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Well, well. I certainly didn’t expect this to come so fast.  We first got word of the upcoming Ghost in the Shell 2.0 - a re-animated version of Mamoru Oshii’s classic scifi anime - back in June and while it will certainly be released here in North America in due course fans aren’t going to have to wait very long at all to lay their hands on an English friendly version.  Regular reader and Oshii expert Brian Ruh just dropped a not pointing out that Japanese DVD and Blu-Ray editions have already been announced for release in December and that it will include an English language audio track.  These will go nicely with the just released Japanese Blu Ray discs of the Stand Alone Complex movies and the upcoming Blu Ray of Innocence , all of which are also English friendly.  Nice.  read more »

I don’t normally post links to cam-job versions of trailers here on Twitch, not so much for ethical reasons as because they generally look like ass.  But, as any regular reader of the site should know we’ve got a major thing for Taste of Tea and Funky Forest director Katsuhito Ishii around these parts and anything that he’s involved with immediately gets our attention.   read more »

The cult anime classic Ninja Scroll is getting the Hollywood treatment and is being adapted as a live-action film, according to reports from industry press.

Once my favorite animation house in Japan things have been relatively quiet on the Production IG front in recent days.  Sure, they’ve been busy contracting out on a number of projects but the amount of original material they’ve been working on has dropped off and what they have been doing - with the obvious exception of Mamoru Oshii’s Sky Crawlers - hasn’t been of any great interest to me.  But that changes with their announcement of two brand new feature film projects. Up first is The Abandoned Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror , a children’s oriented fantasy film.  IG are making a big deal over this one because it is the first feature to be developed using software developed by the company to convert 2D drawings into 3D animation - which sounds like an intriguing process as it should keep all the quirks and details of hand drawn animation intact - but I’m far more interested because it is to be directed by Shinsuke Sato, who directed the live action martial arts flick The Princess Blade a few years back. Anybody who’s seen that film can tell you that Sato’s style is very well suited to the anime world and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with. Their other big upcoming project is another family-oriented fantasy film that does not appear to have a title yet but is being directed by Hiroyuki Okiura.  Okiura, for his part, previously directed a little film called Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade that I happen to think is one of the greatest animated films ever made.  read more »

Walt Disney is to produce anime films in Japan in tie-ups with local studios.

Variety

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After all this time it's hard to imagine anime without GUNDAM, one of the longest running and most iconic shows in Japanese animation history. Its influence was so dramatic that the series collected here was initially produced for American TV before it even reached Tokyo! More lighthearted and self-referential than other Gundam series, SUPERIOR DEFENDER GUNDAM blends a number of previous concepts into one fun ride!

The DRAGON BALL Z anime series presents the VEGETA saga in its original uncut and bilingual format. The story picks up five years after the end of the KING PICCOLO saga, with the world at peace, the Z team disbanded, and former members Goku and Chi-chi happily raising their son Gohan. But trouble soon arrives in the form of Saiyan menace Raditz, who reveals that he is Goku's older brother and has been sent to Earth to kill its inhabitants in preparation for an alien invasion. When Goku refuses to join him in the mission, Raditz kidnaps young Gohan, launching a series of brotherly battles that forces Goku to team up with his arch-rival Piccolo. This volume continues the action-packed chronicle of sibling rivalry with episodes 16-18.

How did the manga for Venus versus Virus end? (spoilers inside)

The ending of the anime royally sucked, but the anime got done before the manga ended and the anime director created his own ending. Which royally sucked.

Ever since I saw, and cursed at, the anime I've wondered what the mangaka had in mind. Now the manga has also ended, and I wish someone would tell me how it ended. I am asking for spoilers.

In the anime, the bad guys were all dead, but Sumire was out of control in her berserker mode and there didn't seem to be any way to get her back. And even if Lucia had managed to bring Sumire back, the two of them would represent a peril to the Earth. So Lucia detonated all her energy, and died, in order to also kill Sumire. (They didn't show the blast; the last episode ended about half a second before Lucia let loose.)  read more »