The entire lineup looks promising at the Fantasia film festival this year, running from July 9 to 29. While fps focuses on animation, Fantasia (the largest event of its kind in North America) is a combination of the best cult film worldwide, and has an impressive lineup of film of all types, including live-action and animated horror, action, fantasy, science fiction, weird and edgy films.

As I said, we like to stick with animation around here, but I have to mention this year's opening film, even though it's got (gasp) real people in it.

This year's opening film is the live-action feature Yatterman that began life as a manga in the 70s, which shortly after became an anime series (that was recently updated in 2008).
This is the part where we usually begin a lament (but not always). Definitely not this time!


The director is the irreverent Takashi Miike who made films such as Audition and Sukiyaki Western Django. To me this is more reason to see it. However, if viewers are worried about how he would do an all-ages film, I point to the fantastic film The Great Yokai War, which featured his signature style, but also was a wonderful film for younger viewers.

I think this film will be the type of fare which is best watched with an enthusiastic audience, in the same way that the live-action version of Cutey Honey (directed by animator Hideako Anno) wowed audiences just a few years ago.

The full Fantasia lineup will be available on Friday, July 3.

Labels: anime, Fantasia festival, features, festivals, Japan, live action, manga

Good news: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is returning with new episodes to Japanese television screens, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is on YouTube. The two titles mentioned above employ the same castmembers and staff, the same production studios, and both are further explorations of the source texts: the former a series of comedic science fiction novels, the latter Hiromu Arakawa's manga series. (FMA:B promises to adhere more closely to the manga, in a way that the original Fullmetal Alchemist didn't.) Hellsing, Evangelion and the Macross franchise have received similar treatments in recent years. And in an economy like this one, it's not hard to see why -- established titles have a built-in fanbase that can better ensure a return on investments of time and money.

The revival of these series has me wondering what other anime titles I'd like to see resurrected or re-explored. In many cases, anime series are filmed before the manga that precipitated them has ended, meaning that the anime ends at a point that doesn't quite feel like an ending. Here's a list of some series that I'd like to see dusted off and properly finished:

Labels: anime

TwitchFilm is streaming the trailer for First Squad, Studio 4°C's latest project. According to ANN, the film was helmed by Yoshiharu Ashino, based on characters created by Russian artists Misha Sprits and Aljosha Klimov. Here's the premise:

It is 1942. The Red Army is putting up a violent and effective resistance against the German invaders. 14 year-old Nadya is a medium. In a deadly air raid the girl is shell-shocked. Recovering from her concussion, Nadya discovers her new gift – the ability to foresee the “Moments of Truth” - the most critical moments of future combat encounters, in which one person’s actions will decide the outcome one way or the other.

Nadya’s ability is indispensable for the classified 6th Division of the Russian Military Intelligence, which is waging a secret war against the “Ahnenerbe” – an occult order within the SS. The Ahnenerbe summons from the realm of the dead the powerful prince of darkness, Baron von Wolff. With him on their side they hope to change the course of history and achieve world domination. To oppose the Baron Nadya decides to enlist the support of her old friends from the beyond – the Pioneers of the First Squad.

This looks like so much fun: all the fantasy pseudo-science of a good conspiracy theory with things like cavalry battles in the snow and utterly terrifying men in pig masks. It'll also be interesting to see how this treats the "Nazi obsession with the occult" theme in comparison to something like Conqueror of Shamballa. The first reviews will be out this May, after Cannes.

Labels: anime, Cannes, Studio 4C

Were you lucky enough to get your hands on one of the first pressings of Bandai/Honneamise's Akira on Blu-ray? If so, count yourself among the fortunate few. These suckers blew threw retail like a tornado through a Kansas farm, leaving all arms of the distribution chain empty and awaiting a follow-up pressing. There's a reason this thing was so hotly anticipated. Not only was it the first appearance of the classic animated film on a high-def format with a brand-spanking-new remaster that let you see the film as never before, but the initial offering shipped with a limited edition slipcase and a 32 page booklet, making up for the lack of extras on the disc.

Blu-ray.com has an excellent, exclusive feature on the restoration and remaster of Akira for High-def, including an explanation of why you won't find many special features with the release (Hint: It's because they've filled the disc with buckets of awesome!)

Via: TheBlu-rayBlog.com

Labels: Akira, anime, Blu-ray, High Definition, Japan

Wonder Woman (2009 - Blu-ray)

The Story:

Pretty good. Exactly what I was expecting. Not as focussed, structurally sound or iconic as i'd hoped but completely serviceable. To be fair, nearly every single criticism I can throw at producer Bruce Timm, director Lauren Montgomery and crew's animated Wonder Woman film can be explained away by it's two most villainous foes - budget and running time.

Read more after the jump:



Scribe Michael Jelenic by way of Gail Simone's story makes a grand effort of attempting to tell the definitive origin of DC Comics' Amazonian princess by amalgamating and slightly reshaping the best and most iconic elements found in the comic book series and on television. This Wonder Woman can't fly like the comics or Justice League cartoon incarnations and won't fight in heels like Linda Carter but is steeped in the Greek mythological background stuff that makes the modern DC version of the character feel timeless. In fact, the film skews heavily toward the sword and sandal tone, only allowing a hint of what Princess Diana's adventures in "Man's World" might feel like. And I think that's where it fails for me.

This fable feels most at home when exploring the lives, characters and mythology of the Amazonian world. It spends a glorious amount of its brief seventy-odd minute run-time focused on the toga/sandal crew and reasonably little on our protagonist's fish-out-of-water, island girl in NYC arc. A grave mistake, if you ask me, as that's where the character really shines, where she becomes the Wonder Woman that we all know and love. That version, the ideal status quo for the character is what the whole narrative leads us to in a denouement which really pays off. But along the way, the rush to explore every nook and cranny of the Amazonian plight leads to a juxtaposition of tone and style that doesn't always work, as if the climax of of Frank Miller's 300 was randomly staged in downtown Washington DC without much explanation. In fact, a lot of things get glossed over or unexplained in this story. Like the Invisible Jet that suddenly appears on the primitive Amazon island, for instance.

And, if the production team's comments are to be believed that sloppiness comes as necessitated by restricted budget and time. Sadly, it seems this vision for Wonder Woman was simply too epic to be contained in a short DTV feature. This is meant to be storytelling writ large and long. The music cues, riffing heavily on Shore's Lord of the Rings (with a little of Kilar's Bram Stokers Dracula thrown in for good measure) tell us as much right off the top. But you can feel the edits, the glossed over details, the deleted dialogue and scenes, the moments you were meant to love that ended up on the cutting room floor or the directors storyboard pages, as it were. I mean, this thing works well and looks good for a short, modestly budgeted video project. But ultimately, it serves best as a blueprint for Hollywood to follow and expand upon as they bring Wonder Woman to life, live-action on the big screen.


The Animation:

Compromise. That's the key word here. Director Montgomery talks often about it in the excellent and fairly candid commentary track on the disc. While this film looks and moves extremely well for a direct-to-video offering, sometimes expertly managing armies on screen, it can't compete with bigger budget films, where movement is perpetually fluid, dynamic and engaging and designs are kept strictly on model. Everything about the animation here is simply serviceable, with a small handful of action scenes being afforded extra attention - notably a beautiful sparring scene between Diana and Artemis early in film, boarded by the talented Brandon Vietti (The Batman, Superman: Doomsday) and the incredible call-to-action denouement by Dave Bullock (Kim Possible, Justice League).

Montgomery's character designs skew slightly toward her Disney influences, a welcome departure from Timm's previous 'house' style. Her large eyed, thin nose faces often look fantastic but are unforgiving and crash hard when Moi Animation Studio gets them even slightly off model. Character shading has a heavy anime influence, with more articulated shadows than previous efforts that, along with nice gradients and diffusion filters give the film depth with a more detailed look than WB animation is usually capable of. Add the occasional visceral, hand-held moving camera, common in modern action films and you have a look and feel appropriate to a PG-13 film.


The Final Word:

I really love that Warner is putting it's muscle behind these DTV releases. Despite any criticisms that I might have, i really enjoy the DC heroes in their various animated incarnations. And I can count this Wonder Woman film among my favourites. With a decent transfer and a handful of compelling features I can't help but give this disc a recommendation. As a PG-13 film, it's clearly focussed at fans and certainly not made for children but most viewers who enjoy animated adventure films will get a kick out of it.

Learn more about the Blu-ray and it's special features in my review over at TheBlurayBlog.com.

Labels: anime, DC Comics, Direct To Video, superheroes, Warner Bros., Wonder Woman

Last night I had the privilege of attending a seminar called "Anime and Contemporary Japanese Society," presented by the Japan Foundation's Toronto branch and the Digital Value Lab at Ryerson University, and supported by the Consulate General of Japan in Toronto. Presenters included Professor Jaqueline Berndt of Yokohama National University, and Professor Kaichiro Morikawa of Meiji University, with a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Eric Cazdyn of the University of Toronto.

After several rounds of applause for all the parties involved, Professor Berndt began a presentation called "Post-Critical Anime: Observations on its 'Identities' within Contemporary Japan." It compared and contrasted The Seven Samurai against Samurai 7, examining not historical accuracy (or the lack thereof) but rather the position each title holds in relationship to an imagined national culture. For Berndt, titles like Samurai 7 and Samurai Champloo are a-historical, existing in a fantasy of the past rather than an historically specific one. This slippery sense of historicity is key to a phenomenon in anime criticism that Professor Berndt wants to question, namely the preoccupation with reading Japanese identity into anime and presuming that anime stands for Japan rather than being a product of Japan. In short, Berndt wishes to undermine the myth of "Japaneseness," and instead focus on taste cultures within the nation.

Similarly, Professor Morikawa delivered a "tour" of otaku Japan, focusing on the geography of Tokyo's taste districts: Ikebukero (yaoi and BL titles, including doujinshi), and Akihabara (moe and hentai titles, including dating sims). Morikawa's presentation was extremely enlightening, exposing the gender and taste boundaries within Tokyo's borders, as well as proposing the idea of these fannish districts as an extension of the "otaku" (a loaded term that is at once a second person pronoun, a word for the household, an insult, and a label appropriated by English-speaking anime and manga fans) space -- a thirdspace where fans are safe to gather and form communities. Morikawa linked the phenomenon of taste districts in Tokyo to the ethnic villages of New York, then contrasted the architecture of these "private" or "closed" fan districts like Akihabara and Ikebukero to the "public" or "transparent" areas of Shibuya where consumption is conspicuous enough to warrant massive glass towers.

Dr. Cazdyn attempted to marry these two presentations through their shared problematization of time. He argued for a relationship between the non-existent past of Samurai 7 and the non-existent future of the Akihabara otaku, a group whose visions of the future, Professor Morikawa suggested, had darkened considerably since 1995 -- the year of both the disastrous Kobe earthquake and the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway system by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult (some of whom purported to be fans of Evangelion and other titles). Cazdyn defined anime as created by and through crisis, an idea that reminded me of Susan J. Napier's article When the Machines Stop: Fantasy, Reality, and Terminal Identity in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain. After his remarks, the panel opened itself up to questions from the audience, a conversation which quickly turned lively. Afterward, Professor Berndt remarked that she had never given this talk to so much laughter, and she was surprised at how informed her audience already was on the subjects at play. (Congratulations, Toronto; you know your anime!)

If you have the opportunity to see either of these presenters in action, I heartily recommend them. Their insights as anime fans living in Japan who still maintain critical distance from the subject matter is invaluable. I was struck by Professor Berndt's answer to a question about culture: as a German speaker who had lived in Japan for twenty years, she said, "I don't really know what I am, anymore. I don't know how to categorize myself." It was plain that she viewed this indefinable subject position as a strength, not a weakness. I'm inclined to agree.

Labels: academia, anime, Toronto

Anne of Green Gables (Akage no An) is one of Nippon Animation's World Masterpiece Theater classics. The series, based on Lucy Maud Montgommery's book was first broadcast in 1979, and is still popular in Japan to this day. The 26th season of World Masterpiece Theatre slated to start in April will adapt Budge Wilson's book Before Green Gables as Kon'nichiwa Anne 〜 Before Green Gables. It will cover Anne's life before she moves to Green Gables.

Via Anime-days.com (in French)

Labels: anime, Nippon Animation, World Masterpiece Theatre

Someone is allowing Keanu Reeves to play Spike Spiegel.

If the response across the web is any indication, fans of Cowboy Bebop are mostly infuriated by the news, with a hopeful few clinging to the notion that Keanu's anime fandom will translate into a performance along the lines of, well, faithful cosplay.

But add it to news of Leonardo DiCaprio's live-action Akira, (with Joseph Gordon Levitt playing Tetsuo), and a live-action Ninja Scroll, plus M. Night Shyamalan's live-action whitewash of Avatar: The Last Airbender,* and we're looking at a definite trend of live-action anime adaptations, the first of which to hit screens being Dragonball Evolution, which also features white actors playing roles originally created, written, directed, animated, and performed by Japanese people.**

According to Edward Said, one of the principles of Orientalism is a belief that Asia cannot speak for herself, and that the West must do it for her, constantly re-interpreting and clarifying the "mysteries of the Orient" for Western audiences, regurgitating the complexities of other cultures into an easily-digestible whole. The trouble with the Orientalist position is that it creates a false discourse that operates on the premise that a whole country and its inhabitants can be reduced to a single brand identity, a cognitive simplification equivalent to saying that "all anime is tentacle porn." Moreover, it assumes a fundamental incapability of the Western mind to grasp the multi-faceted nature of that which is Other, because "the gaijin won't get it."

But as all anime fans know, this is simply not true. However one feels about fansubs and scanlations, they frequently take the time to explain to an eager and intelligent audience the delicate nuance of a Japanese reference or phrase or pun. And if the recent developments at Crunchyroll have proven anything, it's that anime fans want anime, and they want it animated, and soon, not months or years from now.

There's an argument to be made that the purpose of live-action adaptations isn't to appeal to anime fans (although such adaptations doubtless intend on capitalizing on them), but rather to introduce mainstream viewers to anime via the otherwise-familiar milieu of flesh-and-blood cinema. And as self-professed anime fans, this may be Mr. Reeves and Mr. DiCaprio's goal -- to show the rest of the multiplex what arthouse and home viewers have known for decades. But can such a move really benefit the anime industry? Is a live-action adaptation -- especially one that uses white actors in Japanese roles*** -- really a faithful homage to a beloved title? Or it it just an allegedly foreigner-friendly dumbing-down of the original text? We won't know until the films arrive. But in the meantime, my real question:

If you love anime, why not just fund more anime?

The anime industry is barely getting by, at a point in time when its global appeal is most highly recognized. As Roland Kelts points out in Japanamerica, people who believe that anime is a lucrative business for the animators or even directors are sadly deluded. Japanese creators are often separated from royalties when it comes to overseas licensing, because, as Kelts says: "The global anime boom of the twenty-first century has taken Japan, a country whose corporate culture prides itself on knowing the next new thing, almost completely by surprise." (73) But big names like DiCaprio and Reeves could give the industry a much-needed boost by following the Tarantino and Wachowski method: fund your own anime, rather than commissioning adaptations. For the cost of a Hollywood film, couldn't you pay the people at Gonzo or Production IG or Bones to animate your own script? What if, instead of meatsack re-hashings of classic anime titles, we got fresh product done by professionals who know the medium inside and out?

I ask because animation is its own unique medium. It can do things that film can't. It depicts events in a manner that, while not entirely realistic, remains at its best truthful to lived experience. Anime fans have accepted this, and moved on. They understand, respect, and desire more of the art form on its own terms. They know its merits, and its limitations. In fact, they relish in them. And if Mr. Reeves and Mr. DiCaprio were the fans they claim to be, they would feel the same.

Anime does not need Hollwyood to speak for it. Anime does not need a whitewash, an improvement, or a literal incarnation in order to reach an understanding audience. Audiences understand, if given the opportunity. They're smarter than the focus groups say. If producers proclaim to love anime, they should put their money where their mouths are, and buy some more of it.

*I include Avatar: The Last Airbender on this list because it featured both characters and actors of colour: Katara and Sokka, originally dark-skinned (like all Water Tribe people), are now being played by white actors. And while white voice talents were employed, so were Asians: Mako, George Takei, George Hong, Dante Basco, Tsai Chin, and Sab Shimono all contributed their talents (although frequently as guest stars rather than leads, with the exception of Mr. Iwamatsu and Mr. Basco). Notably in Shyamalan's live-action cast is the replacement of Mr. Basco (a Filipino-American who has appeared in live-action films and television) with a blond, blue-eyed pop star.

**And Korean people, let us not forget. Korean animation studios frequently do "in-betweener" animation for both Japanese and American productions, and have done so for years now. This is also true of the afore-mentioned Avatar.

***One could also argue that the role of Spike Spiegel is not Japanese -- Spike was born on Mars, and we don't know his ethnicity. But the characters of Akira and Ninja Scroll are definitely Japanese.

Image credit: Slashfilm

Labels: Akira, anime, Cowboy Bebop, hollywood

A while ago, the folks at Crunchyroll (known online as the "YouTube of anime") asked us if we would like to interview them about their upcoming changes in programming. I jumped on the chance. I spoke with business development manager Vu Nguyen about the anime industry, Louis Vuitton, and DRM.

Crunchyroll started in 2006, and by 2008 it has already changed focus, from fan-produced content to legitimate licensed media. At what point in that short time did you start thinking about changing that focus?

A long time ago, we realized that a huge community was aggregating itself onto Crunchyroll. We also felt that it would be a shame if anime companies couldn't somehow leverage that audience, but we didn't know where or how to begin approaching anime companies. Not until after we left our jobs to work on Crunchyroll fulltime were we able to start getting traction with the industry. Our first licensed simulcast was in April 2007 with Gonzo, which is the first major milestone of the transition, but it actually began long before then.



Draw a thumbnail sketch for our readers that shows them what things are like at Crunchyroll. What is a normal day like for you?

Labels: anime

The Anime News Network is now in the streaming anime business -- only you don't have to pay! Visitors can now watch Kite: Liberator, as well as Girl's High and Ramen Fighter Miki.

All three are ad-supported streams, licensed from Media Blasters, available in North America only. With any luck, they'll unveil even more titles soon!

Labels: anime

Madeline and Brenden have shown quite a bit of love on behalf of fps for Mamoru Oshii's Sky Crawlers (Read Madeline's review from the September TIFF screening).

The film has been showing in Los Angeles since last week (the last screening is today) at the Los Feliz 3 in order to qualify for Oscar eligibility, and will screen at the Lincoln Center in New York twice on Friday, December 12.

If you are lucky enough to be in either city to see it, let me know what you think of the film!

Labels: anime, Japan, Los Angeles, Mamoru Oshii, New York, Sky Crawlers

Another day, another trailer! This first look at Tezuka's little robot boy in CGI form isn't really filling me with glee. Combine the fact that it all looks somehow wrong (Astro Boy's clothes don't scream manga/anime icon to me) with the lacklustre showing of Imagi's big-screen CGI TMNT debut last year and you can colour me concerned.

If the YouTube version above isn't floating your boat, maybe the HD streams at Moviefone.com will satisfy.

Labels: anime, astroboy, CGI, features, Imagi, Osamu Tezuka, TMNT, trailers

On Day 2 of the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, we got to see a screening of an original 35mm print of Grave of the Fireflies. This is an Isao Takahata, 1988 Studio Ghibli film, based on a short story about a 14-year-old boy who tries to care for his sister after their ailing mother is killed during a raid in the 1945 Kobe bombings. He and his sister experience the fear-inspired selfishness of an aunt and he must find a way to take care of himself and his sister on his own.

There was a panel discussion following the film lead by Fred Schodt, author of Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics; John O'Donnell, founder of Central Park Media (the publishers who license the film for North America); and Fred Ruh, author of Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii.

The conversation between the panelists and the audience covered debates as to whether the film was anti-American or rather just anti-war generally, given that the American bombers were barely referred to directly except by the subtle display of some American signage a couple of times on the bomber planes. Another point was raised about the divide between the themes considered culturally sensitive in western animation versus the plain-speaking storytelling of Japanese anime. As a nod to the animated film genre, it was agreed that this socially important, and poignant story couldn't be told the same way in a live-action film (a live-action version was made in 2005), given the youth of the actors required to play the parts and the fact that they couldn't be represented as realistically in the unhealthy conditions in which they were portrayed for the anime version.

This screening was also presented by UrbanEx and their Out Of The Cold programme.

Labels: anime, features, festivals, Fred Schodt, Grave of the Fireflies, Isao Takahata, Mamoru Oshii, manga, Studio Ghibli, Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, WFAC

Via ANN, we learn two news pieces of interest to Naruto fans:

1. Viz Media will stream Naruto: Shippuden starting 15 January. Shippuden is an arc that occurs 2.5 years after the events of the original Naruto timeline, and is currently airing in Japan. There are currently no plans to dub Shippuden.
   
2. TV Tokyo will stream English-subtitled Naruto via Crunchyroll one hour after Japanese airing, starting 8 January. This is what a lot of us have wanted for years, and I personally can't wait.
   

These developments, as you can imagine, were planned: the Crunchyroll showings are intended for paid subscribers, with free showings appearing seven days later. Viz has been making great strides in trying to monetize their online episodes of other series like Bleach, by showing them on Xbox Live and Hulu (which is no help to Canadian visitors, as Hulu blocks Canadians from viewing). It's all part of a massive campaign to make new material available faster.

Labels: anime

One of the good things about anime conventions is that they provide opportunities for fans to hear from industry professionals about what's new, and what directions various influential companies might take. For example, Erin Finnegan's excellent coverage of a NYAF panel with representatives from Bandai and FUNimation. The talk was candid:

Funimation rep Adam Sheehan says, “Our sales have gone up in the last couple of years. We’ve been lucky to get quality shows.” Funimation has been doing 13-episode sets of One Piece for hardcore fans. “One Piece is the most illegally downloaded series in the world” Sheehan says. “If just 1% of those people bought a DVD it would increase our sales tenfold.”

This news is disappointing for two reasons.

1. It means that, as Chris MacDonald from the Anime News Network says, “It’s not exclusively a DVD industry… DVD sales of Naruto are inconsequential. Viz doesn’t give a damn... They only care about licensing. Boxed Home media is never going to be as big as it was in the ’90’s again.”
   
2. One Piece? Seriously?

Labels: anime, conventions, New York

According to the Anime News Network,

Tezuka Productions, the studio created by legendary manga and anime pioneer Osamu Tezuka, will be posting 700 manga titles and 100 anime titles from its late founder on the Internet for free starting this week. For the next three years, all works produced before 2000 will be available for viewing.

This is huge. It speaks to Tezuka's lasting power as a brand and a creator, and the beloved position he held (and continues to hold) in Japanese culture. I can think of fewer finer legacies than an act of such generosity.

Labels: anime, Osamu Tezuka

It's been a busy few weeks at the intersection of Law and Fandom. Citizens of Otaku-dom, take note:

UNICEF Japan wants to include animated children under pornography laws. This would mean that depictions of children (not just photographic representations, but drawings too) would count, and that people found to be producing or publicly displaying such depictions would be guilty. However, the Japanese government has decided that a three-year study is necessary to determine the necessity and efficacy of changing existing law.

A similar ban might soon exist based on how the courts determine the PROTECT act in regard to an Iowa manga collector charged with possessing "obscene" manga. Now counseled by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Christopher Handley had his entire manga and anime collection taken as evidence after a postal inspector opened a package sent to him from Japan and found material that he deemed potentially objectionable. Whether Handley goes to prison for the next 20 years hinges on how his manga stands up to the "Miller Test":

(1) would the average person find that the material appeals to the prurient interest; (2) does the material depict, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law; (3) does the work, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The jury will have to find that the material fits all three of the criteria in order to convict.

(Source: MangaBlog, which has great coverage of the incident)

Naturally, there are ways to be prosecuted under both the PROTECT act and the DMCA, depending on your doujinshi of choice: US copyright law now allows seizure of your property.

Labels: anime, copyfight, legal, manga

Looks like a little company called Project 760 Productions in San Francisco used to produce a neat little cable show called World of Anime back in the day. Check out this clip featuring an interview with anime scholar, Fred Schodt then hop on over to their YouTube channel to watch more archival clips.

Previously on fps:
WFAC 2008 - Fred Schodt, John O'Donnell and Brian Ruh to Discuss Grave of the Fireflies

Labels: anime, Fred Schodt, Osamu Tezuka, San Francisco, World of Anime

Big news for Ontario Otaku - The new Rebuild of Evangelion film, 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone will have its premiere at the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema in Kitchener-Waterloo, November 13th-16th.

All films at the festival are screened from 35mm prints or in Hi-Def at The Gig Theatre (the old Hyland theatre), 137 Ontario Street North, Kitchener.

The Evangelion film joins an incredible list of animated gems being screened at the festival:

• Genius Party
• Sita Sings the Blues
• Idiots and Angels
• Nocturna
• Prince Ahmed
• Egon and Dönci
• Grave of the Fireflies
• Piano Forest

and many more to be announced in the coming weeks!

Kitchener-Waterloo is approximately 100km, or less than an hours drive from Toronto and can be reached easily by Greyhound bus, Airways Transit and Via Rail.

Labels: anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, WFAC

Mamoru Oshii's latest film is an adaptation of Hiroshi Mori's novels of the same name, and tells the story of an ageless pilot, Yuichi Kannami, who transfers to a remote airbase controlled by a cold, self-destructive young girl named Suito Kusanagi afflicted with the same condition that keeps him eternally youthful. They also share an affinity for aerial dogfighting, and the relationship between the two ace pilots deepens as Yuichi slowly recollects fragments of his mysterious past and gets to know the odd denizens of the surrounding countryside.



The plot for Oshii's latest film sounds strangely peaceful for a film about war, and it is. The film unfolds at a leisurely pace (it lasts a lavish 122 minutes), with plenty of time to show the viewer intimate details about the alternate Europe that Yuichi and his fellow pilots inhabit. Oshii clearly holds high regard for Mori's fictional environment and sough to reproduce it with love and attention. The simple but startling beauty of the countryside, the quiet shadows of an abandoned city, and the cramped quarters of a converted manor house all resonate sharply in photorealistic animation and perfect sound.

And, of course, there are the dogfights.

Oshii's films, even his live-action work, are known for their sudden swerves into shockingly elegant violence. This is no different. The title is apt: these pilots are insects crawling across a sky that is vast and deep, limitless and unforgiving. While the dogfights are less visceral, perhaps, than the first scene of Innocence, they do communicate the dizzying, nearly nihilistic quality inherent to aerial combat: Yuichi survives because he is a good pilot, not because he's an arrogant flyer who likes to show off. This isn't Top Gun or even Macross Plus: Yuichi has no special moves, no prototype plane, nothing but skill and experience.

But his experience is the heart of the film, as we discover that there is more behind the "Kildren" -- people who, like Yuichi, remain eternally adolescent -- than a simple genetic disorder. There are clues layered throughout, and Yuichi's realizations come slowly but surely, a story that he pieces together rather than a sudden, shocking recollection. The film's ultimate conclusion is surprisingly hopeful for an Oshii film: eternity is not a life sentence, but a chance to start again.

However, there are some standard Oshii issues: a striking lack of exposition, and a lyrical pace that favours characterization and setting over plot or coherence. The story is secondary to the sentiment, but the story is also pure Oshii: a dreamlike exercise in issues of memory, identity, and the role of the military in a peaceful society. Along the way we get a heartbreaking love story, an endearing environment, and several references to Oshii's past work and anime in general (even the afore-mentioned Macross Plus). The story is not about an alternate universe; rather, the universe is the story.

Thankfully, The Sky Crawlers manages to avoid the long, drawn-out mindgames that feature so prominently in Oshii's other work. Gone are the painful, film-interrupting chunks of classical quotations, and gone are the belaboured references to Oshii's beloved Basset Gabu. (Don't worry; Gabu shows up, but as a dog and not an advertisement.) We get a tiny nod to Camus, but the script is remarkably clutter-free.

Featured above is the six-minute promotional trailer available at the Ghibli Museum. Studio Ghibli worked alongside Production IG on the film, and the whole film is infused with expertise from its auteur director to the Skywalker Sound work. Sony Pictures just picked it up, so hopefully we'll see distribution soon.

Labels: anime, Mamoru Oshii, Sky Crawlers, TIFF

Anime After Dark is a new event being kicked off this year by the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. On October 18, a collection of anime features will be screened at the Somerville Theatre from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. (Among the lineup: Grave of the Fireflies, Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society, Cat Soup, Project A-ko, Tekkon Kinkreet and Millennium Actress.)

The cost? A mere twenty bucks if you buy tickets now, $25 if you wait until September 20, and $30 at the door.

Labels: anime, Boston, festivals, Ghost in the Shell, Grave of the Fireflies, Tekkon Kinkreet

While much of the flavour of the Japan Media Arts Festival is Japanese (duh), they actively look for contributions from around the world, and indeed foreign entries have won top awards in the past.

The Japan Media Arts Festival is very open in what they look for; when they say media, they include animation, manga art, Web works, photographs, installations, still photos, commercial work, independent work, amateur work, etc. (What I cover for Frames Per Second is just a fraction what they display every year.) This is what makes their categories so rich and interesting, in my opinion.

Like last year, the Festival is again seeking recommendations from people about works they may have missed. Complete details for people who want to enter or make recommendations can be found on the Japan Media Arts Plaza. Better hurry, though: while submitters have until September 26 to get their works in, aficionados only have until August 29 to submit their recommendations.

Labels: anime, festivals, Japan, Japan Media Arts Festival

Honestly, what's surprising is that it's taken this long.

A couple of companies have started catering to the anime fan/cosplay market by releasing extra-wide contact lenses that will give your eyes the wide-eyed anime look. Priced at $30-$50, they'll even match them up to your particular prescription.

So far it looks like they're only available from Korean companies Geo and Dueba. But hey, if Michael Jackson could go all werewolfy on us in the early 1980s, I'm sure Rick Baker can spend a few minutes to develop something for otaku to channel their inner C-ko.

Labels: anime, cosplay

Every year there's something in the Japan Media Arts Festival's Entertainment Division which also happens to be animated, and worth a mention. (The categories are porous like that.) This year that honour goes to the music video for Ryukyudisko's "Nice Day."

The entire video is a progression of still photographs starting somewhere in the 1970s, with a couple getting busy under the covers and producing a young boy. We watch him get older, get a job, and then he hits the clubs and meets a girl–and the whole starts going into reverse, as we go back into the girl's history. However, we find ourselves going back even farther than her parents, for reasons that eventually become apparent—and the eventual trip forward again carries its own surprises.

There's a lot of whimsy in this video, and the pity of the Flash-based video above is that you lose some of the detail in the historical photos, as well as the deliberate colour choices to replicate older film (up to a point—director Junji Kojima skimps a little when he starts getting into the 1930s and earlier).

By the way, if you think the tune is catchy you can drop a couple of sawbucks for an import of the single at Amazon.

Labels: anime, Beat Crusaders, festivals, Japan, Japan Media Arts Festival, Junji Kojima, music videos, Ryukyudisko, shorts

Veterans of animation festivals know that the term "short film" is pretty elastic, from Malcolm Bennett's 30-second Rocky to Yuri Norstein's 29-minute Tale of Tales. They also know that the longer films are usually programmed at the tail end of a given screening, and that prior to the end of the Cold War many of those films were from Eastern Bloc countries—often gorgeous, sometimes inscrutable, sometimes dark.

What's surprising about the 2007 Japan Media Arts Festival's award-winning works is that there are four films that pass the twenty-minute mark. The longest, Love Rollercoaster, is the most straightforward. The remaining three are reminiscent of those old Eastern Bloc films.

I'll start off with the 21-minute Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor because (a) director Koji Yamamura pretty much roped me in with his Mt. Head and The Old Crocodile a few years back; (b) it's actually based on the work of the Jewish-Czech Kafka, which gives it that weirdness that can be supplied only by Eastern European creators in general, and Kafka in particular; and (c) I can't help re-watching it whenever I can. Like any Kafka story, A Country Doctor starts with a seemingly normal premise combined (a country doctor is summoned at night to take care of a young patient) with some bizarre aspect ("unearthly horses" transport him there instantly). As in Kafka's better-known The Metamorphosis, the introduction of the preternatural element marks the moment the protagonist can never go back to the way things were. As in Yamamura's Mt. Head, the pace, sketchy images, and hand-drawn transformations complement the story nicely. At the rate A Country Doctor has been racking up awards, I think Yamamura's going to have to put serious thought into new shelving.

Ryu Kato's The Clockwork City also mines the surreal with traditional tools. The film is pretty much wordless, and you should expect to have to work at sorting some aspects of it out. A young visitor comes to a new city, and it's quickly apparent she doesn't quite fit in—every person, every bird, and even a few buildings have these wind-up mechanisms stuck in them, and she doesn't. After exploring the city for a little while she meets with the town's honcho (who wears a wind-up crown) and exchanges fruits and other goods. Soon after the city goes to war with an unknown enemy, its soldiers identically featureless and wearing blue ties and white shirts. In the aftermath, our protagonist confronts the top man and his flunkies over the discovery of a giant wind-up key; what mysteries does it hold? This is definitely on my "must rewatch" list.

Yusuke Sakamoto's The Dandelion Sister takes us into the realm of stop-motion animation, where a young girl has to contend with her older, sick sister—who happens to be a giant dandelion. There's a lot going on here: There's the younger sister missing out on social activities because of her responsibilities; her resentment of how much attention is heaped on her sick sister; her inability to draw, and express her feelings; and her fear of her sister's death. Like The Clockwork City, The Dandelion Sister is wordless, but as its concerns are more grounded in reality it's open to a number of interpretations about adolescence, caring for sick relatives, and acceptance.

Labels: anime, festivals, Japan, Japan Media Arts Festival, Koji Yamamura, Ryu Kato, shorts, Yusuke Sakamoto

Akihabara, or "Electric Town," is one of those places that otaku have to visit. It's just required. (Not least because your fellow otaku have a shopping list a mile long that includes all the things they can't buy this side of the Pacific, and have sent you on a quest to tick off all the boxes.) Akiba is a major tourist destination for foreigners and Tokyoites alike. Sundays are the busiest days, and not even the steadily-increasing, surprisingly-chilly August rainstorm could keep out today's visitors. Hugging our arms, we discovered that the rumours are true: you will find maid cafes, you will see goth lolis, you can buy things there that you can't in North America. 

Labels: anime, Japan

Another odd little parallel shared by some of the award-winning animation shorts in the Japan Media Arts Festival: three of them had to do with birthdays—after a fashion.

My least favourite of the trio was also the longest: Hiromasa Horie's Love Rollercoaster unfortunately has nothing to do with the Ohio Players song, but is instead about a cutesy young bear cub named John trying to solve the mystery of a mysterious birthday present left behind my his late mother. Involved in the search are his friends, and they soon drag in the creepy Lovegun, an eyeless, sharp-toothed green-skinned critter who lives half in and half out of a rocketship. I like the idea behind some of the characters (especially the pair of mischievous panda siblings), and the overall story idea is a solid one—the ending is particularly sweet. But the whole thing is killed by the execution.

As a clay animation fan it shouldn't bother me that a CGI film tries to emulate a plasticine look for its characters. And I've never had a problem with Japan's cult of kawaii. But whenever the characters talk or scrunch their eyes, their skin wrinkles and folds in an a way that quickly renders them uncute. I'm sure John's initial concept drawings were very cute, but his textured skin, along with the bags under his eyes and all that wrinkliness just made me ill. Throw in excessive camera movement, the same kind of needless bobbing and weaving that bothered me in Skyland, and a half-hour–plus running time, and, well... let's just say that sometimes I watch these things so you don't have to.

(As an aside, I should mention that Love Rollercoaster is one of several projects generated from a Japanese talent incubator called Anime Innovation Tokyo. I'd rather have seen just about anything else their creators have put together.)

The much shorter, lo-fi Ushi-nichi (or, as the English titles say, Happy Birthday) is pretty much Love Rollercoaster's exact opposite. Created with pencil and paper (complete with smudges) by Hiroko Ichinose, the nine-minute short features a motley crew of characters each going through their own machinations. A man stands in the desert waiting to hitch a ride, but turns down almost everyone who stops for him; a man wakes up every morning transformed in some way (extra-long arms, a huge 'fro) and cheerily skips to the employment office to find new work based on his condition; a woman starts eating pieces of her pet giraffe, mindless of the transformations it causes to her own body. Everything comes together in a whimsical denouement. Deep meaning? Who cares? The jittery, rough and utterly charming style makes the whole film a pleasure.

Meanwhile, Toshiaki Hanzaki's Birthday puts another spin on the word, relating the evolution of life on Earth from one-celled organisms to man and, it seems, beyond. Working mostly with silhouetted forms, it's slicker than Ushi-nichi, but it is, if anything, more whimsical, with its portrayal of a giant fanged asteroid killing the dinosaurs and aliens accelerating our evolution. (It's also in the opposite direction of Hanzaki's earlier Birds, my favourite of the Digital Content Association of Japan's 2005 Digital Creators Competition's award-winning works.) Finally, at about a minute and a half, it's more compact. It gets where it needs to go, and then ends. Brevity really is the soul of wit.

Labels: anime, CGI, festivals, Hiroko Ichinose, Hiromasa Horie, Japan, Japan Media Arts Festival, shorts, Toshiaki Hanzaki

One of the pleasures of film festivals, whether you're watching them or organizing them, is in discovering unintended themes in the films. Sometimes it's inevitable, such as when social or political issues are on everyone's mind, but these are so unsurprising as to almost be banal. It's the small, quirky and sometimes trivial themes that are the most interesting to discover, and this year's award-winning short animation offerings from the Japan Media Arts Festival has a few worth mentioning.

One thing I look forward to in any compilation is when people take a backward step, especially when it comes to CGI. There's such a tendency to lard on the detail, be it photorealistic or natural-media or whatever, that few make the deliberate choice to step back and pare things down.

This year three films made a point of dialing down the detail, each in different ways. Youhei Murakoshi's Blockman goes the furthest. The viewer peers through a telescope to a strange world where everything is made up of identically sized cubes. Some are black, most are white, some make larger blocks, and some of the larger blocks have faces, courtesy of dots or lines on individual blocks. The curious lifeforms walk, fly, float, combine and come apart in a variety of ways, with the telescope lazily floating from one vista to another. The effect is similar to that of the even more minimalist Dice—an earlier Japan Media Arts Festival honoree—but perhaps more mesmerizing.

Sejiro Kubo, Ichiro Tanida and Katsunori Aoki collaborated on Copet, a series of shorts starring a cast of animals that are all straight lines and simple curves, plugged together like deranged Lego. At first glance it's appallingly cute, but little touches like camera shake and nifty bits of business (like a gorilla who repeatedly shivers himself out of a stupor) are at odds with the simplistic motion, and the tension works. But what really kept my attention were the bits that didn't follow the simple-is-better formula, like an erupting volcano, a meteor streaking toward Earth and water that looks, well, watery. The characters' occcasional forays into the live-action world, along with incomprehensible but still amusing storylines were also bonuses. If you can read Japanese you can check out the Copet website, which goes into the shorts' world in considerable depth and pimps Copet merch, including a DVD.

Hiroshi Chida's Boneheads was produced by Polygon Pictures, which I mention because it shares a certain aesthetic sensibility with Polygon's Polygon Family shorts, in which the characters' blockiness is celebrated, rather than smoothed and textured to death. But Polygon Family is mostly monochrome, whereas Boneheads' colour pops with Day-Glo intensity. The latter's characters are also ever so slightly asymmetrical, which just makes them kookier.

Moreover, where Polygon Family's animated used the anime and fighting videogame idioms, Boneheads is pure, non-stop Tex Avery-style mania (it's running time of seven minutes makes it even more reminiscent of a Golden Age cartoon). Roccos and Bone are two primitive creatures fighting over bananas—between themselves, and between other critters who get wind of the tasty fruit (or them). The whole thing is really just an escalating chase scene, but as every Blues Brothers fan knows, that's not really a bad thing. Radar Cartoons reps Polygon in the U.S., and Boneheads was produced for Viacom, so here's hoping that it pops up on our screens soon.

Labels: anime, CGI, festivals, Hiroshi Chida, Ichiro Tanida, Japan, Japan Media Arts Festival, Katsunori Aoki, Polygon Pictures, Sejiro Kubo, shorts, Youhei Murakoshi

This all began with Dai Sato. He's been on the writing teams behind Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Samurai Champloo, and Eureka Seven. He's listed as working for FrogNation, a company that specializes in cross-continental anime and videogame projects. Delighted to find a map to FrogNation HQ, I (and my trusty partner) headed out. We were armed with gifts of chocolate and maple cookies, plus my Master's thesis questionnaire on anime and the creative process. We had a map. We had Suica cards. We were prepared.

Or so we thought.

The thing about ambushing creators is that they might not be there in the first place. This is a big holiday season in Japan -- the whole city feels like it's on summer vacation -- and maybe that was the case here. But for all appearances, FrogNation HQ appears abandoned. First, it's in a converted residential space, the first floor of which has become storage for a second-hand shop which appears to no longer exist. No one answers the door, the mailbox is full, and the buildings behind it are all being bought up for condos. Despite the website being live, no one has answered emails.

Are you out there, Sato-san? It's me, Madeline.

Of course, the news isn't all bad. Despite the fruitless attempt to find FrogNation, we did discover the Yoyogi Animation Gakuin, an "anime school" nearby. Once again, however, they were closed. But I'm a fan of any school which allows this guy to stand guard. He's a six-foot high model of some kind, and he's got wicked claws and a pretty scary face. This photo doesn't really do him justice. I'm not sure which project he's from. (If anyone does, let us know.) But I'm sure saying hello to him is a great way to start off your school day.

In addition, we discovered the generosity and patience of the people we encountered. Construction workers, police officers, and everyday salarymen and -women were eager to help us. One man in particular brought us to the building in question, and even called FrogNation for us from a payphone on his own dime. (The phone number didn't work.) I ended up giving this man some of Sato-san's chocolate, because he certainly earned it. Wherever you are, 'tou-san, I hope you enjoy your sweets.

Stay tuned for more posts as I sojourn through Mitaka in an attempt to give my favourite animators their due...in chocolate form.

Labels: anime, Japan

I'm not ashamed to admit some movies have made me cry, and one film that's guaranteed to get me at least a little misty no matter how often I've seen it is Grave of the Fireflies. Directed by Isao Takahata—who people tend to forget co-founded Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki—Grave of the Fireflies is an adaptation of Akiyuki Nosaka's memoir of surviving the Allied firebombings of Kobe during World War II.

It's no great secret that Seita and Setsuko, the analogues to the author and his younger sister, eventually die; it's established right at the beginning of the movie, and the rest of the film acts as a flashback to explain what brought them to that point. It's a powerful story of familial love during the worst of ordeals, bringing with it a reminder that war affects more than just the soldiers on the battlefield.

Central Park Media released two versions of Grave of the Fireflies on DVD in 2002 and 2004 (they had the rights before the 1996 deal between Disney and Tokuma Shoten), but it's languished in out-of-print limbo for years. Just this Wednesday a new two-disc version of Grave of the Fireflies appeared in Japanese stores; at first blush, the only real difference is an essay by Nosaka, and (maybe) some more pre-production artwork.

Is this a precursor to a new Disney release in North America? I'd like to think so, but I'm not holding my breath. Disney's never seemed too sure what do with Takahata's movies; while they released the perhaps more accessible Pom Poko and My Neighbors the Yamadas three years ago, it was with minimal fanfare. The sombre Grave of the Fireflies might be trickier from their perspective, as would be Takahata's only remaining Ghibli film, the wistful Only Yesterday. A lot of lip service is given to the notion of animation that adults can watch, but there might be the fear that North America isn't ready for an animated film as powerful as Grave. Given that the U.S. and Canada are currently fighting wars on foreign soil, I'd say there isn't a better moment than right now.

Labels: anime, Disney, Grave of the Fireflies, Isao Takahata, Japan, Studio Ghibli

Via MangaBlog, we have news of the Anime Almanac going a month without fansubs. Thanks to Netflix, FUNimations YouTube channel, and iTunes, the writer has a stress-free, very cheap month that includes 97 episodes of anime total, with an average of three episodes a day at sixty cents an episode.

So in my month without fansubs, I found out that I was able to watch over 90 episodes of anime using only completely legal methods, and I didn’t even end up poor because of it. With so many free and affordable options available, I never felt the need to go back to downloading fansubs. In fact, I found the experience to be personally liberating by relieving myself of the stresses created by the fansubbing community and exploring so many great shows of years past.

But most of all, I was no longer being hypocritical by saying I was going to make up for downloading a fansub by buying the DVD, and then never following through on that promise. By always making my initial viewing supported by either micro-paying DVD rentals, paying less for legal downloads, or simply watching an ad-supported free video over the internet, I was always supporting the artists and the industry even without buying an expensive DVD at full price.

It's not terribly surprising that there's so much white market material out there, at good prices, but the return to simple pleasures is the part of post that I really appreciate. The chance to watch on a big, flat screen (from a couch! not a task chair!) and the opportunity to rediscover "older" shows without the stress of having to appear fashionable, are something that's easy to forget in the rush to find new titles. But the truth is that there's now more legitimate anime out there than there has ever been before, and if we want to see that trend continue then we have to vote with our dollars (or, in this case, our sixty cents) and support that.

Labels: anime, Internet

To an origami purist, cutting or tearing paper is like an old-school Catholic eating fish on Fridays; at best, it's frowned upon, and at worst someone thinks you're going to hell. Which is why it's all the more remarkable that Brian Chan makes his origami masterpieces like the Totoro nekobus above from just one sheet of uncut paper. Once you've finished checking out his nekobus gallery, you can also marvel at his paper WALL-E posed to recreate shots from the Pixar film, or watch the video below of him folding the sad-eyed robot.



[Thanks again to the Nausicaa.net Hayao Miyazaki mailing list.]

Labels: anime, Hayao Miyazaki, Pixar, Totoro, Wall-E

They say the best things in life are free, and in this case it's hard to argue. Since July there's been an exhibition in Manchester called How Manga Took Over the World, and they've been offering free anime screenings that will continue through to September 21. The roster is staggering: there are daily screenings of the first episodes of Astroboy, Tetsujin 28, Noein, Naruto: Unleashed, Otogi Zoshi, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Dominion: Tank Police.

But that's just the appetizer. Every Thursday through Saturday, there are screenings of anime features, many of which have been seen on DVD but really deserve to be shown on the big screen. Drool-worthy entries include Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky (start lining up—it's this Thursday!), the Cowboy Bebop movie, Akira, and the wonderfully old-school Golgo 13. Check the Urbis website for dates and time.

[Thanks, Nausicaa.net.]

Labels: anime, features, festivals, United Kingdom

Yoshitaka Amano completists will want to hit Right Stuf or Amazon to preorder Yume Juma, aka Ten Nights of Dreams, an anthology of strange and wonderful shorts based on the short-story collection by Soseki Natsume. Amano's short is, of course, dreamy, with his signature elfin characters flowing through some borderline-gaudy CGI.

(Though the rest of the movie isn't animated, it's certainly worth watching. One of my top picks from last year's Fantasia festival, I consider it a perfect example of why I love movies in the first place.)

Labels: anime, anthology, Fantasia festival, live action, Yoshitaka Amano

If you're in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Sapporo or Nagoya right now, you can catch the original Ghost in the Shell on the big screen—sort of. Bandai Visual has gone all George Lucas over the 1995 Mamoru Oshii classic, updating the digital effects and reuniting the original voice cast for a 6.1 surround-sound recording. (I'm curious to see if the extra effort is as superfluous as in the Star Wars makeovers; so far as I'm concerned, the CG in Ghost in the Shell is still quite watchable.) Check the trailer below for a glimpse of the new look.



Gotta-get-it-first otaku can score the Ghost in the Shell 2.0 Blu-ray box set from Japanese distributors on December 19. The set includes 1080p and MPEG-4 AVC versions of the film (English dubs included), an extras disc, a new music CD, and of course a nifty new booklet.

[Thanks, Crunchgear.]

Labels: anime, Blu-ray, Ghost in the Shell, Mamoru Oshii

- Studio Ghibli's Ponyo will screen at the 65th Venice International Film Festival (taking place at Venice Lido from August 27th to September 6th) along with Mamoru Oshii's The Sky Crawlers. Hayao Miyazaki will be in attendance and commented, "Lido is very beautiful place. I'm glad that I can walk there again." Via Ghibli Wiki

- Goro Miyazaki talks in depth about layout and the Studio Ghibli production process. Via Ghibli World

- CG images from the new Gatchaman movie with animation produced by Imagi are up at the felix ip。蟻速畫行 blog.

- WTF?! Is Keanu Reeves really going to end up playing Spike Spiegel in the upcoming live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop? Do I care? Via FirstShowing.net

- Is Pixar going to slap us with a sequel to Monsters Inc? Pete Doctor is playing coy but we think it's gonna happen. Straight to video anyone? Via MTV Movies Blog

- More high-def Harryhausen!!!! Sony is eyeing an October 7th release date for the 1958, stop-motion animation/live-action classic, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad on Blu-ray and standard DVD. Via HighDef Digest.com

Labels: anime, Cowboy Bebop, gatchaman, Hayao Miyazaki, Mamoru Oshii, Pixar, Ray Harryhausen, Sky Crawlers, Studio Ghibli

A little while ago, I got a copy of Animania in the mail. It was a copy-for-blogging exchange, and I was glad I got a chance to see it. I had caught it on local cable a couple of weeks ago, and was curious to see the rest.

Turns out, I had only missed about the first ten or fifteen minutes. The documentary itself is only about an hour long, with a half-hour special features section called "Anime Uncovered." Despite my interest in fan studies, I thought that this was the more interesting part of the package -- and not just because it featured our friend Emru. I liked hearing from experts, specifically Canadian experts, and I also enjoyed hearing about the mechanics of modern animation.

The documentary itself revolves around a group of cosplayers (not a cosplay group, just different cosplayers) who attend Anime North, Toronto's major anime convention. The filmmaker, Felice Gorica, asks them the same questions, most of which are about why they like anime, how long they've been watching it, why they cosplay, and what they think life is like for teenagers in the twenty-first century. Also included are interviews with the parents of each cosplayer. Whether this was intentional or not, there seems to be a clear cultural divide between the minority parents and the white ones -- the Chinese, Japanese, and Caribbean parents all profess to love the way cosplay gives their kids projects to do, teaches them discipline and stick-to-it-iveness, and keeps them out of "normal" trouble. The white parents, however, seem intensely worried about how their son uses anime to help create his identity, how much money he spends on his anime habit, and whether he should be "living his life by the rules set out by a world of fantasy." (My husband then pointed out that the American Dream is more of a fantasy than anything anyone could animate, and that living one's life by its rules is probably twice as unhealthy as any fannish obsession.)

If I had one criticism of this documentary, it would be that the editing needs work. Technically it's fine -- it's not like the audio and visual tracks leap apart, or anything -- but there's a lot of extraneous footage used to split up the segments that make no immediately-apparent sense. We get unexplained cuts of anime like Slayers, but no commentary on why Slayers fits with what the interviewees have just said. Then there's the wrestling footage. To be fair, Anime North has wrestling exhibitions in full view of the registration line (it gives people something to watch while standing for hours), so it does make sense to at least acknowledge that. However, the frequent intercuts to the footage make it seem as though the wrestling should have some narrative or thematic significance to the points being made in the interviews. And it doesn't, unless the point was to highlight the fact that both wrestlers and cosplayers wear costumes.

Aside from that, though, I recommend it. It's nice to see something that's exclusively about Canadian fandom, and cosplay specifically. I also liked the inclusion of the parents' commentary. These parents seem to have great relationships with their kids, and they clearly savour the opportunity to spend time with their children at a time when most children can't wait to get out of the house or otherwise spurn parental attention. Their contribution is perhaps the most unique to the documentary, and this low-key approach was just right for talking to both halves of the relationship.

Labels: anime, Anime North, Canada, conventions, documentaries, Toronto

I guess it's Ghibli Day, here at fps. Aptly so, on the eve of Ponyo's release to Japanese cinemas.

If you've ever dreamed of working side-by-side with Miyazki-San and Takahata-San, this may turn out to be a dream come true! Details are up on Ghibli.jp (in Japanese, of course) of a recruitment drive for the studio.

Translation from the GhibliWiki:

* Duty place is Toyota City, Aichi prefecture not Tokyo.
* Term of the contract is from April 1 2009 to March 31 2011.
* The deadline for document submission is September 17

* Presentation documents:
* A resume with photograph
* Two pieces of artwork (the subject is open)
* Excessive documentation will be ignored by the selection committee
* The entry works will not be returned
* Primary selection: End of September. Notified by letter.
* Second selection: By the end of October. Practical examination and interview at Studio Ghibli.
* Third selection: From October 24 to November 3.
* A training examination of 10 days. Ghibli will supply housing.

Apparently, you also need to know a reasonable amount of Japanese to get the job. Can't say I'm at all surprised.

Labels: anime, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Studio Ghibli

With one day left before it's release, Studio Ghibli unleashes this fresh Ponyo awesomeness on our unsuspecting eyes. What did we do before YouTube?

Previously on fps:
Miyazaki's Ponyo Trailer Online

Labels: anime, Hayao Miyazaki, Ponyo, Studio Ghibli

On the eve of Ponyo's premiere in Japan, Studio Ghibli president Hoshino Koji let's slip plans for their next release - a new Isao Takahata film!

"Ever since Hohokekyo Tonari no Yamada-kun (ホーホケキョとなりの山田くん, My Neighbors the Yamadas) in 1999, Takahata hasn't produced anymore films. In fact, his new movie is now being prepared. We can’t tell the details, though it has been more crystallized than it was some years ago. He hasn't produced movie in these 10 years, but was busy on writing or lecturing. If Miyazaki is the one who gathers attention under the sun, Takahata is the type who quietly cruises underwater. If they have any common point, then they both have amazingly deep fountain of creation. Takahata is now very fine. Please, expect his next film. Goro is also preparing his new film."

Via GhibliWorld.com

Previously on fps:
Studio Ghibli: The Art of Miyazaki's Ponyo
Ghibli by Pixar: Totoro Forest Project

Labels: anime, Goro Miyazaki, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Ponyo, Studio Ghibli

And you thought it was all over, didn't you? It turns out there will be one more little slice of Inuyasha to enjoy - if you happen to be in Japan, that is. The short film, Black Tessaiga, will screen at the Rumiko Takahashi exhibit in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district from July 30th to August 11th. There are no plans at present for this final piece of the Inuyasha puzzle to play outside of the exhibit, so catch it while you can!

Video after the jump:





via FireFoxNews.org

Labels: anime, Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashi

Is round two of the Ghibli vs. Oshii battle-royale upon us? Probably not but I can't help but feel the subtle digs in Mamoru Oshii's review of Miyazaki's upcoming opus, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.

"That's Miya-san's delusion movie. There are no themes. But the picture is overwhelming, so it's seen until the end."

I'm glad that he was able to fight through his frustration with Miyazaki's lack of script-craft to experience the ending of the film. Yeesh!

Other reviews are pouring in:

Japan Times Review - "If 'Ponyo' is the start of his artistic second childhood, I say welcome to the sandbox."

Asahi.com - "101 minutes of bliss"

via GhibliWiki

Labels: anime, Hayao Miyazaki, Mamoru Oshii, Ponyo, Studio Ghibli

Home Media Magazine makes it sound like the bell has tolled for Anime on home video in North America. Their visit to the Anime Expo, July 3-6 at the Los Angeles Convention Center found them confronted by a veritable ghost-town of Anime vendors on the convention floor.

"While ADV’s set-up was bare bones, anime powerhouse VIZ Media wasn’t on the show floor at all. Neither was The Right Stuff International. All three companies held panels to discuss their plans for the rest of the year and beyond, but their absence from the show floor was reflective of the slow-down of domestic anime DVD."

Yikes!

Bandai, home of popular titles like Dragonball-Z and Naruto is prepared to fight the decline in sales tooth-and-nail by appealing to average otaku with video downloads and anime cinephiles with high-def Blu-ray releases. The company's first Blu-ray effort will be Mamoru Oshii's, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. Bandai has committed to a brand-new English dub and support materials for the domestic release. If you can't wait for domestic, the Japanese disc will happily play in your PS3.

via Home Media Magazine

Further Reading:
DVDTalk.com reviews the Japanese Innocence Blu-ray

Labels: advertising, anime, Anime Expo, Bandai, Blu-ray, Dragonball-Z, DVD, Ghost in the Shell, Mamoru Oshii, Naruto, The Right Stuff International, VIZ Media

Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea is almost upon us, evidenced by this cover tease of the newest, gorgeous artbook from Studio Ghibli. Filled with sketches, backgrounds, storyboards and cel reproductions, the newest volume in the Studio's famous "Art of..." line will be available on August 2nd for 2,900 yen.

via GhibliWorld.com

Labels: anime, art, features, Hayao Miyazaki, Ponyo, Studio Ghibli

One of the first films that ever screened at Fantasia was the animated adaptation of Katsuhiro's Otomo's Memories, produced by Studio 4°C. Over the years, the studio has produced some notable feature-length narratives and shorts in omnibus films, including but not limited to Cat Soup, The Animatrix, Mind Game, Tekkon Kinkreet, and Batman: Gotham Knight. They have a powerhouse of talent that has allowed them to create some of the most interesting animation anywhere.

In Kenji Ishimaru's 2007 interview with studio CEO Eiko Tanaka, she mentions that all of this hard work was to get to one point: to be profitable enough to create what became Genius Party.

These seven stories are as distinct as they are breathtaking. Shanghai Dragon, Dethtic4, Limit Cycle and the opening sequence Genius Party (also a self-contained short) are the shorts that are seared into my brain. Almost every short has perfect pacing, a great aesthetic, and an interesting story.

The project grew large enough that this is the first of two omnibus films, the other being Genius Party Beyond. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Genius Party plays again on Sunday, July 6th at 1:00pm at Montreal's Fantasia film festival.

Previously on fps:
2008 Fantasia Festival Animation
Studio 4°C
Genius Party
Interview: Eiko Tanaka
Interview: Masaki Yuasa

Labels: anime, features, Genius Party, Masaaki Yuasa, Shinichiro Watanabe, Shoji Kawamori, shorts, Studio 4C

If you live in Japan and are tired of using your Nintendo DS for nothing more than playing games, it's time to rejoice. For only $40 (3,980 yen) you can buy yourself a starter kit with adapter, card reader, and a 512MB microSD card that will transform your gaming handheld into an anime paradise!

DSvision is marketing the hardware package to support it's new download service, online and available now. 20 minute animated programs sell for $2 (210 yen) and 200 page manga volumes will run you around $3 (315 yen).

Image: AM3
Via Wired.com

Labels: anime, download, Japan, manga, Nintendo DS

I've never been a wild fan of the work of anime director, Mamoru Oshii. Everything he does, no matter the visual spectacle, seems to leave me cold. On the other hand, most films produced by Studio Ghibli, even the much-maligned Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea) by Miyazaki-the-younger, warm my heart to some degree.

Both camps have always maintained a healthy rivalry, from the days of their first failed collaboration, Anchor to the Ghibli assist on Oshii's Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2, with Miyazaki feeling Oshii's work too philosophical and unsatisfying and Oshii maintaining that everything that leaves the doors of Ghibli is wantonly idealistic and fantastical.

Just this week, the website for Oshii's upcoming feature, Sky Crawlers posted some comments from Goro Miyazaki and Anno Hideaki. While Evangelion director, Hideaki gathered favourable quotes from friends, Miyazaki's remarks seem less than complimentary.

"Those guys on screen never eat a meal. They only live on liquor and tobacco. No, they didn’t ingest them, but just pretended to be ingesting them. And about sex, they just pretended to be having sex. There wasn't any smell of sweat or sperm. They rode on airplanes and motorbikes. However, all of them seemed like unsubstantial machines on the monitor display. Even those machines seemed to pretend being machines."

Via GhibliWorld.com

Previously on fps:
Miyazaki, Oshii and Anno parody
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Labels: anime, Anno Hideaki, Gedo Senki, Ghost in the Shell, Hayao Miyazaki, Mamoru Oshii, Sky Crawlers, Studio Ghibli, Tales from Earthsea

There is a reason Batman has his own label on fps. Besides many of us being big comic fans, many of us are huge fans of the Bat specifically. He has numerous animated interpretations and the notable incarnations in the 90s and 00s have definitely left their mark on (what was) Saturday morning television, cable television, comic book adaptations, and Warner Bros. television animation.

So people are a little nervous about an anime version of Batman since Batman: Gotham Knight was announced. I am a huge Batman fan and a huge anime fan, but I won't champion one at the expense of the other. After hearing about the talent behind the series of interrelated shorts, both American and Asian, I was somewhat relieved, but I was also willing to wait for a final verdict once I'd actually seen the shorts. After getting a peek at the soon-to-be released DVD in a theatrical setting gearing up for the 2008 edition of Fantasia, I think people's fears are largely unfounded.

Disliking the stories because they use the visual style of anime is just as bad as only liking it because it is anime. What you need to know is the stories are told well. What you need to know is these stories all embody something about the Legend of the Bat and are consistent with the characters that have already been established. It does look great!

And the same people that dismiss the anthology because it is anime will probably be the ones who refuse to notice that there are six very distinct visual styles that are employed to tell each story. The level of interestingness does vary depending on the style you are drawn to, but this is also the case of a decades long comic-collector who has some artists they prefer over others. Like these artists, Batman's look changes at the whim of the artists involved. The two stories with styles I found the most recognizable and distinct from the others were produced by Studio 4°C. They were even distinct from each other. Selecting one of these as the first story in the set was a great choice as it breaks conventions of what people consider the "anime style."

There are no spoilers in this entire post. I am not interested in ruining it for anybody, especially the die-hard Batman fans. However, if you are told or read spoilers elsewhere, you will not find out anything new about Batman if you already know his character. You will feel comforted by the way the stories fit easily into the mythos that has already been created from past stories. Just go and watch the stories unfold, and enjoy another glimpse of Batman's early days as he tries to learn the ropes of crimefighting.

You can catch a theatrical screening of Batman: Gotham Knight at Montreal's Fantasia festival on Saturday at noon, before it is released on DVD next Tuesday.

Previously on fps
2008 Fantasia Festival Animation
Batman: Gotham Knight Promo Video Online
DC Comics OAVs
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
The End of Justice League

Previously on The Critical Eye
Batman Animated
Batman & Batman Beyond
Paul Dini
Bruce Timm & Glen Murakami

Labels: anime, Batman, border-crossing, comics, DC Comics, Fantasia festival, features, festivals, Madhouse, shorts, Studio 4C

The latest gem from anime master, Hayao Miyazaki and the mighty Studio Ghibli is about to be released to the lucky theatre-goers of Japan on July 19th. Trailers for Gake no Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea) have been released before but have only been screened theatrically - until now! This short glimpse at what industry insider and broadcasting writer Hashimoto Atsushi calls,

"...a masterpiece, surely leaving an important thing in your heart after watching!"

is enough to make me ravenous for more. Give us a North American release date, Buena Vista! Have mercy!

Labels: anime, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, Ponyo, Studio Ghibli

It's a week of firsts for this blogger - this is my first post on fps and my first experience with Montreal's famous genre spectacle, the Fantasia Film Festival. Illustrator and fellow fps blogger Matt Forsythe and I attended the press symposium and were treated to a preview of what we can expect from July 3rd-21st.

This year's animated offerings feature an unusual and unintentional focus on collaborative efforts and collections of short films, from DC Comics' Batman: Gotham Knight, Studio 4C's aptly named anime extravaganza, Genius Party, and the cutting-edge showcase, Best of Ottawa Animation Festival 2007. There are only two single-narrative feature-length animated presentations in the entire fest - Bill Plympton's poetic, pencil-scratch surrealist vision, Idiots and Angels and John Bergin's bleak, post-apocalyptic fable, From Inside. We'll cover each entry in more detail throughout the festival.

Continue past the jump for a full schedule of the animated films screening at Fantasia 2008:



July 4th - 7:30PM - Hall Theatre - Genius Party
July 5th - 12:00PM - Hall Theatre - Batman: Gotham Knight
July 5th - 1:00PM - J.A. De Seve - Best of Ottawa Animation Festival 2007
July 6th - 1:00PM - Hall Theatre - Genius Party
July 7th - 9:45PM - Hall Theatre - Peur (s) Du Noir
July 9th - 3:00PM - J.A. De Seve - Peur (s) Du Noir
July 9th - 7:30PM - Hall Theatre - Idiots and Angels (Hosted by creator, Bill Plympton)
July 12th - 2:40PM - J.A. De Seve - Outer Limits Of Animation 2008 (Shorts from around the globe)
July 13th - 9:40PM - J.A. De Seve - From Inside
July 14th - 3:00PM - J.A. De Seve - From Inside

(Okay, who's the putz that programmed Batman: Gotham Knight to screen at the same time as the Ottawa Festival shorts?! ...sigh... guess I'll have to watch you at home on Blu-ray, Batman...)

Tickets go on sale July 2nd at 2PM at the Concordia Hall Theatre (Guy-Concordia Metro) and throughout the Admission Network at $7.50 each.

Directions:Hall Theatre - 1455 Maisonneuve O. (Guy Metro) Map and Directions
DB Clarke Theatre - 1455 Maisonneuve O. (Guy Metro) Map and Directions
J.A. De Seve - 1400 Maisonneuve O. (Guy Metro) Map and Directions

Previously on fps:
2007 Fantasia Line-Up
Batman: Gotham Knight Online
Genius Party Trailers
Plymptoons: The Complete Early Works of Bill Plympton

Labels: anime, Batman, Bill Plympton, Fantasia festival, festivals, From Inside, Genius Party, OIAF, Ottawa International Animation Festival, shorts, Studio 4C

Antonia Levi, Mark McHarry, and Dru Pagliasotti are calling for academic papers on the phenomenon of yaoi and BL anime and manga fandoms in a global context. Here's the CFP:

This edited, interdisciplinary volume seeks to examine the new representations of same-sex attracted males in boys' love and/or yaoi -- that is, male same-sex romance or erotica as featured in manga, manwha, anime, videogames, fanfic, fanvids, artwork, and other media derivative of the genre's Japanese origins. The collection's primary focus will be the ways in which fans in countries and cultures other than Japan interpret and use these genres, although the editors are open to contributions about boys' love fandoms in Japan as well. We want to provide a broad overview of scholarly essays and research in yaoi / boys' love studies and so encourage work from all disciplinary perspectives. Scholarly work about slash fiction is welcome, too, insofar as the genre is discussed within the framework of boys' love / yaoi.

Papers should be between 5,000 to 20,000 words in addition to any illustrations and well-grounded in theory and methodology. Shorter works will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Potential approaches might include:

o Controversies and Legal Issues
o Fandoms and Fanfic
o Theoretical Models of Gender and Sexuality
o Genre Development and Adaptation
o The Publishing Industry
o Concepts of "Race" / Ethnicity in Yaoi and Boys' Love
o Queer / Gay Discourses of Yaoi / Boys' Love
o Comparison of Boys' Love and Yaoi Expressions in World Regions

Submissions must be previously unpublished (conference presentations are acceptable) and in English. Manuscript format, especially citations and references, should accord with the Chicago Manual of Style -- see ChicagoManualofStyle.Org.

We encourage you to submit preliminary proposals by July 31, 2008, although these are not mandatory. Notification of preliminary acceptances will be sent by August 30. Manuscripts and artwork must be complete by November 15. Please note that all final decisions will be made upon seeing completed works, not proposals or abstracts.

Proposals, papers, and questions should be emailed to anthology AT yaoiresearch.com.

Further information and discussion can be found at www.YaoiResearchWiki.com.

The collection will be published by McFarland & Co. in 2009.

Labels: anime, books, call for submissions

If there were awards for truth in advertising, then Kino International would have to win something for the use of one adjective. The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro Kawamoto contains the bulk of the animation master's work, seven short films made between 1968 and 1979.

Kawamoto is considered a stop-motion animator, and his recent feature-length masterpiece, The Book of the Dead, features gorgeous sets to accompany his beautiful puppets. However, this DVD serves as a reminder that his shorts were rarely quite so straightforward. All of the films on the DVD involve the manipulation of physical objects—if not puppets, then cutouts—but Kawamoto freely mixes them with drawn animation and flat paper cutouts with varying degrees of abstraction.

In earlier films like 1972's The Demon, Kawamoto plays with this stylization by having characters move in sync with the background music's rhythm, almost as if they were performing the story as a dance. By the time of the final film, 1979's House of Flames, he's also using stark lighting and elegant compositions to suggest, at times, a stage play. The three middle films in the collection, An Anthropo-Cynical Farce, The Trip and A Poet's Life (from 1970, 1973 and 1974) all break from the use of puppets and the use of ancient Japan as a setting, but are no less compelling. They are perhaps a bit more obtuse in that unique way that independent animation from the 1970s could be.

Kino has also released the feature-length The Book of the Dead, which features some of Kawamoto's most exquisite—there's that word again—stop-motion work to date. Like his best-known short-form films, the movie features Buddhism in ancient Japan. However, this time Buddhist teachings are central to the film, as it takes place in the eighth century, around the time that Buddhism was being introduced to Japan from China. Unlike his shorts, Kawamoto has chosen here to fill out his sets with physical objects and far more characters, all realized with considerable detail. It's hard to watch a sequence with a room full of elegantly dressed puppets with their clothes blowing in the wind and not be awestruck by both the scene's verisimilitude and its poetry.

As lovely as these releases are, there are a few things I'd have liked to have seen. The Book of the Dead uses the English narration with no option to hear the original Japanese (though all the dialogue is still in Japanese, with optional subtitles) and neither disc includes any kind of extras. While Kawamoto's work speaks for itself, the level of craftsmanship on display on both DVDs leaves you wanting to see and hear more. Finally, completists are likely to wag their fingers: The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro Kawamoto lacks four shorts that were included on the Region 2 Kihachiro Kawamoto Work Collection DVD.

Where to Get It
Buy The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro Kawamoto from Amazon.com
Buy The Book of the Dead from Amazon.com
Buy Kihachiro Kawamoto Work Collection from YesAsia.com

Labels: anime, features, Kihachiro Kawamoto, reviews, shorts, stop-motion

I'm generally not a fan of live-action adaptations of animated TV shows, because they almost always disappoint. The problems usually start with the choices the filmmakers make in order to get animated (or animated-looking) characters into a live action universe. The Flintstones had fake-looking rock sets; Alvin and the Chipmunks and Scooby Doo had CGI critters in an otherwise realistic universe; Fat Albert had the TV characters coming to life in the real world.

In Speed Racer, the Wachowskis do what none of the creators of these other films had the will to do: they created a cohesive universe in which all of the elements in any given frame look like they belong together. In the process, they also highlight something that's been missing from mainstream animation for quite some time.

As I was sitting in the cinema watching Speed Racer, it occurred to me that I already knew how most journalists were going to describe the movie's look. Some would say that it looks like a video game, or that it's anime come to life. They're dead wrong. Outside of some race scenes the movie looks nothing like any video game you've actually played, and outside of a few Akira-like shots and a nod to the original series opener, it looks nothing like any anime you've ever seen. Really, these are just phrases that reviewers use when they want to say that there are lots of things moving around very fast, or that have bright-coloured, futuristic-looking elements.

In a strange way, however, they're also right. Speed Racer, like many video games, demands that its viewers process a lot of visual information at once. Like anime, it stylizes motion in a way that isn't entirely realistic but is believable within its own reality.

If anything, Speed Racer's filmic cues come from green-screen/digital-set movies like the most recent Star Wars trilogy and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, along with shorts that feature heavily processed and manipulated live action, like Gaëlle Denis' City Paradise. But the Wachowskis' real inspiration here is manga. This doesn't just apply to the racing scenes, but to just about anything set outside of the Racer family home. Take a look at these images, and pay special attention to how they put the focus on certain foreground objects or characters and use the backgrounds to denote movement, atmosphere and mood. These compositions are pure manga:







Better still are the transitions, in which the camera moves around a foreground character's head and the backgrounds change to show scenes either as a transition or as a flashback to the past. Some of these scenes are multi-layered, including audio from both the current time and place and the location or time being referenced. There's even one scene where one character tells Speed about about something that will happen in the future; as the camera whirls around Speed, the background shifts to show scenes that highlight what the other character is saying—and eventually we discover this isn't speculation, but what actually happens in the future. The whole sequence interleaves the present moment and flash-forwards, kind of like an episode of Lost on, well, speed. (Lazy journalists will look at all this and make references to audience members with short attention spans or ADD; the truth is, you really have to pay attention if you want to follow it all.)

I'm just scratching the surface here. All in all, Speed Racer is a visual effects spectacle that doesn't reserve its inventiveness for eye-candy money shots; rather, it's a carefully constructed, dynamic reality that is unlike anything seen on the big screen. All of which brings me to the question I kept asking myself when I left the cinema: why haven't I seen anything like this in feature animation for so long?

It's a cliché these days to say that effects-heavy summer movies are cartoon-like, and there's some truth to that. But it's also true that live-action movies have, through the heavy use of CGI, taken animation's "anything can happen here" mentality and run with it. Meanwhile, feature animation has largely concerned itself with looking more realistic, obsessing over things like realistic fur and hair. Even those productions that aren't so fixated are, relatively speaking, conservative. I've very much enjoyed Pixar's films, but when you get right down to it they mostly fit into a niche best described as "Talking ____s," with the blank filled in by toys, bugs, fish, rats or what have you. The Incredibles was an exciting departure, but so far the new direction that it signalled appears to be a dead end.

Where's the wow? Where's that moment when you jump up in your seat, excited because you've been shown something you've never seen before? Speed Racer provides that in spades, but in feature animation it's been sorely lacking. I remember seeing Tron in 1983, Akira in 1988 and Mind Game in 2005 and each time feeling like someone had redefined what was possible in animated cinema because I was being shown things I hadn't seen before. I've had that same feeling many times over since then, but when it comes to animation it's generally been in OAVs, shorts and—much to my surprise—television.

I'm all for the blurring of boundaries, but to me movies like Speed Racer indicate that feature animation is ceding ground to live action. Something is very wrong with this picture.

Labels: anime, CGI, features, live action, manga, Speed Racer, visual effects, Warner Bros.

When an anime fan proudly describes themselves as an otaku I usually wince a little. I realize that language evolves, especially around loan words—the term anime is a classic example—but I've always found it odd that a word with such negative connotations in Japanese is worn as a badge of honour in the English-speaking world. I usually point to the case of Tsutomu Miyazaki (no relation to director Hayao Miyazaki), who molested, killed and mutilated four girls in the late 1980s. Among his massive video collection were pornographic anime and slasher films, and he was something of an outsider; the Japanese public linked the term otaku with dangerously antisocial behaviour.

However, the term existed before then; less sensationally, but still negative. Over on Néojaponisme, Matt Alt has translated the first two parts of a series of articles in which the term "otaku" was first applied to extremely obsessed fans with few social skills. The articles, written by Akio Nakamori, first appeared in 1983, and you can read them in "What Kind of Otaku Are You?" and "Can Otaku Love Like Normal People?".

Labels: anime

Say "environmentally themed animation" to most people and they'll think of FernGully: The Last Rainforest or Captain Planet—both well-intentioned, but as subtle and as thrilling to experience as a boot to the head. Presented in alphabetical order, here are five titles that get it right; essential viewing not just on Earth Day, but every day.

The Lorax
When we talk about Warner alumna who worked with Dr. Seuss, we tend to mention Chuck Jones and, er, that's it. But it was Hawley Pratt who directed The Lorax, the 1972 adaptation of the good doctor's book from the year earlier. In it, the Lorax—a typically Seussian odd-looking, oddly coloured creature who says he "speaks for the trees," tries to convince an industrialist not to chop down the Truffula trees, which he uses to make a unique form of clothing called Thneeds.

The industrialist doesn't listen, and the Thneeds take off. His small shop becomes larger, which leads to the construction of larger factories and more roadwork, which leads to increasing destruction of the forest and the air—and eventually, the growth of a whole city, which just makes the problem worse. Futile though it is, the Lorax protests the whole time. Near the end of the story, the industrialist chops down the last tree and realizes he's not only ended his business, but destroyed the very reason he came to the forest in the first place—and the Lorax sadly picks himself up (literally) and flies away.

The Lorax is pads the original story with reasonably entertaining songs, gags and bits of business to bring it up to a half-hour special, and it captures the Seuss look pretty well. While it's comparatively strident—"greedy industrialist" is all you need to know about the antagonist—it's still a striking look at how we can carelessly consume and destroy resources when we're not careful.

The Man Who Planted Trees
Frédéric Back believes passionately in the need to protect and co-exist with the environment, and his most moving testament to that belief is his 1987 masterpiece The Man Who Planted Trees, an adaptation of a 1953 French short story. In the story, a man visits an abandoned valley in France three times. The first time is before World War I, when the valley is dry and desolate, and he meets a young shepherd who is planting acorns; the second time is between both world wars, when the young trees are starting to dot the landscape; and the third time is after World War II, when the valley is a green, lush paradise, and a small village has sprung up around it.

The story itself, in which one man selflessly and patiently turns emptiness into a thriving, living community, is inspiring, but what makes it work as a film is Back's method. Using coloured pencils and frosted cels (like traditional acetate cells, but with a tooth to them so that traditional but inkless drawing tools can be used on them), he made each frame a gorgeous illustration, with each one cross-dissolving into the next. When we return to the valley-as-Eden, that technique serves to make every leaf on every tree burst with life. When we hear that our actions have far-reaching implications, it's usually when we're being warned not to do something. When you see the forest in The Man Who Planted Trees flowing across the screen, you realize that there's a positive aspect to that as well.

See a clip and storyboard images from The Man Who Planted Trees

My Neighbor Totoro
In 1950s Japan, Mei and Satsuki move to the countryside with their father, as they wait for their hospitalized mother to recover from her illness. From the moment they set foot in the house, the girls discover (magic?) forest creatures large and small, who seem to be presided over by the largest of three creatures, that seem like a jovial cross between a cat and a bear; Mei calls them Totoro.

Not much more needs to be said, because if you haven't seen Totoro, you've probably heard of it (and, really, should make the time to go see it.) It's the 1988 film that made Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli icons in Japan (literally, as Totoro now graces the Ghibli logo on every movie opener), and, after some time, abroad as well. The three Totoro are probably the Ghibli characters you're most likely to see pop up in the background of comics and animation, as artists the world over pay homage.

The reason for all the love is simple: Totoro is a gentle film that is as much about the joys of childhood as it is about the beauty of nature. Linking expertly realized scenes—of napping in a forest, of skipping over a creek, or of savouring the night breeze through the trees—to our own memories makes a better case for preserving forests than any amount of brow-beating. The Japanese public apparently agreed, and Totoro has become a symbol, both official and unofficial, of its environmental movement.

Princess Mononoke
Nine years after Totoro, Ghibli released its flip side: Miyazaki's look a fifteenth-century Japan where the powerful forest spirits still walk the Earth with both majesty and terror. The young prince Ashitaka is banished from his village when his arm is scarred in an encounter with a deranged boar god, and during his travels he encounters San—the demon princess of the title—and Lady Eboshi, who has founded and runs Iron Town on the edge of the forest. San has literally been raised by wolves (or, more accurately, wolf gods), and is constantly sabotaging Iron Town's operations, as their manufacturing facilities are encroaching further on the forest.

Ashitaka, and the audience, quickly learns that things aren't as black and white as they may seem. Lady Eboshi has taken in lepers, prostitutes, and other people cast off from society and given them a home; by mining and refining the iron she's been able to keep Iron Town self-sufficient. San and many of the forest creatures see humanity as a threat, an ever-reproducing virus that needs to be destroyed for their safety. The result is the beginning of a bloody war, with interested outside parties looking for opportunities and Ashitaka risking life and limb to keep things from escalating past the point of no return.

Princess Mononoke carries two messages within it, both rarely said in environmentally themed films. First is that if you push nature too hard, nature will push back harder. The second echoes a sentiment spoken by John Muir, godfather to the American environmental movement: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything in the universe." The fatal error that is often made in the movie, and in real life, is that humanity is somehow separated from nature.

Respire
French group Mickey 3D's 2003 CD Tu vas pas mourir de rire (You Won't Die Laughing) is full of politically conscious songs set to toe-tapping music. Its second track, Respire (Breathe) is the basis for a CGI music video that features, for the most part, nothing but a young girl running barefoot through an open field, skipping through creeks and climbing trees, all under a gorgeous blue sky. The laconically delivered lyrics speak of what man has done to his world, and how action needs to be taken by everyone, right now.

It's the end of the video that brings everything together as, with a Twilight-Zoneish twist, we discover that things aren't what they first seemed. Frankly, I find this scenario all too plausible. Consider Respire a warning you can dance to. Watch the video and decide for yourself.

Where to Get It
Buy The Lorax DVDs and more from Amazon.com
Buy The Man Who Planted Trees DVDs and more from Amazon.com
Buy My Neighbor Totoro DVDs and more from Amazon.com
Buy Princess Mononoke DVDs and more from Amazon.com
Buy Respire (part of the Imagina Trips Vol. 2 compilation; PAL, Region 2) on DVD from Amazon.fr
Buy Tu vas pas mourir de rire on CD from Amazon.com

Previously on Frames Per Second
Imagina Trips Vol. 2 review

Labels: anime, Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, top 5, Totoro

A few weeks ago I watched Mind Game again, and not for the first time I wondered what director Masaaki Yuasa was up to post-Genius Party. And what do you know, shortly after I found out: he's directing the series Kaiba, which just started airing on the Japanese satellite channel WOWOW. Makoto Fukuda reviewed the first episode in today's Yomiuri Shimbun. As she describes it, the show is "set in a world when memories can be filed as data, and humans no longer regard the death of their physical bodies as the end of their lives."

I just finished watching the first episode, and I have to say that I agree with Fukuda's review, but she only hints at what I think makes it interesting. At its core, Kaiba offers up a lot of things we've seen before: the titular protagonist wakes up with amnesia, and is almost immediately attacked; strange machinelike creatures are attacking people while a ragtag resistance fights back; even the character designs, which Fukuda describes as echoing "those found in manga for children popular several decades ago" capture that 1960s and 1970s retro feel.

What Yuasa does is he mixes it up and makes it fresh. I like how little is explained as Kaiba makes his way through this new world. When the camera pans up or across in a scene, you're following his viewpoint. Nothing is explained to either of you, so you have to pay attention to everything you see. (Some things are conveniently spelled out, but as the title sequence hints that there's considerably more to Kaiba, you get the sense that there's information that should be filed away for later.) The world is just familiar enough that you know you're in a shady bar, but just weird-looking enough that you're trying to figure out what those lumpy wall protrusions are for. The character designs are retro, but they don't quietly elide the oddball wacky-looking characters I was fond of in older anime in favour of the graceful designs of the protagonists. I got a nice fix of people walking around with potato heads, wobbly jowls, bright red noses and the craziest hips you've ever seen. The cartooniness infects some of the action as well, but not in an at all jarring way. In some ways it's a better interpretation of what Tezuka did in his manga than the beautiful but perhaps too crisp Metropolis.

What I'm particularly fond of is Yuasa's interpretation of movement. As we saw in Mind Game, little of what he does falls into stock anime poses, staging or motion, and that feeling of always seeing something new is invigorating. Between the animation and the storyline—I particularly want to know what's going on with that bird-creature that's saved Kaiba three times now—Kaiba has my attention. I'm hoping someone picks it up domestically so I can watch it with subtitles, but, in another throwback to the old days, I'm perfectly willing to watch it entirely in Japanese just for the sake of seeing it.

Images and a Youtube trailer below.

Labels: anime, Kaiba, Madhouse, Masaaki Yuasa, reviews

Just 15 months after Kodansha and Production I.G. kissed and made up over optioning Ghost in the Shell, they've found a taker: DreamWorks, who released Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence in North American cinemas under their GoFish banner in 2005, has acquired the rights to make a live-action, 3D version of the property.

While I think Ghost in the Shell is a great selection for a 3D film, I can't say I'm particularly enthusiastic about the news. I'm generally not a fan of live-action remakes of animated shows or comics; overall, there have been more misses than hits. More to the point, the recent spate of rights acquisitions for anime (or anime-like)-to-Hollywood live-action adaptations (Robotech, Akira, Avatar: The Last Airbender—have I missed anything?) reminds me of the old maxim that in Hollywood no one wants to be first, but everyone wants to be second. Speed Racer is due to hit cinemas in just a few weeks, and I've long had the sense that these acquisitions are a means of lining things up to ride an anticipated wave of anime-inspired movies, in the same way Spider-Man and X-Men helped launch a wave of comic-inspired movies.

One thing I won't do, however, is claim that Spielberg (or any of the other directors/producers working on adapted anime works) will somehow "ruin" the original. Gimme a break—that's like saying a bad date will ruin your memory of your first kiss.

Labels: anime, DreamWorks, features, Ghost in the Shell, live action

The "To the Source of Anime" retrospective ends its run today at the Cinémathèque québécoise with a tribute to Noburo Ofuji. The "Wartime Japanese Animation" programs included propaganda cartoons that feature strikingly American character designs. I mentioned this to Akira Tochigi, the curator of the retrospective, when I interviewed him during his stay in Montreal. Mr. Tochigi spoke with enthusiasm during our lengthy interview.

Armen Boudjikanian: This retrospective does a survey of Japanese animation from 1924 to 1952. Is there any reason why there are not any films from before the 1920s?

Akira Tochigi: Actually until last year, we haven't had any surviving elements of animation from the 1910s. But a private collector found two elements of early animation from 1917 [35mm prints]. We are now doing their digital restoration. We will showcase them soon in a program highlighting recent restoration projects.

What can you tell us about the state of Japanese animation in the 1910s?

Animation was first imported to Japan between 1908 and 1910 from France [the works of Émile Cohl] and the UK. The Japanese film industry created its first major studio in 1912: Nikkatsu studio. Nikkatsu was very powerful at making and distributing its own films but also distributing foreign films. Gradually, along with its competitors, it began being interested in making animation. Pioneers of early animation found opportunities in these studios.

Around the 20s, as more animation came from abroad, especially the States, the majors lost interest in producing their own animation. Rather, [they decided to focus on] importing. They believed that American animation was much more sophisticated and more appealing to [Japanese] audiences.

But also in the 1910s, there was a heated debate in Japan about the influence of cinema on children. The portion of young audiences was big: about 30 to 40 per cent of the moviegoers. The government, academics and intellectuals were all concerned on the [effect of films] on children.

So in the early 1920s, the Japanese central government set up the policy of supporting educational films [which at the time also encompassed] animation. By this kind of categorization the government supported animation filmmaking and sometimes commissioned independent filmmakers to make animations for kid audiences. Animation became a way to safeguard children [from] the influence of cinema. And so, its quality changed at that time.

Coming to the question of governmental funding for animated films. I have noticed that films from the WWII era which are heavily funded by the government resemble Hollywood cartoons much more than earlier Japanese animation. Is there a principal cause for this?

Yes, [this is the result of the combination] of two elements. In the late 20s, early 30s, more and more American animation came to Japan: Disney, [Fleischer's] Betty Boop and Popeye, etc... Japanese animation was very quick to react to this situation by creating its own [set] of characters which originated from comic books and also from Japanese folklore such as Momotaro, monkeys, badgers, etc...

It seems that the synthesis is very well done, though. These are early cartoons but they are very well executed technically. The western influence is obvious but the Japanese elements are blended in successfully.

[The reason for] this synthesis is that in the 1940s, the Japanese government set up the Film Law which forced culture films [documentaries], educational and animation films to be shown in theatres to [large] audiences.

The law also controlled film projections, and [theatre] personnel. There was severe censorship. [Nevertheless], the field of animation became prosperous in these times because the government supported it with its law. So as the influence of American cartoons on Japanese animation continued in the 1940s, it came together with the film law and this resulted in the making of the first medium and feature-length animated films in Japan [the 1942 war film Momotaro and the Sea Eagle was Japan's first five-reel animation].

[Films from this period] used characterization that was typical of American animation. [This] is pretty ironic because these films were very much anti-American propaganda, but still [laughs] it is very apparent that their character designs and aesthetic were coming from American animation.

Coming to Momotaro and the Sea Eagle, can you talk about its cast of characters? Why is the leader of the Japanese army a young girl and why are its soldiers animals?

I think that it's a young boy, not a girl. It seems that he has a kind of femininity but it's a boy. [These characters] come from the original story of Momotaro, who was a boy character that fought the enemy [with the help] of animals.

What happened to Japanese animation between the end of WWII and the establishment of Toei Doga studio in the fifties?

This is one of the hardest ever periods for Japanese animation. There was a shortage of film stock and taxes were high. The defeat of the war finished the [governmental] support to filmmaking. There were no festivals, no theatrical exhibitions, but there were a lot of talented young artists who tried to make films on an independent basis. So when Toei started in the '50s, and TV animation in the early '60s, they [offered the young] animators a way to sort of continue making films under a well-financed situation.

Noburo Ofuji, an animation pioneer to whom you attribute a program to in this retrospective, made Burglars of Baghdad Castle in 1926. This film is very innovative. The techniques used in it foresee some of those that Japanese animators will employ later such as limiting the movement of characters. Do you see a link between Ofuji's work and some of the techniques that were used later on?

Noburo Ofuji started using chiyogami [Japanese coloured paper] as a medium of motion in the 1920s. Celluloid was very expensive in Japan and most animators were not able to use it until the middle of the 1930s. Even then Ofuji remained interested in using chiyogami.

He would cut them [drawings done on chiyogami] out, right?

Right. Ofuji continued making films in the late '50s, and in his later films, used colored cellophane—not to use celluloid [laughs]. And because of the materiality of the [cellophane] paper, [he had] to find ways to economize the motion of the characters. And this seems very associative with TV animation. As you may know, when Osamu Tezuka started the program Astro Boy, thirty minutes of animation were aired on TV weekly. It was pretty hard to make original pictures for thirty minutes amount of work per week.

The team of Tezuka Productions only animated eight pictures in a second [as opposed to 24] to sort of economize the motion of characters... So when trying to connect history to what came before it, [early] paper animation and TV animation [seem] closely related.

Also, Burglars of Baghdad Castle, like current anime, has also plenty of action.

Yes. The Baghdad film features mass action.

Yes! A lot of crowds.

[Laughs] Something like a Kurosawa movie.

How about other links between the early animations and contemporary anime? Do you see any similarities in terms of inspiration?

I think that [there] is a very clear association with contemporary anime [especially] with the work of Studio Ghibli: in Pom Poko for example, a community of creatures [raccoon dogs, or tanuki] fight against human beings. This Ghibli film is not similar in content to 1930s cartoons that have [similar] characters, but [in terms of] the idea to use creature characters to make a satire of human society, it is very closely related. Ghibli, in this sense, is a very traditional animation creator.

So what got you interested in animation?

To be honest, I didn't have a special interest in animation for a long time. Of course, as a child I was intrigued by theatrical animation—and in fact had a passion for TV animation. I [also] read comics in my elementary school [years]. When I entered college, I continued reading comics, [especially the work of] Otomo [creator of Akira]. He was popular with the college crowd not only because of his aesthetics but also because of his handling of contemporary issues.

At this time, my interest in animation was not so much special. [However], when I started working for the Film Archives several years ago, I found many animations in their collection [from the past]. When I watched these films, I was struck by their power and complexity. Of course most were for kid audiences; but from a contemporary perspective, I found out about the [ability] of animation to deal with fantasy, illusion and delusion in many different ways. It seems to me that because these early animators worked mostly independently [their only support came from the government], their individualities and sense of art as filmmakers is apparent in their films; [whether] they worked on mainstream films or in alternative cinema.

[And since] I was struck by experimental cinema in college, including [laughs] Norman McLaren...

Of Course! [laughter]

[Continues laughing] So... Because of this intrigue, my connection with these animated films [felt] natural. And of course as an archivist, I was interested in the history of animation cinema.

There is going to be a retrospective of Canadian and Québécois animation in Tokyo in 2009. Is there an interest in Canadian animation in Japan right now?

Yes, definitely. Next year's exhibition of Canadian and Québécois animation will be programmed by [Marco de Blois of the Cinémathèque québécoise]. We like to leave him to make the final decisions for that [exhibition], as I did for this one.

The staff members of our institution [the National Film Center in Tokyo] are very eager for [this] program because when Norman McLaren was first introduced in Japan in the late '50s, many young artists were so surprised by his films: they were experimental and personal expressions of ideas and feeling through the medium of animation. Most of the Japanese audiences at the time thought animation would [only] be kid entertainment.

That's something that's common in many countries.

Right... And in the late '50s, early '60s, the word "animation" was first introduced in Japan.
Before then, we used the word "manga" film, not animation. But the exhibition that introduced McLaren's work was called "animation film screening". [This] means that the term animation was related not to Disney type of animation but to experimental film and personal film... So this context of Canadian animation has a special [significance] in Japan: it is a kind of individual expression.

Which filmmaker from the "To the Source of Anime" retrospective is of special interest to you as a researcher?

When I was watching the films of this retrospective again and again, the films of Masaoka Kenzo struck me so much [in terms] of aesthetic, ideas and technique.

The Spider and the Tulip is very well directed and animated, could you talk about the artist and how he got into animation?

[Kenzo] had a unique background; he came from a very rich family from Kyoto. He studied western painting in college. Then he joined a major film studio as an actor. He then made his first film, a documentary. [It is only afterwards] that he moved to animation.

Because he came from a prosperous family, and because of his movie studio contacts; he did not rely on [external] funding to make his films. He was exceptionally able to have his films exhibited in theatres, even his first film. Also, because of this, he did not care about targeting his films to children. He wanted to show his films to regular audiences. He often created in his own small studio. He [also coined] the Japanese term doga which means "animated images" in English.

He [did this to be able] to cover all aspects of animation: from puppet to silhouette animation, [whether designed] for children or not. He wanted to value animation as an art for everybody.

Labels: anime, features, Japan, Masaoka Kenzo, Montreal, Noburo Ofuji, Osamu Tezuka, shorts, Studio Ghibli

"It all started with Osamu Tezuka" or "It all started with Astro Boy" have been common ways to start describing the history of anime for years, even though a moment's sober reflection would reveal the fallacies in those statements. Somewhat surprisingly, the increased popularity of anime outside of Japan has largely served to reinforce, rather than disabuse, these and other notions about the country's rich animation history.

The last year has turned out to be a fantastic time for filling out the early history of Japanese animation. Between the release of Digital Meme's four-DVD boxed set of silent anime and the Japan Society and Cinémathèque Québecoise's recent retrospectives as well as forthcoming books, major knowledge gaps are finally being filled and it's a joy to behold.

The latest find is a pair of two-minute films from 1917 and 1918, Namakura Katana (An Obtuse Sword), and Urashima Taro. Namakura Katana is considered the second animated film ever made in Japan. What's particularly miraculous is that when the films were bought last year at an antique fair, they were in nearly perfect condition—a feat under any circumstances, but more so when you consider how much early film was lost in Japan during the Kanto earthquake in 1923 and the firebombings of World War II.

According to the Mainichi Daily News, you'll be able to see Namakura Katana for yourself—if you find yourself in Tokyo. Starting April 24, it'll be shown at the National Film Center.

Labels: anime, Japan

Information revealed by a spokeswoman for Disney Japan on Thursday indicates a sea change is underway to Disney's approach to developing content for the Japanese market. Previously satisfied to rely on strong recognition of its classic animated characters, recent global hits and largely passive partnerships with local studios, Disney has reached out to several Japanese studios to both adapt current characters and jointly develop new content.

The anime aesthetic has been an elusive target for animation studios outside of Asia who seek to capture the older audiences and massively successful all-ages merchandizing abilities of Japanese content producers. The appearance of an enormous Western partner comes at an opportune time for the local anime industry, which has struggled to continue its breakneck pace of growth amid talent shortages, competition from other Asian countries and fears that the market for anime in Japan and abroad has topped out.

Disney has wasted no time lining up quality Japanese partners. Disney will work with Madhouse Studios to crate a new Lilo & Stitch series to air in Japan, which will be set on an island off Okinawa and will star a Japanese girl named Hanako as Stitch's sidekick. Fireball, a short feature produced with Jinni Animation is scheduled to air on Tokyo Metropolitan TV in April. A second short feature for television, Robodz, is in production with Toei Animation and will air in June. Although a partnership between Toei and Disney had been previously announced, Toei shares surged more than 3 percent in reaction to today's news.

Labels: anime, Disney, Jinni, Madhouse, Toei

Starting with the 1940s films that will be shown within the two wartime programs, state funding (and control) of animation production began in Japan. Films from this period are the ones that resemble classic Hollywood cel animation the most. Momotaro, The Sea Eagle, shown under "Wartime Japanese Animation 1", is Japan's first five-reel animation (33 minutes). The Ministry of Navy commissioned this film to celebrate Japan's successful attack on Pearl Harbor. The visuals of this cartoon will seem familiar to the contemporary viewer (anthropomorphic animals cast as Japanese soldiers) though the totality of its style remains ominous: the lieutenant or leader of the soldiers is a human girl, and the Americans are represented by Fleischer Brothers-style humanoids. The character animation is quite developed, with appropriate usage of stretch and squash, while the mechanical animation of airplanes and boats and the animation of the water is top-notch.

Though Momotaro, The Sea Eagle is evidently racist—American soldiers are treated as incompetent and oafish—the level of animated fantasy is what stands out the most in this cartoon. The actual attack is not shown for very long; two thirds of the film sympathetically shows Japanese soldiers getting ready for battle and returning from it. There is delightful humour in these scenes: a monkey soldier makes fun of his rabbit trooper buddy who can't put his bandana on because of his long ears. When the squadron flies to Pearl Harbor, a monkey pilot stumbles upon a lost baby bird. He interrupts his mission to find the baby's mother.

If you are looking for more wartime and propaganda cartoons, you are in for a treat:
Village Animals Fight Against Espionage and Village Animals Fight for Air Defense are the Japanese equivalent to Warner Bros.' Private Snafu army shorts and the likes. These two cartoons, alongside four others, will be shown under "Animation Meets Propaganda".

After Japan's loss in WWII, the government's contribution to animation production declined and filmmaking became a tough challenge for independents and small studios. The films from this era are grouped under "Japanese Animation During the Occupation" I and II. Thematically, these films seem to deal with Japan's traditions. One is called Torachan and the Bride, a nine-minute film promoting freedom of choice in marriage.

The most striking common feature of these early Japanese animations is the clarity of their storytelling. There are probably many reasons why these films can be easily followed: the subtitling is an obvious one. The abundance of onscreen action is another. However, a solid grasp of what cinema can do by the filmmaker is what I'd bet my money on. In the films that I saw, there were practically no shots or actions that I found boring, tedious or distracting (even when the animation quality was not that great.) This is noteworthy: Japanese animators knew what they were doing from the beginning. It is often said that non-Hollywood animation blossomed after the 1950s—and this is true for Japanese studio animation as well—but what these early Japanese animators accomplished with low budgets and often working independently is proof that animation filmmaking does not necessarily require a long assembly chain. If you attend this retrospective you will agree that ingenuity can impress and entertain all by itself.

Labels: anime, Japan, Montreal, shorts

There is a lot to be discovered at the retrospective To the Source of Anime: Japanese Animation (1924-1952) taking place at the Cinémathèque québécoise from February 27 to April 5. This huge undertaking of ten programs and a lecture by the retrospective's curator Akira Tochigi is a collaboration between the Cinémathèque québécoise and the National Film Center/National Museum of Tokyo.

With 53 films comprising this five week long retrospective (51 of which will be shown on 35mm), anyone interested in anime, film history, wartime cartoons, and independent animation will discover the achievements of pre-major studio Japanese animation: landmark films that came before Astro Boy, Akira or Sprited Away. The ten 70 min programs are divided by themes ranging from "Early talkies" to "Animation meets propaganda". There are also programs attributed to directors Shigeji Ogino—a modernist and master in experimental animation—and Noburo Ofuji, a pioneer who, as I will get into later, was forging the anime style 1920s. Based on the films I saw by these directors at the press screening, I highly recommend both tribute programs.

The earliest films of the retrospective are grouped under "The dawn of Japanese animation" program. These silent films will be accompanied by Gabriel Thibaudeau on piano. There are two "Early talkies" programs: "Selected works 1" contains a 7 min short from 1931 that feels as fresh as a film made in the last couple of years. Synchronised to a song originally played on SP record (78 rpm), A Day in the Life of Chameko joyfully illustrates the life of a schoolgirl. We see her do all the mundane things such as getting up, getting dressed and eating before going to school as she explains things in operetta. This short works as comically as the musical moments of The Simpsons and Persepolis do.

For more early animation, check the "Tribute to Noburo Ofuji" program. Ofuji was a true animation innovator. A technique he employed is animating chiyogami (Japanese colored paper) cut-outs. His first ever usage of chiyogami is in Thieves of Baghdad, a masterpiece from 1926. The accomplishments of this short can not only be seen in recent cut-out or "cut-out style" digital films but also in contemporary anime. Its two aspects that struck me foremost are the sophisticated personality animation and the elaborate staging and camerawork. All of the characters that populate this short have distinct movement: Dangobei the protagonist, the princess, the elderly lady and the clan of warriors all move convincingly according to their designs. This is particularly difficult to achieve in cut-out animation, since its reliance on pre-planned action is limited. This method of working contributed to the creation of many styles, including anime. An aspect of anime is its segmentation of the human anatomy in order to animate only parts of it: i.e., treating the drawing of a figure as pieces of cut-outs.

Another attribute of Thieves of Baghdad that can be seen in recent anime and digital cut-out style cartoons (or Flash cartoons) is its rendering of depth through strictly 2D methods. In the strictest sense, this means not drawing space in perspective; instead using a medieval style of representation: the top of the screen is the background, while the bottom, the foreground. In this type of scenario—which is typical of traditional cut-out films—depth becomes symbolic and not actually perceived by the viewer. However, as early as 1926, Ofuji was able to make depth in cut-out scenes come close to cinematic quality by animating elements in the foreground (the bottom of the screen) and the background at different speeds.

Madame Butterfly's Fantasy, based on Puccini's opera, is in "Early Talkies: Selected Shorts 2". This short, like A Day in the Life of Chamenko, has aged beautifully. It looks gorgeous and the sensibilities of its makers are heartfelt. The relationship between Madame Butterfly and her lover is shown beautifully with shadow-like figures. Silhouette animation technique is employed to lyricize the love story that was not meant to be.

Labels: anime, Japan, Montreal, shorts

When I read the first Mechademia volume, I felt that it maintained a tenuous balance between different kinds of scholarly essays on manga and anime. Mechademia Vol. 2: Networks of Desire has about the same amount of works—23 contributions compared to the original's 20—and more of a focus.

The subtitle of this volume accurately describes the book's theme, and essays are divided into four sections (Shojo, Powers of Time, Animalization and Horizons). Each essay spins "desire"—and sometimes its own section title—in different ways.

Five essays in particular are standouts, and worth the price of the book on their own. Deborah Shamoon's "Revolutionary Romance: The Rose of Versailles and the Transformation of Shojo Manga," Toku Masami's "Shojo Manga! Girls' Comics! A Mirror of Girls' Dreams" and Keith Vincent's "A Japanese Electra and her Queer Progeny" combine to provide a rich, textured history of the origins and progression of shojo manga and their depictions of same-sex relationships. Miyao Daisuke's "Thieves of Baghdad: Transnational Networks of Cinema and Anime in the 1920s" offers a fascinating look at the "Japanification" of Noburo Ofuji's 1926 Bagudajo no kozoku (The Thief of Baguda Castle, incidentally part of the Cinémathèque Québecoise's early-anime retrospective), which was a sort of remake of the American live-action feature The Thief of Bagdad.

For me, the crown jewel of the book is Mizuno Hiromi's "When Pacifist Japan Fights: Historicizing Desires in Anime," an look at how the evolution of postwar Japan's militarism, nationalism and masculinity were expressed in 1977's Space Battleship Yamato and 1995's Silent Service. The piece was so compelling it made me want to rewatch Gasaraki and further appreciate Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig, both of which featured conspiracies to remilitarize Japan. It's worth noting that this essay is the longest in the book, but reads so smoothly it feels like it's the shortest.

Otherwise, the book is hit or miss depending on the kind of scholarly essays you prefer. As a fan of Occam's Razor, I'm a bit wary of essays that read a lot of symbolism into anime that the creator makes no claim to. Granted, there are those shows like Haibane-Renmei and Neon Genesis Evangelion where the creators are specifically adding layers of meaning, but I had to roll my eyes when Christopher Bolton read various shades of meaning into 2000's Blood: The Last Vampire's use of CGI for mechanical objects, specifically airplanes. While it's true that this was a pioneering blending of CGI and cel in anime then, the same techniques had been used elsewhere in the world for almost 15 years in pretty much exactly the same way. It's a symptom of my long-standing complaint that at times anime aficionados wall themselves off from animation history at large.

This same issue comes up in William L. Benzon's review of Takashi Murakami's Little Boy: The Arts Japan's Exploding Subculture book and exhibition, but in a good way: After thoroughly examining Murakami's thesis of how Japan's unique national trauma (the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their defeat in World War II) explains the frequent use of apocalypse in the country's fiction, he turns around and says he doesn't buy it. Why not? Because "apocalyptic art and fantasy are in no way unique to Japan. For example, apocalypse has been a persistent theme in postwar American culture," despite the fact that the U.S. was never bombed during the war.

It's exactly this kind of intellectual awareness and honesty that anime scholarship (hell, anime fandom) needs more of. There are many things about anime and manga that are unique, and there are many books (including Mechademia) that celebrate that. But if we really want to position these media within the cultures of the world at large, then we need more work that looks at them in relation to what's going on outside of Japan, and there's no better place to do it than within the rigorous structure of academic writing. I'm happy that Mechademia is starting to encourage this kind of thinking, and I hope the next volume takes it further.

Labels: academia, anime, books, manga, reviews, shoujo

La Cinematheque Quebecoise is hosting the largest retrospective of early Japanese animation to ever take place outside of Japan. Just last week that distinction went to the Japan Society's selection of films.

From February 27 to April 5, the special Montreal screenings of Japanese animation from 1924 to 1952 will feature 53 films in 16mm and 35mm, including one feature - Japan's first - Momotaru, The God Soldier of the Seas. National Film Center/Museum of Modern Art of Tokyo curator Akira Tochigi will be in town to inaugurate the event and will lead a conference on February 29 on early Japanese animation.

A full schedule is available on the CQ website (French only), and Facebook, with a sampling of the shorts. As of this week, a bilingual (French and English) program for the retrospective is available at the Cinematheque.

Previously on fps
Japanese Anime Classic Collection review
Podcast 11: Our Baseball Match (1931)

Labels: anime, features, Japan, Montreal, shorts

Batman: Gotham Knight, the anthology of US-scripted, Japanese-animated Batman stories occurring between the most recent and forthcoming live-action Batman films has a promo video circulating online.

While everyone in the promotional video is extremely articulate, I'd still recommend listening to it with the sound off. You may miss one or two insightful comments, but most remarks are things we all know about the Batman character. The commentary about the Japanese aspect of the production may have been more interesting if one of the Japanese participants actually got a chance to describe it, instead of it being distilled for us by Westerners.



Previously on fps
DC Comics OAVs
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
The End of Justice League

Labels: anime, Batman, border-crossing, comics, Japan

The Japan Culture + Hyperculture festival at the Kennedy Center is the place to be in Washington D.C. this weekend for exciting anime. We've been falling all over ourselves because of Genius Party anthology for a while, and its North American premiere and the world premiere of Genius Party Beyond will be screening at the festival on Friday and Saturday. The other three anime screenings on Sunday are equally notable: it just depends on the type of animation you like to seek out. The east coast premieres of Appleseed: Ex Machina and The Piano Forest are firsts, but Five Centimeters Per Second, despite being listed as an east coast premiere, screened last November at WFAC.

Thanks to a head's up from Amid at Cartoon Brew.

Previously on fps
Genius Party
Masaaki Yuasa interview
Eiko Tanaka interview

Labels: anime, features, festivals, Genius Party, Japan, Studio 4C, Washington DC

From February 12 to 16, the Japan Society in New York City will be hosting six screenings featuring a total of 38 early Japanese animation shorts. Each screening's shorts will be followed by a silent live-action feature film, and benshi narration for silent films will be performed by Midori Sawato. Most of the animation featured can be found on Digital Meme's Japanese Anime Classic Collection DVD set, with rare shorts dating from 1928 to 1950.

Previously on fps
Japanese Anime Classic Collection review
Podcast 11: Our Baseball Match (1931)
Podcast 12: Interview with Digital Meme CEO Larry Greenberg

Labels: anime, Japan, New York, shorts

This weekend, I had the great fortune to attend transculturELLE: How Girls Cross Cultures, a workshop organized by Dr. Thomas Lamarre and sponsored by the East Asian Studies Department at McGill University in Montreal. (fps contributor Kino Kid hosted me, and is such a good hostess that I had to avoid saying "my roommate" when referring to her.)

The two-day workshop revolved around papers that focused on shoujo titles from various eras, including live-action films like Shimotsuma Monogatari (otherwise known as Kamikaze Girls). As a theme, "How girls cross cultures" yielded fruitful results, with papers examining issues of transcultural flow, fashion, intertextuality, national identity, criminality, perversion, and technology in such titles as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, The Rose of Versailles, NANA, and Denno Coil. The discussion was deep and long-lasting, and the calibre of participants unparallelled.

Although more and more academic conferences like the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts and the Popular Culture Association national conference now hold panels on anime and manga, it's rare to find a conference that's as specific as this one, especially outside the US. Frenchy Lunning, a transculturELLE participant and editor of Mechademia, the top journal of anime and manga criticism, hosts a similar workshop called Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, but SGMS is geared toward a slightly different audience. For academics interested in theory and interdisciplinary thinking, workshops like transculturELLE afford the opportunity to discuss Eto Jun, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault, and Toshiya Ueno (or even meet the man) all in the context of anime and manga. This is something I've yearned for since encountering anime to begin with, and it's both heartening and humbling to see established professionals turning the discourse to their interests with such vigour. I eagerly anticipate the next workshop, and hope to tell you all about it soon.

Labels: academia, anime, manga, shoujo

Montreal's Cinematheque Quebecoise is screening two modern anime favourites this month. Today, they are showing Akira, and next week Thursday, they offer the opportunity to see Princess Mononoke on the big screen.

Princess Mononoke was overlooked for an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1997. It seems like the pattern has been repeated this year. Check out this Cartoon Brew post about this year's snub of Persepolis.

Labels: anime, Hayao Miyazaki, Katsuhiro Otomo, Montreal, Oscars, Persepolis, Studio Ghibli

Friday and Saturday, January 25 and 26 at McGill University in Montreal, Thomas Lamarre will be hosting a workshop on shoujo anime and manga. Academic papers on gender, genre, and culture will be presented by the likes of Frenchy Lunning, Toshiya Ueno, and Ian Condry. I will attend and cover the event for fps. There is no charge to attend. For more information, contact Thomas Lamarre.

Here is a prospective list of papers:

Session 1: 11:30 – 14:00

Anne McKnight, USC. ‘Subcultures and Frenchness’

Brian Bergstrom, McGill. ‘Girliness is Next to Godliness: The Girl as Sacred Criminal in Kurahashi Yumiko’s ‘Seishôjo’

Frenchy Lunning, University of Minnesota. ‘Under the Ruffles: Shojo and the Morphology of Abjection’

Session 2: 15:00 – 16:30

Saitô Satomi, McGill. ‘Genre Convergence in the Digital Age: Shojo manga, sekai-kei, and Shinkai Makoto’

Emily Raine, McGill. ‘Kawaii and Capital in t.o.L’s Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space’

Ian Condry, MIT. ‘Future Anime: Girls and Boys who Leap through Time’

Session 3: 17:00 – 18:30

Livia Monnet, UdM. ‘The Anatomy of Permutational Desire: Perversion and the Artificial Girl in Contemporary Japanese Animation’

Tom Looser, NYU. ‘The Utopic Matter of Women’


SATURDAY

Session 4: 9:30-11:30

Toshiya Ueno, Wako University. ‘Matriarchy and Criticism in Japan’

Yukiko Hanawa, NYU. ‘Camouflage Time’

Tom Lamarre, McGill. ‘Nature Girls and Culture Times’

Labels: academia, anime, manga, Montreal, shoujo, workshops

Canadian readers take note: starting January 7, Space will start airing Robotech, arguably the series that kicked anime fandom into gear in North America.

Anime had been on North American TV for twenty years before Robotech came around, but when it made its debut in 1985 it had three advantages previous series hadn't: the rise of home video recording, burgeoning online communities, and story editor Carl Macek.

That last point is the most contentious for some. The Robotech TV series was actually three Tatsunoko series (Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada) strung together and altered where necessary to tell a story of three different wars fought in the near future against alien invaders.

To the modern anime fan, the results were heretical: character names changed, a new episode was created by editing footage together from several others, and three shows that had no business being together were suddenly family.

But one has to bear in mind that this wasn't uncommon for televised anime back then. And while Macek has taken plenty of heat for it, he also deserves credit for something few other adapted anime series could claim: he respected the sophistication of his audience.

You see, Robotech was the only war cartoon on the air that treated war like war. Soldiers and civilians died, sometimes on a massive scale. More important than that, the show addressed things like mourning, living under occupation, and the different ways that soldiers dealt with taking other people's lives. A lot of these issues came from the original series, but Macek went against the grain and left them in. Consider that during the age of G.I. Joe and muscular, Reagan-era popular entertainment, a major reoccurring plot point in Robotech involved elements from both warring parties empathizing with one another. How radical is that?

It's important to mention, though, that Robotech is wildly uneven. Some of that comes from the source material; watch the breathtaking aerial faceoff between Max and Miriya in episode 18 and you'll wonder how it could be from the same show that, a few episodes later, features some of the clunkiest, cheapest animation you'll ever see. That's the nature of outsourced TV animation, of course, but the difference between the two is startling.

The quality of the voiceover work among the main characters is pretty strong, though secondary and incidental characters sometimes chew the scenery with a little too much gusto. And, to be perfectly honest, more than a few scenes feature heaping amounts of cheese. At the same time, there are quite a few moments of grace in Robotech, and when you catch them it's easy to understand how it captured so many hearts.

Previously on The Critical Eye
Robotech and Battle of the Planets
Macross & Macross Plus

Robotech
Buy Robotech DVDs and more from Amazon.com, or Amazon.ca

Labels: anime, Macross, Robotech

Some interesting news out of New York: at the inaugural ICv2 Anime and Manga conference (which kicked off the inaugural New York Anime Festival) on Friday, ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp delivered a report that stated that both the sales and the number of anime DVD titles have declined in the U.S. over the last three years.

Here are the numbers: anime DVD sales went from $500 million in 2003 to about $400 million in 2006, and releases slid from more than 600 titles in 2006 to about 500 in 2007. Griepp cited piracy and high prices as the two main reasons for the decline. I think that's perhaps a little simplistic, and a more careful examination might yield some interesting and provocative answers.

First of all, DVD sales as a whole are pretty much flat. This may partly be a reflection of the market for DVDs as a whole.

Second, using piracy as a whipping boy is pretty darned tired; piracy has been entwined with anime in North American fandom for decades, and while I've made the case in the past that earlier bootlegging built up the market for anime, I'd argue that we can't really know piracy's impact on the industry as a whole right now—there are simply too many unknowable variables.

Third, 100 fewer anime releases in 2007 may not be that alarming. Consider for a moment that over 600 releases in a year works out to 11 or 12 releases for every week of 2006. While I constantly state that anime is not, as many mistakenly claim, a genre, the fact is that it is often marketed and treated as such. Can any genre with such a relatively small consumer base sustain that kind of activity? Furthermore, anime companies don't only release current titles, they also release older properties. Even with re-releases in play (how many versions of Robotech and Neon Genesis Evangelion are there?), at some point there has to be a falloff. It's entirely possible that some of the shift in numbers may simply be due to a correction.

With all that said, though, I'm holding out the hope that part of the reason for decreased sales is a declining interest in anime qua anime. It's been almost twenty years since I first noticed the tendency for fans to dismiss or accept something purely on the basis of whether or not it was anime, or related to anime. And given the relatively narrow slice of Japanese animation that we're presented in this part of the world, I expect some ennui is starting to settle in. At the ICv2 conference, 4Kids Entertainment CEO Al Kahn declared that "Japan is over and [innovation] has moved to Korea," that TV anime was "tired," and that many of the new series being produced are "too derivative."

There's some truth to the assessment of TV anime, but the initial statement is the most telling, when it comes to attitudes. First, get past the crassness of the phrase "Japan is over." If you expand the definition of anime as we do here—that is, to include all forms of animation from Japan—then there's plenty of innovation happening in Japan (and, I hasten to add, in Korea as well); just look through our reviews from the Japan Media Arts Festival, or check out what independent directors like Koji Yamamura, Yuichi Ito, or Takeshi Nagata and Kazue Monno are up to, for starters.

Also, let's not forget that anime fandom has long been built on word-of-mouth. Even if we stay within the commercial sphere, what happens when people hear the buzz about films like Mind Game and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time but can't get them domestically on DVD?

I'd like to think that people are slowly waking to the fact that there's more to anime, and animation as a whole, than what they're being fed. Even if I'm wrong, the North American anime industry could stand to concentrate less on volume and more on the diversity of their offerings and narrowing the window between Japanese and domestic releases. It would be nice if the sales slowdown forced a few companies to consider possibilities like these.

Labels: anime

At last year's Ottawa International Animation Festival, I met with I.Toon founder and president Yuichi Ito; at this year's festival, we—along with his manager Hiroko Kamata—sat down to talk about his series of short stop-motion films, Norabbits' Minutes. Created for Shochiku's 110th anniversary, Norabbits' Minutes features two young rabbit brothers who live together in the forest and have endearing adventures together... though not without some absurd twists. As a bonus, we are also presenting the first episode of Norabbits' Minutes in its entirety.



Links
I.Toon
Shochiku
Ottawa International Animation Festival
Buy the Norabbits' Minutes series on DVD (Region 2)

Labels: anime, interviews, Japan, Ottawa International Animation Festival, podcast, shorts, stop-motion, Yuichi Ito

At last year's Ottawa International Animation Festival, I met with I.Toon founder and president Yuichi Ito; at this year's festival, we—along with his manager Hiroko Kamata—sat down to talk about his series of short stop-motion films, Norabbits' Minutes.

Listen to the interview and see the short

Labels: anime, interviews, OIAF, Ottawa International Animation Festival, shorts, stop-motion

This Saturday and Sunday afternoon, November 10 and 11: leading up to the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, WFAC in partnership with Bandai Visual and the Waterloo Children's Museum will be holding a 20th anniversary screening of Wings of Honneamise, one the best anime features of the 80s, and the first feature ever produced by Gainax.

If you go on Saturday, On both days, you can catch Jin Roh, also in high-definition, based on the comic by Mamoru Oshii, and the English premiere of Detective Conan.

If you are anywhere near Waterloo, Ontario, this is not to be missed. All screenings are free.
Showtimes

Labels: anime, events, features, Gainax, Mamoru Oshii, Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, WFAC

The best campfire stories are the ones that are meta—you know, the characters in the story talk about some folk legend and then end up living (but probably not living through) the tale themselves. So it is in Kakurenbo (2005), in which children play a late-night game of hide and seek in an old part of the city, specifically to test a legend about kids doing just that.

Wearing their fox masks—a requirement for the game—the kids quickly discover that the rumours of demons pursuing the players are true. Much like in Wicked City, the chase take place in an urban landscape, through buildings that appear to have all been abandoned. Unlike Wicked City, these demons don't wear suits. In fact, they're distinctly old-fashioned creatures out of Japanese folklore, some with accouterments straight out of previous centuries. As the children fall one by one, you get the feeling that this game has been played for a long, long time—so long that the children and the modern buildings they run through are the interlopers, not the monsters.

Kakurenbo is entirely 3D CGI, though all the characters are cel-shaded and the backgrounds are either painted or heavily textured. At the beginning of the movie, it's recommended that you watch it in the dark. This is true for the story's mood—all monster movies should be watched in the dark—but also aesthetically. Kakurenbo's colour palette is extremely dark, and its rich look only really becomes apparent when the lights are out.

As in many good ghost stories, the characters themselves are ciphers. We don't really know much about the eight kids—one is blustery, two are dangerous as hell, one is looking for his sister who disappeared during an earlier game—and we really don't need to. (The fox masks, which conveniently eliminate any need for facial animation, also help to keep us from getting to know the characters.) Even so, we're given just enough so that the end—which, like other meta ghost stories, serves to confirm the story the characters were relating—still sends a shiver down the spine.

Where to find it: On DVD at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, or Right Stuf

Labels: anime, CGI, shorts, top 5

In the late 1980s, Yoshiaki Kawajiri directed four projects that would cement his distinctive style: the short film The Running Man, the 2-part OAV series Goku: Midnight Eye, and the features Yojutoshi (aka Wicked City, produced in 1987) and Demon City Shinjuku. All of them share Kawajiri's trademark slickness and his knack for moodiness, but only the last two feature supernatural horrors running around a nighttime urban landscape as if it were their natural habitat.

Of the two, Wicked City is the better movie overall. It posits the existence of the Black World, a world inhabited by demons that coexists with our own. Few know about the Black World, and fewer still know that every few hundred years, a peace treaty is signed between the Black World and ours, guaranteeing peaceful coexistence; a secret organization known as the Black Guard enforces the treaty. A splinter group of demons wants to sabotage the current peace treaty by killing the 200-year-old Giuseppe Mayart, a key figure in brokering the deal. Two Black World agents are assigned the task of protecting him: the human Taki Renzaburo, who carries a big gun and knows how to use it, and the beautiful, human-looking demon Makie, whose weapons of choice are her extendable, deadly-sharp fingernails.

The entire film takes place at night, of course, which allows not only for a reduced, somber colour palette and countless shadows, but an opportunity to explore the idea of an underworld in both common senses—the realm of the unnatural, and a criminal urban milieu that exists, much like the Black World, in parallel to our own. It's notable that many of the demons make their initial appearance not as ugly beasties, but as men and women in the dress we're accustomed to seeing in urban crime stories. The first female demon Taki encounters is in the form of a bar hostess; the first male demons are dressed in sharp black business suits. Confrontations take place in many of the same locations as in traditional noir films: foggy airport runways, hotel bars, back rooms, run-down buildings, brothels.

The setting is perfect for Kawajiri's style, which favours gorgeous establishing shots, backgrounds dense with details and scenes with one or two dominant colours. Particularly distinctive are the many ways that light spills into scenes: airplane lights on a foggy runway, street lights as a car speeds toward the city, moonlight filtering into a church. All of his movies play with these elements, but only Wicked City and Demon City Shinjuku make use of them all.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Wicked City is the large part that women's sexuality plays in it. Anyone with a double major in women's studies and film studies needs to watch this film, for the many ways in which it plays with the many images of women and men's fears. You've got vagina dentata, a spider-woman, a prostitute who literally absorbs her victims—the list goes on. The things that women do and the things that are done to women in this film could fill a few thesis papers, I'm sure. Either way—as a study in gender relations or just an exceedingly stylish film with nasty beasties and awesomely choreographed action—Wicked City is a must-see.

Where to find it: On DVD at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, or Right Stuf

Labels: anime, features, top 5, Yoshiaki Kawajiri

We're all animation fans here, right? And there are probably few things that irritate us more than people who think that all we watch are the juvenile antics of anvil-toting funny-animals. I've said before that the mainstream press (and marketing departments) are a big part of the problem, as they help perpetuate a limited (and often inaccurate) view of animation's content and process.

As it happens, today I spotted two articles that both refer to their writers' limited views on animation. One of these is predictably disappointing; the other is surprisingly encouraging.

I'll start with the good news. In yesterday's New York Times, Stephon Holden summarized the New York Film Festival's highlights, and he led off with (and praises) Persepolis despite, as he put it, a "longstanding resistance to animation":

Because it is animated, Persepolis is a bold choice for the festival’s closing-night selection. "A cartoon?" you may sniff. "How dare they?" But the movie is so enthralling that it eroded my longstanding resistance to animation, and I realized that the same history translated into a live-action drama could never be depicted with the clarity and narrative drive that bold, simple animation encourages.

This is a refreshing and commendable report. Confronted with an animated feature that challenged his preconceptions about the medium, Holden adjusted his worldview in light of this new experience, without once feeling the need to denigrate the rest of animation's offerings. If only more film critics, fans and artists did the same.

Montreal's Al Kratina, on the other hand, gives a typical backhanded compliment in yesterday's Montreal Gazette:

In September, Anchor Bay Entertainment released a slew of anime titles, including Perfect Blue, a film that avoids most anime clichés. It's not futuristic, there are no robots, and at no point is a schoolgirl threatened by some sort of pulsating sex monster. Instead, it's a complex story of a young pop idol who's stalked by a crazed fan, with exaggerated themes of obsession and paranoia that feel like Alfred Hitchcock directing a Road Runner cartoon.

More of the same old, same old. Kratina has, like most mainstream critics (and more than a few in the animation press, as well) seen only a sliver of all that anime has to offer, and yet he figures he already knows "most" of its tropes—sorry, "clichés." So far as he's concerned, it's not typical anime if it's "not futuristic, there are no robots, and at no point is a schoolgirl threatened by some sort of pulsating sex monster." And of course there's the inevitable comparison to Disney films or Looney Tunes.

Enough is enough, already. As I wrote eleven months ago, if we want to see better animation writing we need to tell writers and editors when they've screwed up. I encourage you to write to newspapers, magazines, radio shows, TV shows and websites when this kind of lazy criticism occurs; it's the only way we'll ever see real change. Here's what I wrote to the Gazette:

Sad to say, I'm not surprised that Al Kratina makes the backhanded compliment to Perfect Blue that it "avoids most anime clichés. It's not futuristic, there are no robots, and at no point is a schoolgirl threatened by some sort of pulsating sex monster" ("'In' films for 'out' crowds," Oct. 12). There are many anime productions that don't fit into his preconceived categories, but as is often the case with people who don't take the time to understand a genre or medium, he figures a few generalizations will suffice.

The irony here is that Kratina reviews comic books, another medium that is often unfairly judged. If I said, "The Sandman is a title that avoid most comic clichés, because it doesn't have spandex-clad muscle-men whaling the tar out of each other in adolescent power fantasies," he'd probably tell me about how comics have become more mature and/or complex in content over the last three decades, and that there's a whole world of non-superhero comics that go beyond that tired stereotype.

In short, he'd be asking me to look at the medium with an open mind. He might consider extending the same courtesy to anime.

Have you come across anything egregious in the media lately? Let us know about it.

Labels: animation press, anime, Persepolis, reviews

Nostalgia is an essential component of the DVD-release landscape, and the next few months feature more than a few wistful looks back, especially to the 1980s. The entire Megazone 23 series, the first of which I described as "utterly immersed in its era," comes out in a box set in December, as do Super Dimension Century Orguss, Nobody's Boy Remi and the first season of Cat's Eye. From the Western side of things, there's the first collection of Pixar shorts, as well as the next Voltron release. Step a bit farther back than the leg-warmer era and you get the indescribably addictive badness of the late-'60s Rocket Robin Hood (only from Warner Canada, but if you're really jonesing our links point to Amazon.ca), but you also get this year's Walt Disney Treasures releases. The most pleasant surprise, however, is something you may never have seen: the DVD release of the Chinese feature Princess Iron Fan, which Noel Vera admired in his essay on Chinese animation a few years ago.

New titles:

October:
10/9 - Fate/Stay Night Vol. 6: The Holy Grail Limited Edition (DVD)
10/9 - Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (Paperback) (Book)
10/15 - 3ds Max 9.0: Accelerated (Paperback) (Book)
10/15 - After Class Lesson Box Set (Adult) (DVD)
10/15 - All About Techniques in Drawing for Animation Production (Paperback) (Book)
10/15 - Hot Juicy Teacher Box Set (Adult) (DVD)
10/15 - Slutty Princess Diaries Box Set (Adult) (DVD)
10/16 - Cat's Eye Vol. 3 (DVD)
10/16 - Cat's Eye Vol. 4 (DVD)
10/16 - Nobody's Boy Remi Vol. 3 (DVD)
10/16 - Nobody's Boy Remi Vol. 4 (DVD)
10/16 - Super Dimension Century Orguss Vol. 3 (DVD)
10/16 - Super Dimension Century Orguss Vol. 4 (DVD)
10/23 - Rocket Robin Hood Vol. 1 (DVD)
10/23 - Rocket Robin Hood Vol. 2 (DVD)
10/25 - Art of Bee Movie (Hardcover) (Book)
10/25 - Hanna-Barbera Retro Gift Set (DVD)
10/25 - LightWave 3D 8 Modeling: A Definitive Guide (Paperback) (Book)
10/30 - Bizarre Cartoons of the Past (DVD)
10/30 - Holidaze: The Christmas That Almost Didn't Happen (DVD)
10/30 - Polar Express (Blu-ray)
10/30 - TV Animation Gift Set (DVD)
10/30 - We Are the Strange (DVD)

November:
11/1 - Human Motion: Understanding, Modelling, Capture and Animation (Hardcover) (Book)
11/2 - Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Fourth Edition: Essential and Advanced Techniques (Paperback) (Book)
11/6 - Ah My Goddess Season 2 Vol. 4: I'm a Believer (DVD)
11/6 - Animated Family Favorites 3-Movie Collection (DVD)
11/6 - Best of Blu-ray: Happy Feet/Tim Burton's Corpse Bride/The Ant Bully/Scooby-Doo (Blu-ray)
11/6 - Bettle Bailey: The Complete Collection (DVD)
11/6 - Burn Up!/Plastic Little 2-Pack (DVD)
11/6 - Cars (Blu-ray)
11/6 - Cat's Eye Vol. 5 (DVD)
11/6 - Cat's Eye Vol. 6 (DVD)
11/6 - Di Gi Charat Nyo! Vol. 4 (DVD)
11/6 - Flag Vol. 1 (DVD)
11/6 - Flag Vol. 1 Limited Edition + artbox (DVD)
11/6 - Gantz Perfect Score Collection (DVD)
11/6 - Gundam Seed Destiny Vol. 11 (DVD)
11/6 - Guyver Vol. 7: Armor of the Gods (DVD)
11/6 - Mars Daybreak Collection (Anime Legends) (DVD)
11/6 - Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Vol. 4 (DVD)
11/6 - Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Vol. 4 Special Limited Edition (DVD)
11/6 - Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Character Song Volume 5: Ryoko (CD)
11/6 - Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Character Song Volume 7: Emiri (CD)
11/6 - Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Character Song Volume 8: Itsuki (CD)
11/6 - Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Haruhi no Tsumeawase (CD)
11/6 - My-Otome Vol. 3 (DVD)
11/6 - Nobody's Boy Remi Vol. 5 (DVD)
11/6 - Nobody's Boy Remi Vol. 6 (DVD)
11/6 - Once Upon a Time: A Storybook Collection (DVD)
11/6 - Pixar Short Films Collection Vol. 1 (Blu-ray)
11/6 - Pixar Short Films Collection Vol. 1 (DVD)
11/6 - Popeye's Voyage: Quest for Pappy (DVD)
11/6 - Princess Iron Fan (DVD)
11/6 - Ratatouille (Blu-ray)
11/6 - Ratatouille (DVD)
11/6 - Super Dimension Century Orguss Vol. 5 (DVD)
11/6 - Super Dimension Century Orguss Vol. 6 (DVD)
11/6 - Tide-Line Blue Vol. 4 (DVD)
11/11 - SOS! Tokyo Metro Explorers: The Next (Blu-ray)
11/11 - SOS! Tokyo Metro Explorers: The Next (DVD)
11/11 - The Shrek Trilogy (DVD)
11/13 - Blade of the Phantom Master: Shin Angyo Onshi (DVD)
11/13 - DuckTales Vol. 3 (DVD)
11/13 - Eureka Seven Vol. 10 (DVD)
11/13 - Eureka Seven Vol. 10 Special Edition (DVD)
11/13 - Scooby-Doo Gift Set (DVD)
11/13 - Shadow Skill Complete Collection (DVD)
11/13 - Shrek the Third (HD DVD)
11/13 - Sonic X: New World Saga (DVD)
11/13 - TaleSpin Vol. 2 (DVD)
11/13 - Ugly Duckling and Me: Yard Party (DVD)
11/13 - Venus Versus Virus Vol. 1: Outbreak (DVD)
11/13 - Xenosaga Vol. 2: Voices From the Past (DVD)
11/13 - Zorro: Return to the Future (DVD)
11/16 - Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime (hardcover) (Book)
11/19 - Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Studio Techniques (Paperback) (Book)
11/20 - Death Note Vol. 1 + manga vol. 1 (DVD)
11/20 - Fruits Basket Box Set (DVD)
11/20 - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig Box Set (DVD)
11/20 - Jing, King of Bandits: Seventh Heaven (DVD)
11/20 - Karas The Prophecy/The Revelation 2-Pack (DVD)
11/20 - My Friends Tigger and Pooh: Super Sleuth Christmas Movie (DVD)
11/20 - Princess Tutu Complete Collection (DVD)
11/20 - Red Garden Vol. 2: Breaking the Girls (DVD)
11/20 - Red Garden Vol. 2: Breaking the Girls + artbox (DVD)
11/20 - Super Mario Bros./Sonic the Hedgehog Box Set (DVD)
11/27 - Air Vol. 4 (DVD)
11/27 - Futurama the Movie: Bender's Big Score (DVD)
11/27 - Imma Youjo: The Erotic Temptress Vol. 4: The Bewitching Countess (Adult) (DVD)
11/27 - Jin-Roh (Blu-ray)
11/27 - Land Before Time: Good Times and Good Friends (DVD)
11/27 - Land Before Time: The Wisdom of Friends (DVD)
11/27 - Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi Perfect Collection (DVD)
11/27 - Nadia, Secret of Blue Water Perfect Collection (DVD)
11/27 - Neon Genesis Evangelion Platinum Perfect Collection (DVD)
11/27 - Paprika (Blu-ray)
11/27 - Paprika (DVD)
11/27 - Return to Never Land Pixie-Powered Edition (DVD)
11/27 - Third, The: The Girl with the Blue Eye Vol. 3 (DVD)
11/27 - Third, The: The Girl with the Blue Eye Vol. 3 Limited Edition + artbox + puzzles (DVD)
11/30 - Learning with Animation: Research Implications for Design (Hardcover) (Book)

December:
12/4 - .hack//Roots Original Soundtrack 1 (CD)
12/4 - .hack//Roots Vol. 5 (DVD)
12/4 - Air Gear Vol. 6: Kill 'Em Dead (DVD)
12/4 - Aqua Teen Hunger Force Vol. 5 (DVD)
12/4 - Basilisk Vol. 3: Parting of the Ways (DVD)
12/4 - Basilisk Vol. 4: Tokaido Road (DVD)
12/4 - Cat's Eye Season 1 Collection (DVD)
12/4 - Cat's Eye Vol. 7 (DVD)
12/4 - Cat's Eye Vol. 8 (DVD)
12/4 - Curious George lays in the Snow & Other Awesome Activities (DVD)
12/4 - Desert Punk Vol. 5: Under the Desert (DVD)
12/4 - Desert Punk Vol. 6: Death of the Desert (DVD)
12/4 - Dragon Half/Puni Pui Poemy 2-Pack (DVD)
12/4 - Flag Vol. 2 (DVD)
12/4 - Galaxy Angel AA Vol. 4 (DVD)
12/4 - Hell Girl Vol. 2 (DVD)
12/4 - Highlander: The Complete Animated Series (DVD)
12/4 - Lost Universe Collection (DVD)
12/4 - Magikano Vol. 1: A New Witch in Town (DVD)
12/4 - Midori Days: The Handheld Collection (DVD)
12/4 - Ninja Nonsense Collection Limited Edition (DVD)
12/4 - Nobody's Boy Remi Collection (DVD)
12/4 - Nobody's Boy Remi Vol. 7 (DVD)
12/4 - Nobody's Boy Remi Vol. 8 (DVD)
12/4 - Phoenix Vol. 2: Eternal Recurrance (DVD)
12/4 - Ragnarok Vol. 1 (DVD)
12/4 - Samurai 7 Vol. 7: Guardians of the Rice (DVD)
12/4 - Street Fighter Alpha 2-Pack (DVD)
12/4 - Super Dimension Century Orguss Collection (DVD)
12/4 - Super Dimension Century Orguss Vol. 7 (DVD)
12/4 - Super Dimension Century Orguss Vol. 8 (DVD)
12/4 - Tom and Jerry Tales Vol. 3 (DVD)
12/4 - Wallace & Gromit: Three Amazing Adventures (DVD)
12/4 - Welcome to the NHK Vol. 2 (DVD)
12/4 - Welcome to the NHK Vol. 2 + series box (DVD)
12/4 - Zegapain Vol. 2 (DVD)
12/11 - Air: The Movie (DVD)
12/11 - Flower and Snake: The Animation (Adult) (DVD)
12/11 - Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 5: The Cost of Living (DVD)
12/11 - Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 6: Captured Souls (DVD)
12/11 - Kurau: Phantom Memory Vol. 5: Twin Destinies (DVD)
12/11 - Maya 2008 Character Modeling and Animation: Principles and Practice (paperback) (Book)
12/11 - Megazone 23 Complete Collection (DVD)
12/11 - My Santa Special (DVD)
12/11 - Pumpkin Scissors Vol. 2: The Enemy Within (DVD)
12/11 - Pumpkin Scissors Vol. 2: The Enemy Within + series box (DVD)
12/11 - Tenchi Muyo GXP Box Set (DVD)
12/11 - Tokyo Majin Vol. 1: Dark Arts: Dragon Stream (DVD)
12/11 - Voltron: Defender of the Universe Vol. 5 (DVD)
12/11 - Walt Disney Treasures: Chronological Donald Vol. 3 (DVD)
12/11 - Walt Disney Treasures: Disneyland: Secrets, Stories and Magic (DVD)
12/11 - Walt Disney Treasures: The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (DVD)
12/18 - Cinderella II: Dreams Come True Special Edition (widescreen) (DVD)
12/18 - Ghost In The Shell 2nd Gig: Individual Eleven (DVD)
12/18 - Innocent Venus Vol. 3: End of the New Beginning (DVD)
12/18 - Le Chevalier D'Eon Vol. 6: Bête Noire (DVD)
12/18 - Princess Princess Collection (DVD)
12/18 - School Rumble Vol. 4 (DVD)
12/18 - Simpsons: The Movie (widescreen) (DVD)
12/18 - Sonic Underground (DVD)
12/18 - Sorcerer Hunters Perfect Collection (DVD)
12/18 - Trinity Blood Vol. 3 (DVD)
12/18 - Trinity Blood Vol. 4 (DVD)
12/18 - Underdog Ultimate Collection (DVD)
12/18 - Wallflower, The Vol. 1: My Fair Bishonen (DVD)
12/18 - Yu Yu Hakusho Eight (episodes 99-112) (DVD)
12/21 - On Animation: The Director's Perspective: Official AWN Masters (Paperback) (Book)
12/26 - From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Culture in the Mind of the West (hardcover) (Book)
12/26 - Veggie Tales: Larry Boy and the Fib/The Rumor Weed (DVD)
12/26 - Veggie Tales: Madame Blueberry/Esther Girl Who Would Be Queen (DVD)
12/26 - Veggie Tales: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler/Ballad of Little (DVD)

January 2008:
1/1 - The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation (Hardcover) (Book)
1/3 - Introducing 3ds Max 2008 (paperback) (Book)
1/8 - All-New Superfriends Hour: Season One Vol. 1 (DVD)
1/8 - Naruto Vol. 19 (DVD)
1/15 - Bleach Vol. 7 (DVD)
1/15 - Hikaru no Go Vol. 12 (DVD)
1/15 - Medabots: The Complete First Season (DVD)
1/15 - Prince of Tennis Box Set 4 (DVD)
1/29 - Death Note Vol. 3 (DVD)
1/29 - Death Note Vol. 3 Deluxe Edition + figure (DVD)
1/29 - Naruto Vol. 20 (DVD)
1/29 - Ranma 1/2: Season 5 Box Set: Martial Mayhem (DVD)

February 2008:
2/1 - Stepping into the Picture: Cartoon Designer Maurice Noble (hardcover) (Book)
2/5 - Noddy Vol. 4: Taxi Service (DVD)
2/12 - Mar Vol. 5 (DVD)
2/12 - Naruto Box Set 6 (uncut) (DVD)
2/12 - Naruto Box Set 6 Special Edition (DVD)
2/12 - Pokemon Season 1 Box Set 3 (DVD)
2/25 - Fundamentals of Character Animation (paperback) (Book)

May 2008:
5/1 - The Animation Bible: A Practical Guide to the Art of Animating from Flipbooks to Flash (paperback) (Book)

September 2008:
9/23 - 3D Animation for Teens (paperback) (Book)

Date changes:

October:
10/9 - When They Cry Vol. 3 (DVD)
10/16 - Veggie Tales: Wonderful Wizard of Ha's (DVD)
10/23 - Galaxy Angel AA Vol. 3 (DVD)
10/23 - Inu Yasha Season 4 Box Set Deluxe Edition (DVD)

November:
11/1 - To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios (hardcover) (Book)
11/13 - Naruto the Movie Deluxe Edition (DVD)
11/20 - Fullmetal Alchemist Box Set 2 (DVD)
11/20 - Hanna-Barbera Treasury, The (hardcover) (Book)
11/27 - Anime Studio: The eFrontier Official Guide (paperback) (Book)
11/27 - Gunslinger Girl Box Set (DVD)
11/27 - Mobile Suit Gundam IGLOO: Hidden One Year War Vol. 1 (DVD)
11/27 - Spiral Box Set (DVD)
11/30 - After Effects CS3 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide (paperback) (Book)

December:
12/4 - Character Animation with Poser 7 (paperback) (Book)
12/5 - Yoshitaka Amano: The Collected Art of Vampire Hunter D (Book)
12/25 - Mar Vol. 4 (DVD)

March 2008:
3/18 - Maya Feature Creature Creations, Second Edition (paperback) (Book)

October 2008:
10/1 - Disney's Animation Magic (paperback) (Book)

Labels: anime, Pixar, releases, upcoming releases

A handful of bureaucrats in Japan's Ministry of Agriculture were reprimanded recently for updating 408 unrelated Wikipedia entries while on the job, including one employee who edited over 250 entries on the Mobile Suit Gundam Wikipedia page (here's the lesser English page).

"The Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam," said ministry official Tsutomu Shimomura.

Labels: anime, Japan, Mobile Suit Gundam

Geneon USA, the third party in America's "big three" of anime distribution (the other two being ADV and FUNimation) has cancelled plans to merge with ADV, and has also cancelled all sales of Geneon USA products to their retailers. The deadline for those retailers to order as much Geneon product as possible has since past.

The Geneon USA letter to retailer cites the termination of the proposed sales and distribution alliance with A.D. Vision, Inc. as the reason for the changes. Geneon USA had laid off much of its own sales and marketing teams earlier this month. Geneon USA's parent company, the Japanese advertising firm Dentsu Inc., said that "from October 1, 2007, Geneon USA will focus mainly on management of its works portfolio." (Source: Anime News Network)

There is no official word on what this means for Geneon-licensed titles that are in "limbo." Series like When They Cry or Hellsing Ultimate may never see full North American release, despite having partial release already.

Geneon has a large and potent backlist. Currently Geneon has four titles in ICv2's "Top 25 Anime" including Hellsing Ultimate (#7), Ergo Proxy (#17), Black Lagoon (#22) and Fate/Stay Night (#25). The fate of some of the series including Hellsing Ultimate is very much in doubt since Dentsu is planning to shut down Geneon's in-house production. (Source: ICv2)

This may be some viewers' last chance to buy series like Last Exile or Paranoia Agent, or Samurai Champloo, which Geneon holds the license to.

Labels: anime

In the last of this week's three-day Tekkonkinkreet tour, we present our latest video podcast: a music video set to Plaid's "White Dream"—or, more accurately, to the Shinichi Osawa remix of "White's Dream," from the Tekkonkinkreet soundtrack remix CD. The video is directed by Michael Arias, who generously provided it for us to post here.

Watch the video

Labels: anime, music videos, Studio 4C, Tekkon Kinkreet

White's Dream is a music video based on the Tekkonkinkreet movie. Set to the Shinichi Osawa remix of Plaid's song from the soundtrack and directed by Tekkon director Michael Arias, the video encapsulates most of the movie from Shiro's (White's) perspective.

Links
Tekkonkinkreet review
Michael Arias interview
Tekkonkinkreet image gallery
Tekkonkinkreet soundtrack
Tekkonkinkreet soundtrack remix CD

Image credit: © Taiyo Matsumoto / Shogakukan, Aniplex, Asmik Ace Entertainment, Beyond C., Dentsu, Tokyo MX.
Special thanks to Michael Arias for providing this video.

Labels: anime, Japan, Michael Arias, music videos, podcast, shorts, Tekkon Kinkreet

Interview by Emru Townsend and Tamu Townsend

Tekkonkinkreet has a long history, having started with a CG short created in the late 1990s, based on the Taiyo Matsumoto manga Black & White. Originally created as an exercise, Tekkonkinkreet was eventually slated to be a feature helmed by seasoned director Koji Morimoto—and then, silence. It wasn’t until late 2005 that it was announced that Tekkonkinkreet was on the boards again, this time with Michael Arias (who had created the original short) directing. The result was a heady, lush and sometimes baffling feature that saw very limited theatrical release in North America and is now out on DVD. Shortly after the film opened this year's Fantasia film festival, we interviewed Michael Arias via e-mail about the story behind Tekkonkinkreet.

Read the interview

Labels: anime, interviews, Studio 4C, Tekkon Kinkreet

Tekkonkinkreet made its North American DVD/Blu-ray/UMD debut today, and we're celebrating with three days of related bits of Tekkon goodness on the site. First up: an image gallery featuring movie stills, original background art (including pre-production images, like the cropped segment at left), and even reference photos from director Michael Arias. Unless you happen to hang around Studio 4°C, you've never seen some of these images before. Check it out.

See the gallery

Labels: anime, art, Studio 4C, Tekkon Kinkreet

Last year, the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art (also just known as Museum of Tokyo or MOT) held a notable exhibition, The Art of Disney. A beautiful catalogue was also published for the exhibit featuring works that were once thought lost. This summer, the DVD catalogue of the exhibit was released in Japan as well.

I decided I was going to see whatever exhibit was showing at the museum when I was in Tokyo, as I like to do in any new city I visit. It ended up the major exhibit was also animation-related this year: a retrospective of work by Art Director Kazuo Oga.

Kazuo Oga worked on a diverse animation projects such as Barefoot Gen, Dagger of Kamui and Wicked City before creating the background art for My Neighbor Totoro at Studio Ghibli. He went on to work on all of the subsequent features for the studio, and last year, directed his own film for the studio, Taneyamagahara no Yoru.

The lush scenery he creates with his brush is truly breathtaking, and the museum selection was as dense as an of the green forest background he is known for. The sheer number of pieces was more than I have seen for comparatively-sized art exhibitions of any type, and I have never seen its like for animation artwork, mostly from the Studio Ghibli archives. He captures the spirit of the countryside, but also of everyday Japan with a balance of love and accuracy.

Almost all of the art is unphotographable. Near the end of the exhibit, after a room of multiplane setups, there are a number of backgrounds that are blown up so that people can pose in front of them, but most people just step back in wonder to take a whole new look at the art. (I couldn't help posing with Totoro, though.)

Afterward, everyone was invited to fold an origami Totoro in an open room, with mini-backgrounds. Here's mine.

Like the Art of Disney catalogue, a catalogue has been published for this exhibit as well. A DVD is forthcoming for the end of the year. The exhibit has been extended until September 30. If you find yourself in Tokyo, you won't want to miss it.

Labels: anime, art, books, Disney, events, exhibitions, Japan, Studio Ghibli, Totoro

I've been watching Ben Steele's newly re-edited cut of Fragile Machine and looking forward to seeing how that crisp, eye-popping style will evolve in Steele's upcoming debut feature, Kitaru. Currently in pre-production, episode one of the planned trilogy looks promising. Not only do early images look great (see below), the film's likely to sound good too, with a score composed by Aoineko and performed by the Tiberian Sinfonietta and Choral Society.

Labels: anime, Aoineko, Ben Steele, CGI, features

After I attended the closing ceremonies at the Worldcon in Yokohama, a group of us, mostly Canadians, Americans, Brits and Aussies, hopped on a bus for Mitaka to visit the Ghibli Museum. The visit was extraordinary, but, like much that involves Studio Ghibli artwork, unphotographable. If you find yourself in Japan, and happen to be in Mitaka, be forewarned that pictures can only be taken of the grounds and the exterior of the building.

I'd rather not give anything away, because part of the fun is discovering the place for oneself. I was with one person who had already been there more than once, and he still had a great time, but I think that first time - well, no one should ruin certain parts for you.

What I will say is that you will get more than your money's worth. If you live in Japan, you must wait to acquire tickets, as the demand is huge. Many of the people I spoke to during my trip were surprised to know that many non-Japanese knew all his films and loved them, too. At least the people at the museum realize this, and with a little preparation, you can acquire your tickets but not have to wait the months that a resident would.

The museum is not huge but packs a lot in. It's surprising how much is still lodged in the space. Perhaps it is due to the size, but this is not the Studio Ghibli Museum, it is mostly the Miyazaki Museum (Hayao mostly, but nods to the latest film by son Goro). I didn't mind until I really stopped and thought about it, but I would not have minded seeing work from other films and I didn't find anything related to Iblard Jikan at the museum or even its gift store. That's not to say the exhibits were not satisfying or that it was solely composed of Miyazaki's art. In fact, a lot of visual information is provided on the process of making animation, including several variations of zoetropes. A large portion of the permanent exhibit is devoted to conceptual art. The Ghibli Museum makes space for foreign art and animation as well. I just thought I might see work from other Ghibli efforts, such as Whisper of the Heart or Pom Poko.

An exhibit of a film Hayao Miyazaki decided not to make, The Three Bears, was currently on display, and featured Russian artwork from children's books, and stills from Yuri Norstein's work. There have been past exhibits on Pixar and Aardman Animations, and during my visit, books and posters for My Love and Azur and Asmar were prominently displayed, both of which have screened or are screening in Japan, but may get lost in the cracks otherwise.

The gift store: Simply put, a Totoro explosion.

A final note: Instead of feeling miserable about the pictures you cannot take, and feeling frustrated when you should be enjoying your visit, buy the guide book when you leave for the year's exhibits for 800 yen (about 8 dollars) at the gift store or the convenience store right across the street. It contains snapshots of the interiors to help preserve your memories.

Labels: anime, exhibitions, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, Studio Ghibli, Totoro

As a delegate for the 67th World Science Fiction Convention bid for 2009, I had the chance to attend this year's 65th Worldcon in Yokohama, Japan. While I was there, people were buzzing about many different types of fandom, including science fiction and fantasy in animated form. In addition to the Artist Guest of Honour Yoshitaka Amano, who got his start working on Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets or G-Force) and more recently contributed the character designs for Final Fantasy and the seventh dream in Ten Nights of Dreams, the big animation talk among fans from East and West was the DVD release of Studio Ghibli's Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea).

It didn't hurt that Yoji Takeshige, the film's art director, was on hand to discuss the look of the film and (unfortunately, unphotographable) art from the film was entered in the Art Show. The film was selling swiftly in the dealers' room, especially to North Americans who will be among the last to see the film because of a rights issue with the Sci-Fi Network, who released the execrable live-action mini-series based in the same world created by Ursula K. Le Guin (as a fan of her works, I am at once excited and scared to watch the entire film based on her reaction). Although , I am not so sure about the overall direction of the film given the very public tensions between Miyazaki father and son, one thing I do know is that the dub will be superb, as it has been overseen by John Lasseter. I'll crack it open soon and see how it goes.

Labels: anime, events, features, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, Studio Ghibli, Yoshitaka Amano

Review written by Aaron H. Bynum

As profound an impact as Osamu Tezuka has had on the artistic and commercial cultures of manga publishing and the production of Japanese animation, it nevertheless remains true that in no place other than Japan is the late Tezuka acknowledged in scholarly media with constant fervour each passing year. A man whose ambition knew no bounds, Osamu Tezuka is one of Japan's most recognizable icons, while at the same time the nation's best-kept secret. He was a veritable "one-man dream factory," as author and translator Frederik L. Schodt wrote in his new book, The Astro Boy Essays. Known to the Western world mostly through his manga creation of a little rosy-cheeked robot boy named Atom, Osamu Tezuka was an individual of colossal imagination.

Read the review

Labels: anime, astroboy, books, Japan, Osamu Tezuka, reviews

Film: VEXILLE
Country: Japan
Director: Sori (Fumihiko Sori)
Length: 110 minutes
Rating: 14A
Distributor: FUNimation

Watching Vexille is a lot like going on a date with that hot airhead from high school: five minutes in, you wonder what excited you so much to begin with.

Vexille is the story of Vexille Serra (or Serra Vexille, if you live in the West), a member of a UN Special Forces unit called S.W.O.R.D. that monitors the advance of robotics and cybernetics technologies. The year is 2077, and for ten years Japan has lived behind a veil of electro-magnetic cloaking, building up the Daiwa Corporation robotics empire and refusing to allow real communications or travel in or out. Now the world fears that Japan has developed an android capable of passing as a human being, in violation of the same international treaties that caused Japan to withdraw from the UN years ago. And you guessed it: they have, and only through a chain of explosions, pseudo-scientific explanations, and thunderous Paul Oakenfold club anthems can the world be saved from a Bodysnatchers-like plot of android replacement.

Vexille has serious problems that render it more suitable for a late-night pizza-and-beer DVD rental than a twenty-dollar film festival movie ticket. But it's not all bad: Fumihiko Sori was the visual effects director for Appleseed, and fans of that silken, motion-capture-against-digital-vistas style will not be disappointed. The environments, particularly the slums of Tokyo and the toothy, glittering expanse of Los Angeles, are lovely. Tiny details, like snowflakes hitting a windscreen or grit kicked up by a tire, are well done. And the mechanical designs are fabulous. The aforementioned Oakenfold soundtrack keeps pace with the action. And the actions scenes themselves are good -- Sori knows how to execute a chase scene, if not how to inject one with any tension or suspense.

From frame one, the film plays like a bid to the Bubble-era "Techno-Orientalist" anxieties that Toshiya Ueno attributed to the West. It's all there: the threat of individual humans being replaced by human automatons as a result of Japan's technological superiority, Japan's hubris eventually becoming its downfall, Japanese people nobly sacrificing themselves en masse so that their virus cannot spread... The trouble is that the Bubble popped years ago. America has other fears now in China and Iran. Vexille might be an acknowledgement of those fears, or a parody of them. And if the film were smarter, it could have worked as the latter.

But the film is not smart. Every interesting plot point (the replacement of world leaders with "bio-metal" androids, or the giant, metal-eating desert sandworms borrowed from Dune) gets dropped in favour of yet another chase scene. And the titular character, Vexille, is just plain boring. Although the audience is supposed to believe her as a member of an elite fighting force, she does not behave like a well-trained or functional soldier. Yes, she pilots a mechanized suit very well, but so does everyone else on her squad. She seems to have no special skills to bring to the table, and frequently screams at the camera, bemoaning the fate of androids and humans alike instead of doing something useful to help herself or others. After watching a younger, more capable, smarter heroine in Terra, seeing Vexille Serra scream, cry, and follow secondary characters around causes no small amount of yawns and eye-rolls. It's telling when a titular character's most interesting plot development is learning via flashback that her boyfriend was in love with someone else ten years ago.

I saw only four films this Festival, but the other three audiences were loads more enthusiastic than this one. They laughed. They cheered. They held their breath. At the end of Vexille, the audience stood up and filed out quietly, more inspired by the need to find the night's last subway than the film they'd just seen. If you're an anime fan and you want good news from this year's Toronto International Festival, listen to this: Takeshi Miike and Quentin Tarantino are anime fans, and they've worked together on a live-action film called Sukiyaki Western Django. It's violent, funny, and plays like a lusciously-coloured manga flip-book. And there are anime in-jokes. Do yourself a favour, and wait for it instead.

Labels: anime, CGI, features, festivals, Japan, TIFF, Toronto, Toronto International Film Festival, Vexille

Ever since I first discovered CG-Arts and the Japan Media Arts Festival, I've been delighted to find that every year the festival features at least one short that looks and feels unlike any film I've ever seen—my criterion for an excellent film fest. This year one of the most striking was Tomonori Hayase's Mix a Miniascape.

Set to music by Jumpei Yamada, Hayase's film uses Adobe Photoshop and After Effects to create a funky, unusual Tokyo travelogue. Hayase took hundreds, if not thousands, of photos of people, places and thing as he passed by them, or they passed him. He then assembled the images into a collage, animating his travels through the city by erasing the image of, say, a building piece by piece at the same time as the next image of the same building is being built piece by piece. The effect is of moving through a fractured urban landscape, propelled by Yamada's breakbeats while navigating periods of both chaos and calm.

While Mix a Miniascape was an example of something new, there were also some nice reprises. Tochka Factory's Pikapika made its Japan Media Arts Festival debut—if you haven't already heard about this literally brilliant short, you should read my earlier praise—and Hikaru Yamakawa followed up last year's Oh Hisse (itself a followup to the previous year's Tope Con Giro) with La Magistral.

In Oh Hisse, Yamakawa presented a surreal world in which hundreds of faceless schoolboys marched in increasingly outlandish geometric processions, to the utter disregard of a man sitting on a bench and three schoolgirls talking among themselves. Oh Hisse's hypnotic appeal lay in its minimalist colour palette (black, white, a few shades of grey and spots of red), the mannequin-like quality of its characters, and its rhythmic and only vaguely natural movement. In La Magistral, Yamakawa explores the same concepts, but opens thin