Mai Mai Shinko to Sennen no Mahou / マイマイ新子と千年の魔法

Madhouse and Black Lagoon director (Sunao Katabuchi) is collaborating on this novel by Nobuko Takagi adaptation into a movie, soon to be premiered in Japan on 11 November 2009. Premise is set around 1950s, somewhere in a town located at southwestern Japan, where a nine-year-old girl named Shinko has an ancient family connection to a 1000 year old province of Suo which full of legends. Shinko joins Kiko, a transfer student from her school, on a magical adventure based on their imagination or it could be real. The novel is based on her autobiography.

If anyone wondered why this movie looks like Miyazaki, perhaps it is worth remembering that Sunao Katabuchi used to work with Studio Ghibli on Kiki's Delivery Service and Sherlock Hound the TV series. The trailer has good soundtrack, I have to say. I might check this out due to the fact I liked Black Lagoon a lot despite it feels and looks like children fantasy stuff like Eragon.

Main website

Solid Snake is real!

Embarrassed officials were at a loss to explain how Jean-Pierre Treiber, 45, a double murder suspect, managed to elude detection in the box he had built himself at a workshop in the high security prison of Auxerre, Burgundy.
With its hidden human cargo, the box was loaded with dozens of others onto a lorry for delivery to the Yonne region, southeast of Paris.

Source

Metal Gear Solid rocks. LOL

Akira revived?

Today I read this which made many anime fans were groaning in collective pain at news: live action Akira is still on the planning, 2 top script writers (Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby)is trying to adapt Akira for Hollywood screen. Who are these 2? Well these are the guys who did the script for Children of Men, arguably one of the best sci fi movie lately.

I for one, welcome this live action adaptation, since I have a hunch that it will be good. I definitely pay a ticket to see this movie.

Source

Winter Sonata / 冬のソナタ

Now I find this is weird as hell, why are they redo a successful live action series (which arguably launched the K-Wave phenomenon back in 2002) into anime series with same leads as VAs? What could they possibly able to achieve by this copy and paste project, to be honest?

I am interested to see the response to this series much later.

Official Anime Site

Mein Kampf / わが闘争 the manga

Heh,

I guess it is inevitable since Das Kapital was published last year in manga format hence the direct opposite is just screaming for a manga treatment. Here it is and apparently it sold well in Japan (45,000 copies now). I read it few years ago and it is nothing but anti Semitic ranting and presuppositions based on flimsy, historically selective bias.

I am not impressed with the book but at the time when Germany under heavy boot of economic downturn and hyperinflation, this book sounds like a great messianic salvation for the desperate Germans who wanted easy solution for their woes. Hitler seduced and played with their human weaknesses and strength to be their Fuhrer. Ultimately the Germans paid it with their own blood in Valhalla made by themselves in 1945.

Let me made this clear, I have no intention to purchase this manga. I have enough of Nazism and whatever they represented. It sucked.

Amazon Japan.

Bavarian state reject the plans to reprint it

Tokyology Documentary

This pop culture documentary of Japan, Tokyology hosted by a very hot Carrie Ann. This segment focused on anime and manga which I felt very instructive. It is easier to convey the culture using sight and sound instead of words. In the documentary, Carrie Ann interviewed Yoshitoshi ABe, the guy who gave us magical Haibane Reimei and brain sucking Lain.



That interview is the most interesting segment to me besides brief image flashes of pretty cosplayers. The rest pretty blah to me, lolita goth segment for example did not inspire any interest from me. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

Gotta to confess here, some of the cosplayers in this short video are pretty good looking. Gobsmackingly good looking. The film is available at select stores, anyone with interest of Japanese pop culture discussion might want to check the documentary out.