Gosick trailer released

So a trailer for Gosick has been released on the webbertubes:



It... kinda makes it look like boring crap. I hear Gosick's supposed to be great, though. Andrew had lots of good things to say about it, so maybe he can predict whether the trailer just sucks (like most Japanese trailers do) or if the anime seems to be missing the point.

Stabbing, shooting, and carving turkeys

Welcome to Round Two of Funimation x Yoshihiro Nishimura, this time reunited with Machine Girl director Noboru Iguchi to tell a story of arts, dance, tengu ninja squads, cybernetic sibling rivalry, and buildings full of blood.



(I love that they used part of the temp voiceover on the title drop)

Like most of their movies, RoboGeisha is kind of review-proof; you probably know if you're in the target audience after seeing the trailer, although it is worth noting it's much less malevolently warped than other Nishimura posse joints. This is a definitely a camp comedy with oddball special effects, as opposed to a full-on fake-blood extravaganza, and the over-the-top inane dialogue is usually as or more bizarre than the SFX work.


I admit I was hoping for another full-on brain-buster like Tokyo Gore Police, but taken on its own merits RoboGeisha's Inspector Gadget vs Terminator vibe is fun too, and I think stronger overall than Vampire Girl, or at least odder, which is really what I'm looking for. Joe Bob says check it out.

(though if you are are looking for something that will befuddle and revolt you, I recommend Bad Biology.)

Several Layers of: Wait - What?

Apparently Battle Royale is getting a 3D make-over for it's 10th anniversary, and it's finally being licensed for the US.

It hadn't been released already? Even the book came out here.

3D? Really? How is after-market 3D going to be anything other than an excuse for a re-release?

And holy shit, it's been 10 years already? Insane. I still remember how excited we all were when we first saw the original movie. It really was incredible...

Now I just feel old.

Twitch Film

Revenge of the filler post

Ugh.

Another luscious-looking film from Makoto Shinkai

Makoto Shinkai (of Voices of a Distant Star and Place Promised in Our Early Days fame) has a new film coming out and a trailer's been released:


As expected, Hoshi o Ou Kodomo (Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below) looks gorgeous. The backgrounds and environments are alway stunning on his projects.

He's also a master of atmosphere, but can sometimes be a bit lacking in an actual plot. The trailer hints are more action than is typical for his work, and the character designs seem much more polished, moving past his sometimes-charming amateurish style.

I'm hoping that suggests this one will be a bit more of a complete package, instead of just an incredible and immersive atmosphere with a very thin story.

Anime News Network : YouTube

Raging Phoenix

Most of us here were pretty big fans of Chocolate, so the second starring vehicle for that actress (they should really settle on a name for her one of these days) has been on our radar for a while.
This is very much a movie of two halves. The first half is a highly entertaining plotless drunken capioera/break-dancing kung fu show reel, and the second half is the most embarrassing implosion into nightmarish suck since Dog Bite Dog.
They had a good thing going with the minimalist plot; after being targeted by kidnappers, a girl reinvents her ruin of a life by joining forces with a group of drunken fu dancers who are out for revenge. Had enough of a character arc on her to make us buy in; a touch of comedy, a touch of backstory for the guys, and a lot of really entertaining fighting.
Then the plot demons set in, and it turns out some women give off a pheromone so powerful it makes people obsessed with sex and the kidnappers have sniffers on the street to target women with this pheromone so they can make them really sad and harvest their tears to turn into perfume. Sex perfume.
Not content with jumping the shark the movie then gets eaten by the shark, in a dizzying whirlwind of CG brick slides, sets from National Treasure that make no sense and don't even work well as settings for increasingly boring and incomprehensible fu fights, and a villain doing her best Grace Jones imitation, in tights that make it painfully obvious when her stuntmen take hits for her.
At one point during the meltdown I yelled, "Fuck you, Thailand" at the screen, and meant it. Fuckers didn't even have the courtesy to include a god damn outtake reel.

Fuck it, let's just make the entire stunt team movie stars

Filler post

I try not to do these too often, but JP Meyer is always pretty great when he gets going.