Haven't seen. His movie work has been hit or miss, from what I've seen of it; he's always been a journeyman director to a certain extent, and has backed off his more distinctive style flourishes where appropriate. His movie work gets some flack because he refuses to approach it any differently than he does TV, and what looked really high quality and expensive on TV looks...cheap and fast on film. Abe Hiroshi has, at least, continued to chose the odd interesting project -- he was never really good looking enough to be a leading man, anyway. But Nakama Yukie's people have got her squarely on the money train and may never let her be interesting again.
These are the 4 issues of the fanzine we produced a while back (2002-2004). They're rough, but they're also the foundation for a lot of what we've built since then, including this site.
Click on the issues to bring up the full reader.
Issue 1 focused on Berserk, Jin-roh, and Asian live-action movies. It also had a memorable review of Gundress.
Issue 2 was a dissection of FLCL (it explains it all, really) and the work of Taiyo Matsumoto.
Issue 3 tackled Yoshitoshi ABe's traditional Japanese aesthetics, explained Evangelion and looked at the explosion of Korean movies.
Issue 4 was all about horror, laying out what made new wave Japanese horror so unique.
For reals.
ReplyDeleteI've heard his later works aren't so great though. I mean, is it safe to assume the 20th Century Boys adaptation is at least kinda awesome?
He's going to produce/direct a live-action adaptation of BECK too. Odd.
Haven't seen. His movie work has been hit or miss, from what I've seen of it; he's always been a journeyman director to a certain extent, and has backed off his more distinctive style flourishes where appropriate.
ReplyDeleteHis movie work gets some flack because he refuses to approach it any differently than he does TV, and what looked really high quality and expensive on TV looks...cheap and fast on film.
Abe Hiroshi has, at least, continued to chose the odd interesting project -- he was never really good looking enough to be a leading man, anyway.
But Nakama Yukie's people have got her squarely on the money train and may never let her be interesting again.