A ten minute space battle sequence from the CG anime OVA series TO (“Tou”) has been officially released on YouTube. The two episode OVA series based on Yukinobu Hoshino’s 2001 Nights (2001 Ya Monotogari) manga was directed by Fumihiko Sori, director of the CG anime film Vexille. Both episodes of the TO OVA series were released on Japanese rental DVD last month. The retail DVD and Blu-ray discs go on sale December 18.
Source: Anime News Network
Bessatsu Friend magazine has announced that a live action TV adaptation of Tomoko Hayakawa’s romantic comedy manga series Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge, known in America as “The Wallflower,” will premiere in January. The contemporary bishonen manga interpretation of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion premiered in 2000 and has 24 compiled volumes in Japan so far. The story was adapted into a 25 episode anime television series 2006.
Source: Anime News Network
Morning magazine has announced that Sakichi Sato (Tokyo Zombie) will direct a live action film adaptation of Aozora Daichi’s award winning nonsense gag manga Insect Detective Yoshida Yoshimi (Konchu Tantei Yoshida Yoshimi). Tokyo Zombie star Sho Aikawa will play Yoshimi Yoshida, a detective who can communicate with animals. He solves cases involving insects and other creatures with his partners Mugi, a dog with the intelligence of a third-grader, and Piitan, a foul-mouthed parrot. The movie will hit Japanese theaters next year.
Source: Anime News Network
In the apparent next evolution of the voice synthisization software popularized by Yamaha’s Vocaloid program, AHS software is set to release its “Voiceroid” software program on December 4th. The program, available in male and female versions, synthsizes speech as spoken by fictional children mascots Tsukuyomi Shota (boy) and Tsukuyomi Ai (girl). Audio samples are available.
Voiceroid Tsukuyomi Shota sample
The possibilities for this software are vast, and many of them are morally unnerving.
Question:
What is your opinion of girls with swords titles? (Obligatory question since girls with guns was asked.)
The homepage for Production I.G’s upcoming anime film Bungaku Shoujo (Literary Girl) now includes a 60 second streaming Flash teaser trailer. The adaptation of Mizuki Nomura’s light novel series is a lighthearted drama about the president of a high school literature club who is actually a supernatural creature that feeds on stories – she literally eats book pages – and a reclusive young author who knows her secret and writes stories just for her. The film will open theatrically during the Golden Week 2010 holiday season (late April into the first week of May).
Source: Anime News Network
The homepage for director Rintaro’s latest feature film, Yona Yona Penguin, now features a new streaming Flash trailer. The movie about a young girl transported to a world inhabited by goblins that believe their saviour will be a penguin had its world premiere screening at the Sitges Film Festival last month. The movie will premiere in Japanese wide release on December 23.
I don’t want to form conclusions based on two minutes of footage, but I can’t avoid thinking that this trailer is visually dynamic, but feels a bit lifeless. Rintaro is capable of helming very engaging anime like Galaxy Express 999, Download, Take the X Train, and Manie Manie. But he also sometimes turns out bland stuff like Teito Monogatari and Metropolis.
Source: Anime News Network
The homepage for the Kara no Kyoukai movie series has added a 2:42 trailer for the seventh & final film’s December 9th Japanese DVD release. The trailer consists almost entirely of footage not seen in previous trailers.
Source: Moon Phase
The Japanese Moon Phase Diary fan site links to the above unverified image announcing a KISSxSIS TV production. Ditama Bow’s risqué comedy manga was adapted into two OADs last year.
Japanese anime news website animeanime.biz reports that next month Japanese publisher Shueisha will launch an initiative to distribute English translated manga to mobile phones in 28 countries. The effort will launch with a sample version of English translated Dragon Ball manga available for free through the Windows Marketplace for Mobile site to downloaders in regions including Japan, the United States, Europe, and India. 20-30 manga titles will eventually be available for free while the service transitions into a premium service by spring 2010.
Source: Anime News Network
A.V. Club has published an interview with manga expert Fred Schodt on the subject of pioneering manga artist Osamu Tezuka.
Article provided by Daniel Zelter
Quiet Earth now hosts an exclusive interview with World Events Productions’ Director of Project Development Jeremy Corray on the present and future of the Voltron franchise.
Grab a glass of water. You’ll need it to help swallow all of the spin, name dropping, and hyperbole that Mr. Corray serves up. I do respect his implicit statement that Voltron, in its current state, is not anime.
Article provided by Daniel Zelter
Uruguayan commercial director and visual effects expert Fede Alvarez has released his 5 minute short film Panic Attack! (Ataque de Panico!) to the public. Just watching it serves as all the explanation necessary.
Source: Quiet Earth
The KDDI telecommunications company has announced the development of an anime adaptation of the Kaito Reinya nonsense comedy manga franchise. The 4-koma manga about Reinya, a girl who works by day wearing an advertising signboard for the convenience store next to a police station, and works as a cat burgler by night (her name is a pun on “Reina” and “nyaa,” the Japanese sound of a cat’s meow), chased by bumbling police is the same traditional story concept used in anime including Kaito St. Tail and Cat’s Eye. The Reinya character is based on real life Morning Musume member Reina Tanaka, who will provide Reinya’s voice in the 12 episode anime serial.
Black Cat, Jubei-chan, and Oh! Edo Rocket animation director Takahiro Yoshimatsu will serve as chief director for the Kaito Reinya anime. The show will premiere on the KBC network in Japan’s Kyushu region on January 9th before becoming available on the KDDI’s mobile phone video service.
Source: Anime News Network
Latino Review claims that, “According to a trusted source,” Steven Spielberg and Will Smith’s planned American film adaptation of Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya’s manga series Old Boy has been canceled. Reportedly DreamWorks pictures, which hoped to produce the film, and Korean studio Mandate Pictures, which produced the 2003 film adaptation of the manga, faced an irreconcilable conflict in negotiations and DreamWorks walked away from the negotiating table.
This claim has yet to be verified and shouldn’t be considered definitive quite yet. Last June Bloody Disgusting made a similar claim that the planned American Akira movie project was dead, only to have the film’s producer, Andrew Lazar, deny the report the following month.
