Category: Live Action

Spring Falls Out: Spring 2008 Anime Guide

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April showers bring May flowers and new anime series. There is no way that Narutaki and I can watch every new anime series coming out this season but we will try to hit up whatever looks interesting and report back to you our loyal readers on what is worth watching this spring. Plus, I think we are going to skip all the horrible ohwhenwillthehurtingend shows. Speaking of which it does seem this spring the moe choice is shows with fox spirit girls. I guess since Kamen no Maid Guy came out no one else dared make a maid anime.

Since they have taken my Gundam 00 away and my Hayate I am looking for all new shows to start watching! This is an exciting and sometimes tedious task. I don’t want to go too much into what the shows are actually about, those things are easily looked up. We are just going to be giving our gut reactions to a whole slue of stuff and beware that we have only watched the first episode of most of this.

Bus Gamer
I downloaded this because the short reviews I saw said it was about bad dudes, doing bad things with awesome fights. Okay, what were those people watching? It couldn’t have been the first episode of this seriously poor anime. The fight that happens at the end, I wouldn’t have even called a fight! It was like random thugs and the dude just came up behind them and hit them with a pipe. That is not a fight!! Also they spent way too much time trying to develope these three guys and the plot. No action occurs till the last 10 minutes! And considering this show is only 3 episodes long, they need to be moving at a much faster pace.

You forgot to mention that the blond guy was super annoying and might have well be the stereotypical swooning and shrieking useless girl character except for the fact that he has a penis (or at least I am assuming he does). I did not dislike it as much as Narutaki but this show totally did not hook me with anything. The characters seem rather standard stock types. I might have been willing to wait and see if the characters were more but it’s too short of a series to give them any more time to develop. I might have also overlooked the fact that the characters are bland if the action was awesome but the action scenes were certainly pedestrian and horrifically one-sided.

Special A
 This is by and large a typical shojo romance comedy. I like the character designs, I have also heard good things about the manga. But really it seemed very average to me. Not rolling on thefloor funny and not over the top romantic shojo. It was just walking straight down the middle. And it has wacky side character disease, those people were the most interesting and they will probably never be developed.

Maybe by old timer blood is finally maturing to make me a cranky old Brainwasher Detective but Special A seems so standard that I can’t get worked up to care. Hikari and Kei just seem rather boring to me. Shojo manga lives and dies on how much I like the main characters. Awesome side characters are just a bonus. I found that Hikari seems like she has potential but the fact that Kei is just the uber awesome guy who beats her every time seems like it will get old very fast. I keep expecting him to beat her at being able to kiss boys better at some point in the series. I also thought that the side characters were just there. Megumi Yamamoto having to write everything down to talk because her voice is practically a weapon was used for good effect but nobody else sold me enough to ignore the main characters.

Allison to Lillia
This show has the most potential out of everything I have seen and read about thus far. It has a plot, having to do with the country being split in two (constant warring) and how they can reconcile it. It has good characters, Allison is spunky, funny, and strong-willed and she drags her good friend (love?) Wil along for a journey that could change the future of their world. It had suspense, adventure, humor, friendship, and drama all in a beautiful looking fully realized world akin to the 1920’s. This is what all first episodes should be. And the second did not disappoint. I am betting on this being one of the best shows this season as well as the most overlooked.

I’m not sure how you can like this sexist anime that sets back the women’s movement for decades. Oh wait . . . maybe being slightly apologetic does not make you a doormat. Considering the characters designs, a plot centering around a spunky female pilot, and an anti-war message you might easily mistake this a Hayao Miyazaki story. I will go out on a limb and risk looking like a total idiot when I state this might be almost as good as such. I think it has a family friendly feeling while still be entertaining for adults. I did some digging and I found out this anime is an adaptation of the first two parts of a trilogy of light novels. We have not seen any of the Lillia parts of the series but if it is a good as the Allison part I’m sure I will be happy. We both got the feeling that this show is going to be the buried treasure of the season.

The Tower of Druaga
This show started out as a hilarious, rip-roaring, parody of all things RPG has moved into semi-serious mode (episode 2 recently came out). Even with this abrupt change, I am still interested in what is to come. It atleast has the makings for a decent fantasy story which is rare in anime. Let’s hope it doesn’t flounder in the 10 episodes it has left.

It feels like the Tower of Druaga has turned into a serious fantasy adventure with a quirky sense of humor disbursed between action and intrigue much like Scrapped Princess. There is so little good fantasy anime that I will take whatever fix I can. The show has definite potential to fall apart but so far it seems decent. I’m sure some people are going to be thrown off by the non-canon theme first episode but I think it lends the show a certain charm much like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Blassreiter
Blassreiter is junk. It’s true. I couldn’t even gleam enjoyment from it being so bad and blase. The dialogue was lame, the character designs are poor, and they tell you how to feel instead of making you feel it. I felt nothing for the main character and his tragedy, it happened three minutes in, how am I supposed to be connected? And my biggest complaint has to be that the dude on the posters for it appears for all of 5 seconds and he doesn’t even do anything. Although, even with that he still seems like the most interesting character in the series.

Blassreiter seems like a show for people who want to watch a series like the Guyver but wanted an older protagonist. I also feel no real need to go out and watch anymore of this show. Some people might enjoy the dark action and the slightly more mature plots that come with a slightly more mature cast. Actually it’s more of that fake mature like Speed Grapher. A show that thinks it’s mature because it’s dark and deals with issues like sex and violence but is really just a shallow attempt at being mature.

Kamen no Maid Guy
This show clearly says ecchi when you go to the description but I just couldn’t resist after seeing the picture of it on ANN. It deserved to be watched just for that. Kogarashi is just one of the most hilarious looking dudes ever. Of course our very buxom young female lead bounces everywhere for anything and quite often loses her shirt or is in the shower. While this was a little much for me, the episode was hilariously amusing while our maid guy attempts to keep her safe and also clean!

Kamen no Maid Guy is basically what happens when you replace the romance and otaku humor from Hayate the Combat Butler with perverted jokes and boob shots. It does certainly seem like fun if you can tolerate with high levels of ecchi content. The fact that it looks like you took a Fist of the North Star villain and made him the ultimate bodyguard french maid has a certain hilarity built into it. I will continue to watch this guy but I’m not going out of my way to check every night if a new episode has come out.

Amatsuki
Amatsuki has potential, I’m atleast interested in seeing some more of it. While the story is semi-basic, at least we haven’t been told that the main guy is the key to this, the king of that, or the only one who can save something. The brief fight was good, so hopefully there will be more of that in the future. The character personalities were broad enough to also make me curious. But then again I really have no idea of what the plot is at this point.

I have to agree with Narutaki. The main character seems to amazingly easily accept the fact that he has been transported back in time and there are monsters all around him. It seems he is in an odd state of ataraxia. It is certainly odd but it’s better than him be a whiny wet blanket like so many characters in the same situation. It is safe to assume that the main theme is about what are dreams and what is reality but they have yet to develop the main plot. It seems like the stereotypical story of a high school student transported to a monster filled past but it so far it seems to be well done. I like the characters and then seem to have potential so I think I will keep watching this one and see how it develops. It could be interesting or it could be generic but so far it at least seems to be well done.

Nabari no Ou
Nabari no Ou, ninjas! Pretty good fights, too. The characters however aren’t very engaging, at least not right off the bat. I may have to give this two of three more episodes.

I guess the easiest way to sum up this show is modern day Nate the Ninja. In fact Nabari no Ou has some easily identified counterparts in Naruto. That being said I think that the show has sort of its own groove that makes it different enough to be enjoyable. The sheer apathy of the main character makes for some funny scenes but it also makes him somewhat of a bland character at times. Along with Souleater I am predicting this show will be the other show people talk about this season. It is different enough from Naruto that people who want a ninja shonen fighting show might get into it but is good enough to win over a good number of Naruto fans that want more ninja action.

Souleater
Souleater is the show everyone is going to love and be the runaway hit of the season. For me it probably won’t be those things. Maybe it was that “glowing” review I read or maybe it was the fact that I have read some of the manga, but I wasn’t really looking forward to this show. In fact, I wasn’t even going to watch it. But here I get reeled in by what people are saying. The visuals are pretty nice, it has a playful gothic feel that gives the scenery a nice punch. However, I find the actual characters mostly dull looking, especially Mara our heroine. This manga also falls in the ecchi category and really I’m just not in the moody for annoying titty witches clogging up my anime watching experience.

Well anyone who claims that a show does Tim Burton better than Tim Burton better be reviewing an amazingly good show to back up that up. I’m pretty sure that Souleater does not live up to that lofty claim. I do agree that this show looks like it has the potential to be the breakout big hit of the season. In fact much of this show seemed like what would happen if mixed together Bleach and D.Gray-man and threw in a liberal helping of fan service. I’m pretty sure that the cloying titty witch made sure neither of us can get into this show despite the insistence that it has awesome fight scenes. I will admit thought the fact that Mara seems to be the main fighter and Soul is the more passive weapon is somewhat unusual and interesting for a shonen show.

Zettai Kareshi (Live Action)
Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend) I watched this raw so this is just my general impression of it. However, I have read the manga so that gives me some insight. But really the story is just a romance comedy, I don’t really need to know everything being said to be able to laugh and understand what is going on. The series has high quality production, like some of the effects used to show Night as a robot. Both male leads are very good looking, always a plus. And Riko our main girl is silly and charming. This series is nothing amazing but its a fun watch for females for sure.

Golgo 13
Golgo 13 is a show for Daryl Surat and anyone else who is a big seinen manga fan. It does everything a Golgo 13 anime needs to do to make Golgo 13 fans happy. Golgo gets a mission, has detached sex with a woman who needs him more than life itself, kills some thugs, and then makes a nearly impossible hit on his target and then goes of to do it again. I assume that each episode will follow the same basic formula in different places throughout the world with slight variations in the formula. It’s not like they made Golgo 13 throw out action movie one liners with a huge smile on his face or gave him a moe loli companion girl. He is the killing machine Golgo 13. The world conflicts he is involved with may differ but Golgo 13 never changes.

Kaiba
 This series is very beautiful right off the bat but in a retro way that may turn some people off. It has a mystical, fairy-tale like feeling from the moment it starts. We are immediately thrust into an unknown world where our main character is just waking up. He certainly doesn’t seem to know what is going on around him either. But others seem to know things about him based on a strange hole he has in his chest, the locket around his neck, and an odd symbol on his abdomen. It certainly remind me of many sci-fi stories from the 70’s. It captured the imagination right off and I’m curious to see where it all leads.

This is probably the closest you are going to be to an art house anime. I think no matter how good the story or the animation, the Osamu Tezuka style character designs dooms this show to obscurity. I can see the old guard anime fans getting into this show. Since Narutaki watched the show raw and I watched it subtitled we are kicking around the idea that Narutaki watch the whole show raw and do absolutely no research into the show. Narutaki then gives a report of what she thought it was about and then I talk about what the show was actually about from watching the show with subs.

Macross Frontier
For the 25th anniversary of the original The Super Dimension Fortress Macross we get the third TV series in the Macross universe entitled Macross Frontier. So far Frontier is much more the spiritual successor to the original Macross than the lol-fest that was Macross 7. We have all the classic features: a battleship with almost no outside support attacked by a mysterious enemy; transformable Valkyrie fighters; and a love triangle involving a pilot and a singer. This show looks beautiful and so far has been rather entertaining. Good actions scenes and lively characters make this show a joy to watch. American Macross fans might be able to finally forgive Japan for Macross 7 after this show. I think science fiction fans and mecha fans new to the franchise might also get hooked on this lusciously animated show.

I am having a blast following Macross Frontier! The character designs are good and the 3D animation is actually nicely done. Also supreme fighting sequences complete with pop music. Though I am not that impressed with the music. I did notice I liked the opening song a bit better the second time through, so I am hoping to see it grow on me.

Niju-Menso no Musume
Niju-Menso no Musume, was a show I was looking forward to this season because I am a sucker for a good thief. This series seems rather over the top. I think everything that has ever happened in a mystery show happened in the first episode. But it satisfies something in me and I was entertained. Something about the mastermind thief that is just one step ahead is always fun. I also really like the relationships developing between characters. This show is a lot of fun, nothing more nothing less, full of danger, mystery, and a whole lot of adventure.

Vampire Knight
I learned from Anime World Order that apparently Vampire Knight is one of the best selling manga in the United States which took me slightly by surprise. I think that Vampire Knight definitely has the two main of the draws of vampire stories: angst filled boys and drinking blood as a sexual metaphor. The humor and the drama are pretty well balanced. This is a super shojo vampire story set at a school for what it’s worth. Since nerd girls in general love vampires I’m sure this show will be right up their alley. If girls bought more shojo anime I’m sure this show could be one of the best sellers from this season. According to Kohaku they change the pace of certain of revelations so they might be trying to give us a complete story in 26 episodes of a 8+ book series. This can lead to some awful anime produced ending but since I have not read the manga I can’t tell how much better or worse the changes make the story as compared to the original manga.

This season looks to be pretty good! I think that is typical though. Pleanty of goodies to keep your eye on, can’t wait to see how they turn out. It is always interesting to go back and see if your initial impressions are true. Just how good is our intuition? Stay tuned to find out!

Lights, camera, Nippon live action!

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In America, if a cartoon gets really big, someone gets the idea that it might make a good live action movie. Nippon is no different in this regard. They have been making anime in live action movie form for a while now. In fact, the number of live actions is far beyond the scope of this blog. We are merely going to look at some of our favorite recent anime that have made the jump to the live action format.

One of the most popular and anticipated anime adaptions on both sides of the Pacific, have been the Death Note movies. The anime has mostly been a direct adaption of the manga. Other than a few added or removed scenes, it’s very faithful in its adaptation. The movies takes the 12 book manga and condense them into 2 movies. Like any film that takes that much material and condenses it into two movies, it requires them to remove series characters and plot lines. A lot of the middle, and a good deal of the end, of the manga is either removed or greatly altered. I know a lot of people loved the ending of the movie over the ending of the manga, while other people were rather indifferent to the movie’s ending. I think your preference really comes down to what you thought of certain characters.

The Death Note movies excite me! Especially now that it is licensed and going to be shown at two film festivals here in the U.S. And hopefully that translates into some theater showings afterwards. I really liked them because they basically end where I care for it to, and it ends in the way I would have wanted. I also feel the characters are brought to life nicely. L is right on target as far as I’m concerned. There is this part where he is making kebabs out of cakes and I thought, “yes, this is L!”

Well, apparently Japan loved L and his actor enough to make an L only spin off movie.

And I love L, too! But I’m not so sure about the L movie. Since it will be a completely original script I have no idea what to expect. However, seems like they are just throwing foder to rabid fans and churning something else out. I will probably watch it anyway…

Honey and Clover is a wonderful series that was an easy adaption to the live action realm. It is the story of a group of art students and how they deal with life and what it throws at them. The original manga is a very syergistic mix of comedy and drama. The live action movie tends to focus more of the drama of the story rather than the comedy, for better or worse. Also, Takumi Mayama comes of a bit more creepy than his manga counterpart. In the anime, he does have a somewhat obsessive (and definitely creepy) crush on Rika Harada, but he is a full-blown stalker in the movie. I know some people don’t like the casting of certain characters but I think they did a pretty good job in general.

The series, Lovely Complex, has kind of blown up. First a manga, one of the best selling shojo manga currently in Japan, then this live action movie, and the anime just finished up this year. The manga is licensed and now so is the live action movie! It is a cute, compressed version of the first 8 or 9 books. The seires is a very funny romacne between a below average height boy and an above average height girl. It was quite funny when I realized that Risa, the girl, is only 5’6 or 5’7. It has some really odd humor at times but it is typical humor of live action Japanese television. However, they are really weird and random since they are completely made up moments not appearing in the manga. Minus that, the movie does a good job of bringing the series to life. Teppei Koike, is a great and adorable live version of Otani.

Nodame Cantabile is a delightful adaptation of the popular josei, classical music manga. A lot of the live action adaptations contain a unique form of Japanese humor. As Natrutaki mentioned about Lovely Complex, TV shows tend to have an odd Japanese humor not usually seen in anime or manga. I think of all the movies and shows we mention, Nodame Cantabile best captures the humor of the original manga. It is about as close to a truly live action manga you’re going to get. The only laughter inducing casting is the totally Japanese Naoto Takenaka as the totally European Milch. In Naoto Takenaka’s defense, he makes a pretty darn good Milch.

Speaking of music manga, NANA is probably one of the most adaptable manga into live action. It has an overall real world feel to it, with characters who have believable flaws and grow as the story moves along. It combines music with love and friendship. The music is very good and both singles were hits. This movie as did very well in the theaters, and that is why it got a sequel which I have yet to see! I am holding out hope that the movies get picked up, as the manga is doing well and the anime has also been licensed. I was really impressed with the casting for these roles, especially that of Nana Oosaki. Mika Nakashima looks almost scarily like Nana herself. And Hiroki Narimiya who plays my favorite character, Nobu, is very charming. The movie takes place in what I like to call the first arc of the story, roughly the first four books. Nana Komatsu and Nana Oosaki both move to Tokyo at the same time pursuing different dreams but fate brings them to living together and so beings the story of two Nanas. They stick pretty closely to the manga, a few things take place at different times but overall close to the original. I am looking forward to the second movie, I know Mika is still playing Nana and Hiroki is returning as Nobu. I am interested to see if they start to deviate from the story a bit because the next parts of the series take a decidedly darker turn. If it stays on target, I think I know where the second movie will end.

The Cromartie High School movie is an adequate adaptation of an extraordinary manga. The setup for the live action movie of Cromartie is the same as the manga. Takashi Kamiyama is a good student that winds up at Cromartie high school. A high school filled with nothing but delinquents. Delinquents that include a robot, a Gorilla, and Freddy Mercury. About half way through the movie, it decides to go into its own story about aliens trying to take over the world using the students of Cromartie high school. It’s definitely true to the general spirit of the manga although it has its own style of humor.

I loved the Cromartie anime and was anxious to see the live action version. While I wasn’t disappointed, I wasn’t really impressed either. Clearly it was a step down when Hayashia had no purple mohawk that moved of its own volition. But it did make me laugh and still kept a lot of great moments from the series. I thought the Takenouchi story with motion sickness and switching with the plane hijacker were particularly hilarious and well done.

I would be remiss to not mention that my favorite manga, Maison Ikkoku, got turned into a live action movie and TV series with variable quality. I have oddly enough not seen either, but I have been sort of curious about the TV series. I know that Kyoko Otonashi is played by the woman who portrayed Hermes in the Train Man live action TV series. I liked her in Train Man, so I have a good feeling about that series. I also know the live action movie is supposedly horrible. If anyone has seen either give us a comment. I’m curious to what people think of either of them.

Last Quarter, another Ai Yazawa manga, was made into a live action movie. Since most girls have a major crush on Hyde it is hard to be objective about him. But his role is fairly small. Hiroki Narimiya is also in this movie, as the boyfriend who has a much bigger role than in the manga. The story itself is very odd and supernatural but the players in it are all very human. This is Ai Yazawa‘s power, in my opinion, but I’m not sure the movie gives the character development enough time. It pushes the most developed characters, in the manga, to the side in favor of bigger named actors. And the surprises come off as a little obvious in the movie. It was an okay watch but the characters came off a little flat.

Mushishi is most probably the most critically acclaimed movie on this list. It’s the story of a wandering mystic/scholar, named Ginko, who deals with the mysterious creatures know as Mushi. Mushi are primordial creatures who have a wide variety of strange abilities. Ginko’s job is to fix problems that come from humans and mushi interacting. Mushishi is,for the most part, a series of stand alone stories in which Ginko wanders into villages and learns how the local mushi and humans interact. The stories are often like modern day fairy tales. The movie is an adaptation of 4 stories from the manga. I heard some people complain that they don’t like the look of Ginko or wish that the movie had a new story that was not in the anime or manga. I think that the actor and the costume for Ginko looks good enough. I think the stories in the original manga are excellent so I don’t mind a direct adaption of their brilliance. When it was shown at the Venice Film Festival, they played it under the name Bug Master. It seems to be making the art movie circuit and getting positive reviews. I wonder if this is a title that will be picked up by someone like Viz or will one of the big boy studios like Sony swoop in?

Having seen pictures of the Mushishi movie, I am very anxious to see it. Ginko looks good to me, I’m not sure what the complaint about him is. But then I haven’t seen a drop of the actual movie. Hopefully living in NYC will give us an advantage since we get just about every movie that has a theatrical release. I have a feeling a larger studio may have their eye on it, maybe not Sony but something like New Line Cinema. This may also be why I can’t seem to find a subtitle track for it. Although, changing the name to Bug Master? Not a smooth move. While not wrong, it makes it sound lame and doesn’t inspire people to pack the theater.

I am always interesting in live action versions, maybe because I like to see how close they can come character design wise. Because, let’s be honest, we would love to have some of our most beloved anime characters living and breathing. Just as much as I like to see my favorite books. They aren’t always perfect, sometimes they aren’t even good, but I think it is a kind of adventure in itself to see how they turn out.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Story of Saiunkoku
Reading I.N.V.U.
Listening to The Pillows

Hisui (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Welcome to the NHK
Reading Bleach
Listening to Catch You, Catch Me by Gumi

Lights, camera, live action!

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Will the dreams of hundreds of nerdy 15 year old boys finally come true? No, it’s not hundreds of hot, slutty, college-age girls to take their virginity. It’s their other dream. It seems a little more likely that there will be a live action Dragon Ball Z movie. 20th Century Fox has started production to make a live action DBZ movie in Montreal. It supposedly has a budget of at least 100 million dollars and is being filmed along with a sequel to Night and the Museum and a remake of Fantastic Voyage. What was once just the purview of internet hoaxes and fan boy speculation might actually become a reality. But is this actually going to be a movie you can watch in theaters or is this yet another doomed dream (or nightmare depending who you ask)?

This makes me laugh. A LOT! There is no way, none, zero, zip, that this movie could actually be GOOD. In my mind, it is 100% impossible. Inconceivable for my tiny brain! How could it be? Dudes running around in orange suits and silly armor with nutso hair, then add in the CG effects for all the moves and let’s not forget going super saiyan! Certain things that work fine in anime just aren’t going to cut it for live action. And I don’t see anything in Dragon Ball Z that would work in live action. It seems like some colossal joke.

You know the silly things is there are people out there who still want this. Despite the fact that it’s almost surely huge bundle of failure and pain. If you go around to enough anime forums the topic of who would you cast in the live action version of X anime invariably comes up. I’m sure if I were the type of person to read Dragon Ball Z forums I would have seen hundreds of threads like this by now.

Okay, now that I’m thinking about it. It could be kinda good. IF they did it like a Stephen Chow movie! Because Shaolin Soccer, among others, is great and funny and over the top. So if they did it like that, like they know it’s ridiculous, then it could be good. But they would still need Stephen Chow.

For the longest time, James Cameron has the rights to produce the live action version of Battle Angel Alita. He has kicked the project around for years but constantly put it off for one reason or another. Recently he announced that he would use the CG technology from his latest work, Avatar, to work on Battle Angel. It’s supposedly in pre-production and will be released in June of 2009, but that is so far off that it just seems like nothing more than a place holder date.

ADV used to talk about making a live action Evangelion movie for whenever they had the chance to do so. ADV seemed to have these huge plans to team up with Gainax. Evangelion has always been one of ADV’s and Gainax’s best selling series, so it seemed that if they could ever get the project made it would rake in money like gangbusters. They even got Weta Workshop involved in the project. ADV kept talking about scripts being written, directors and producers being interested and courted, and people making deals. There were articles being written in trade magazines and financial magazines. Then all the talk seemed to stop, and ADV mostly just says that they are waiting and so should everyone else.

I remember all the hype about that years ago. There were character designs and name changes and rumor after rumor! And you still can’t go to a con without someone asking ADV about it in their panel. Someone did make this totally awesome fake trailer for the movie, too. It Eva would look like this trailer, I’d be in.

I wonder how much the end of the talking had to do with Gainax doing their own independent remakes of the Evangelion movies. An optimist might say that ADV and Gainax are waiting to see how the remake movies will do and they work on the live action after that. A pessimist would assume Gainax just gave up on ADV and decided to just do what they could on their own. I assume the truth lies somewhere in between but maybe one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

I guess that begs the question of, how long has Gainax planned on doing a remake of Evangelion? Because the live action rumors have been flying for at least 5 years I’d say.

I have heard rumors of a live action Voltron and a live action Gatchaman movie. Supposedly people are interested in mining some nostalgia of our childhood and making movies based on anime that were popular on American TV back in the day. The live action Voltron seems to be based on the American version of the cartoon and not of Go Lion as expected but the Gatachaman movie seems to be based on Gatachaman and not on G-Force or Battle of the Planets. If either of these movies actually gets made has yet to be seen.

I also heard that New Line Cinema optioned Monster to make it into a live action movie in the US but I have not heard anything about it since. Of all the movie possibilities mention I think this one has the best chance of working out well if a good script and cast was but together. The story is realistic enough that it could easily make the transition to live action. The story is smart enough and good enough that if you got together a good cast and a well adapted script it could do really well.

This seems like a good fit. Although based on a rather lenghty story, it seems to have the right elements to attract non-anime fans, too. Althoug , I could never really figure out if people actually liked this series or that is just happened jt to be hot on the heals of Death Note manga popularity. Either way I have it on good authority that is deserves all the attention it gets.

The problem is, big movie studios option movie ideas all the time, and sometimes with only a slight idea that they will ever make such a movie. So despite all this talk, it might all amount to nothing. Unless actual filming begins, most people tend not to believe anything because even if it’s not just a rumor, it does not mean such a project will ever get off the ground.

The one live action anime that is actually being made into a movie is Speed Racer. The Wachowski brothers are making a Speed Racer movie that has a cast and seems to actually be filming. There are some big time stars working on this including: Christina Ricci, Susan Sarandon, and John Goodman. With the Wachowski brothers attached, it would take a master disaster to stop this movie from making it to theaters. I never really cared about Speed Racer one way or another, but I hope this movie does well. Why? Because if it does well, it might open the door to other anime being made into American live action movies. (Plus something will have to get the bad taste out of people mouths after the live action DBZ.)

I’m not really that keen on the idea of live action anime being made here. I dunno, I guess I’m a snob but if it isn’t something nostalgic, I figure they will change it so much it will be unrecognizable. Of course, at this point it is completely baseless because nothing has been done to compare it to. Well, I guess there is Transformers. Meh. So, for once I’m being pessimistic. Besides the Japanese do a good many live action adaptions that are pretty good, so I’ll stick with that!

While they have not been that many attempts at making a live action anime movie in the west, they are very common in Japan. Next time we will be talk about live action anime in their homeland.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei
Reading Death Note
Listening to L’arc-en-Ciel

Brainwasher Detective (Hisui) Currently:
Watching The Story of Saiunkoku
Reading Akira
Listening to A Cruel Angel’s Thesis by Yoko Takahashi