghibli will adopt Mary Norton's The Borrowers as their next movie. Don't think the 2 Miyazakis will direct this one though, Ponyo did not do as well as Spirited Away in international market and Tales of Earthsea is considered not very commercially successful so maybe the father and son are licking their respective wounds.
Being a long time fan of Oishii, I am very, very excited about this news since I sucker for mecha genre and philosophical (some say he is too pretentious) director. The thing is however, I do not know whether it will be animation or live action. But I don't care which one since I will just grab a boxful of popcorn and watch it anyway. Yeah!
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