Category: Anime
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for great justice
I am 8 episodes into Shingu. This is a fun series, and I am very glad that (aside from some screencaps at Don’s) I stayed away from Steven’s lengthy series analysis a few weeks ago. I look forward to reading his posts once I am done. In the meantime, this series is a treat.
Some initial spoiler thoughts, and screencaps from Episode 8 below the fold…
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Phoenix by Osamu Tezuka
interesting snippet via Anime-AICN:
MediaBlasters has announced that their AnimeWorks label will be releasing the first DVD volume of the 2004 anime adaptation of “God Manga” Osamu Tezuka’s life’s work, Phoenix on October 30th.
Ryousuke Takahashi, a director known for his realistic sci-fi war anime such as Votoms, Gasaraki, Flag and Blue Gender, headed the series that was co-produced by Tezuka Productions and WNET New York. The anime selects a number of stories from Tezuka’s exploration of the patterns of human existence. That original opus was produced between 1956-89 and consisted of twelve largely stand-alone books which alternated between jumping forward and backwards in time to capture the story of the human species from the dawn of civilization to its end. Viz Media has been releasing the manga in North America.
The manga was previously adapted into the 1980 movie Phoenix 2772 – Space Firebird, the Rintaro (Metropolis, the X movie) directed 1986 movie The Phoenix: Chapter of Ho-o, and the 1987 one episode OVA The Phoenix: Chapter of Yamato.
The 13 episode series will be releases across three volume. Volume 2 will be released December 4th.
sounds intriguing.
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enjoying Gedo Senki
I was pleasantly surprised, and not from low expectations either. I actually enjoyed this movie. In fact it reminded me in some ways of Princess Mononoke. It was a visual feast of course, but the key to its value was in realizing that this was just a tale within the Earthsea universe. You enter the world with its history intact, and that history is referenced but not fully detailed. Of course we see Ged and Tenar, but they are truly peripheral. The film engages you in the main characters, Arren and Therru. And even the villain has a motive that makes you at least partly pity him. And I certainly wasn’t expecting either of the two great shocking events, one at the start and the other at the end, to occur.
I dont know what else to say, other than I truly expected to hate this film but it’s certainly better than Howl’s Moving Castle. Guess I’ll setup that Gedo Senki category after all.
Some screenshots below the fold.
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downloading
I’ve posted my excuses and rationalizations for downloading elsewhere; no need to re-hash. I just grabbed torrents for Shingu, Firefly, and (to my shame) Gedo Senki – the latter on a tip from Don.
I’ve also finished a first run through The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and frankly, it ranks up there with Sugar, Someday’s Dreamers, and Haibane Renmei on my list of favorites. However I had a lot of trouble with the subtitles scrolling off the screen in VLC, any help in managing the subtitle display would be appreciated. I want to do a second run through and snag some screen shots this time around.
