Category: Japanese

Madoka Rebellion Brings Holiday Cheer for Otaku

A subtitled release of Madoka Magica: The Movie -Rebellion- will open in North America on December 3rd at Grauman’s Eqyptian Theater in Hollywood, California.

Madoka RebellionMadoka Magica: The Movie -Rebellion- will be making a trans-Atlantic trip for its North American run beginning December 6, 2013. Fans will get to see the third and reportedly last film spun from the Japanese animated Puella Magi Madoka Magica series.

The original TV program deals with a world where creatures known as incubators can grant young girls any wish they desire. But these wishes come at a price. To accept the wishes means entering into a contract to use their new-found powers as magical girls — to fight witches and other evil creatures who were born from despair.

These creatures are responsible for many of humanity’s unexplained accidents, suicides and murders.
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Coppelion: Scifi with School Uniforms

By James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

coppelionProduction Company: GoHands

Series Directors: Hiromitsu Kanazawa and Susumu Kudo

Based on the manga written and illustrated by Tomonori Inoue, Coppelion looks 20 years into Tokyo’s future after a 2016 accident at the local Odaiba nuclear power plant causes the once great city to become uninhabitable. Fast forward to 2036 and the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force dispatches a group of three genetically modified girls called Coppelion (pronounced Kopperion) after receiving an SOS signal from the heart of Tokyo.

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JTV’s Best of Anime! Summer 2013

My experience with anime started with Battle of the Planets in the late 1970’s and it finished with anime programs in the mid to late 90’s. I had somehow lost interest. I guess one could say it was the changing style, that anime was for the young or it could’ve been the boob and panty shots that were becoming so prevalent.

Whatever the reason, I walked away. I made an attempt to watch anime again in 2004 and I admit there were a couple of shows that held my interest. But now with my third attempt I’m determined to see the good amongst the bad (or the most horrid) that is out there. To become a true geek I shall have to reacquaint myself with anime, one of my first loves. Maybe I’ll even attend a anime con or two in 2014 (My last con was AX ’95). But for the future I plan to write seasonal Japanese television reviews both animated and live action. Enjoy!

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Going Ape for a 12 min Preview of Space Pirate Captain Harlock!

Everything in Captain Harlock Space Pirate looks hyper realistic.

captainharlock2Captain Harlock fans all over the world will just have to wait a little bit longer for a dubbed release of the computer animated film, Space Pirate Captain Harlock. That may seem like bad news but the good news is that GFM Films is reported to be working on a dub. But no word has been said about when it will come out and who will be attached to promote it in North America.

But for people who understand Japanese, a 12 minute clip is available to watch online at Yahoo! Japan to show what the animators have done. Everything in this short looks drop dead gorgeous. It blends a bit of noir into a goth style ala Aliens with plenty of Warhammer 40K style aesthetics to boot.

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Pacific Rim Delivers Plenty of Scale and Memories

Plenty of heavy metal thunder can be found in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim. Once the action happens, this film’s many battle sequences are fast and furious.

Pacific Rim Poster

Plenty of heavy metal thunder can be found in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim. Once the action happens, this film’s many battle sequences are fast and furious, and that’s how real fights should be wrought. Anything drawn out makes those moments slow. Audiences must be tired of Matrix-style “hang-time” effects by now and this film is anything but. Plenty of striking visuals can be seen in this movie that is very different from del Toro’s previous products.

Even the 3D finally offers some punch. Out of all the movies that have been converted to 3D in post, this film is the best of them all. Not one moment feels flat.

Although there is plenty of familiarity to this product, fans of giant monster movies and anime will no doubt love this film. The pacing could have been better and the camaraderie further developed, but that would shift the focus. This movie is layered to introduce smaller conflicts for the hero, and to have more explanation happen would make this film run longer. In a tale that is like the classic anime of the previous century, the hero is introduced to a precarious situation, has to lose something (or someone) dear to him, and that drives him for the remainder of the series. If there are plans for another movie, the threat will have to come from the stars next. Del Toro may well finally get to make a Cthulhu inspired movie after all!

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Finding Ohana in Stitch! the Animated Series

After three more movies and a television series, Disney put an end to their adventures with Leroy and Stitch–presumedly. But the love continues in Asia!

Lilo & Stitch! Together AgainWhatever happened to Lilo and Stitch? The series that began in 2002 enjoyed a good five-year run in North America. After three more movies and a television series, Disney put an end to their adventures with Leroy and Stitch. This 2008 direct to video release tied up all the loose ends and set the blue fuzzy terror free to terrorize in Stitch! He isn’t as much of a terror with thanks to Lilo; he learned how to be civilized.

During this run, Experiment 626 (Stitch) still had his moments of being wonderfully nasty. He was more of a selling point of the series than the subplot of building ohana, a Hawaiian term meaning family. In this series, Lilo further defines it as, “Nobody gets left behind.”

In this series, she sought to find a place where each quirky experiment, a cousin of Stitch, can safely belong. A few gems in the TV series existed which reinforced this point. But the one that says it all is with “Remmy,” where Lilo tries to cope on the anniversary of when her parents died. Nani, her older sister, tries her best to raise her, but that’s difficult to do when neither have an appropriate coping mechanism in place for them to grieve. Instead, what they do is to build their familial relationships to include everyone, so that no matter where the person (or alien) is from, they have brothers and sisters to rely on when hope is needed.

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