Posts Tagged ‘viz’
Go to DMC! Go to DMC!
Well, it’s about time. Viz Pictures has announced that a release plan for the 2008 Detroit Metal City movie. DMC is the live action adaptation of Wakasugi Kiminori’s comedy manga about a simple country boy named Negishi Soichi, who fronts a death metal band as the demonic Johannes Krauser II (pictured above). Their current schedule is not yet solid, but a DVD release is coming this fall, which will most likely be accompanied by a limited theater release, a la 20th Century Boys and Death Note.
I saw the movie while I was in Japan back in August 2008, and it was hilarious. I’ve fallen out of love with the manga in recent years because it got too crazy and aggressive over time, turning the main character into an unlikeable font of schizophrenic rage; as a 100-minute movie, it felt just right as a cheesy, funny look at a man struggling between what he likes and what he’s good at. Matsuyama Ken’ichi’s (L from Death Note) portrayal of Negishi mixes comedic buffoonery with just enough tragedy to keep you sympathetic. Plus, you can’t hate a movie that gives you the pleasure of hearing Gene Simmons say “Kill him, Metal Buffalo!” It’s just not possible.
Hit the jump for the official movie trailer and a bonus music video from the original promotional campaign.
- In: News
- 6 Comments
Sweet mercy, I go and take a break to staff AX and the anime companies unleash half of their big announcements! I’m glad I’ll actually have time during Otakon to post the news as it happens, because falling behind on AX feels like a mountain already.
So, here we go with the alphabetical company-by-company roundup:
Aniplex
Durarara!! (DVD)
Bandai
K-On! (DVD)
Crunchyroll
Occult Academy (simulcast)
Tono to Issho (simulcast)
FUNimation
Legend of the Legendary Heroes (simulcast)
Sekirei ~Pure Engagement~ (simulcast)
Sengoku Basara 2 (simulcast)
Shiki (simulcast)
Nozomi
Sora no Woto (DVD)
Revolutionary Girl Utena (TV and movie)
Sentai
Highschool of the Dead (simulcast)
Viz
Nurarihyon no Mago (simulcast)
Strawberry 100% (streaming)
Phew! What a list. Out of these, I’m most interested in the To Aru series, the Trigun movie, and the amusingly self-aware Legend of the Legendary Heroes. What are you guys looking forward to owning or watching?
Crunchyroll Nabs Bleach
Posted on: June 2, 2010
- In: News
- Leave a Comment
Well – what seemed inevitable, but certainly took its sweet time, was announced on Crunchyroll today: the hyper-popular Bleach is going to be simulcast on the streaming site starting next week.
According to their release, “All episodes will be available to all viewers, with the latest simulcast episode available for Premium Members one hour after TV broadcast in 480p and 720p, then available for all viewers one week later.” The simulcast is a joint venture between Crunchyroll, VIZ Media, Studio Pierrot, Shueisha, and TV Tokyo, which should greatly improve the quality of the subtitles over the usual Crunchyroll fare. Also of note, the Bleach anime will probably start showing up on Vizanime.com and Hulu a week after CR’s exclusive simulcast period is over – just like Naruto Shippuden.
Between One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach, the holy trinity of Shonen Jump is now fully on the simulcast bandwagon, allowing American fans to catch up on the extensive backlog for these long-running shows.
Find more details in the official Crunchyroll announcement.
Did You Watch Cross Game Yet?
Posted on: May 24, 2010
Because if you haven’t, you really should. There are currently six episodes of the hit baseball anime streaming over at Hulu and VizAnime.com, and I highly recommend all of them. Cross Game was one of the best anime of 2009, and it’s a damn shame that more people haven’t watched it. Heck, I think more people should buy the manga when it comes out in omnibus form in English – at a whopping 576 pages, you’ll be able to get a whole lot of Cross Game at once.
Sadly, the Hulu thing means that you won’t be able to watch the show unless you’re in the US, but that’s one of those sad facts of licensing.
- In: News
- 2 Comments
I forgot to post a news bit when VIZ started streaming Vampire Knight over on Vizanime.com. But today, ANN uncovered their plan to stream Cross Game later this month and as a life-long Adachi fan, I am obligated to give this news all the love it deserves.
So, here goes: when Cross Game starts streaming online later this month, you need to watch it. Ookiku Furikabutte failed commercially over here, but Cross Game is one of those anime that transcends its baseball premise and appeals to all audiences. It has everything you’d want out of a high school drama, with baseball, romance, baseball romance, comedy, baseball comedy, generational struggles against authority, drama, and dramatic baseball.
Seriously, though, it’s one of the few stories in the last few years which has evoked strong emotional responses from me, from honest tears after Wakaba’s series-defining death at the beginning of the story to a sentimental smile at the romantic climax of the series. It seriously has something for everyone, and you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you skipped it.
- In: News
- 2 Comments
With the recent rush to get the newest and shiniest new shows, it’s nice to see today’s press release from VIZ, which is about a relatively old show (which, these days, means “more than 2 months old”), Kekkaishi. The 52-episode action series, which originally aired between 2006 and 2008, will start airing on Adult Swim on May 29.
Kekkaishi is a pretty good series as far as shounen fantasy goes – unlike many in its genre, it manages to get from point A to point B in the plot without getting horrifically sidetracked for weeks at a time, and is pretty entertaining while it does so.VIZ already streams the show for free via Hulu and VIZ Anime, but the Adult Swim broadcasts will allow the show to get a much-deserved wider audience. The show comes highly recommended to those of you who’re tired of the generic filler-filler-fight fare from other shounen fantasy/action shows (not that I’m naming names or anything). For more information, check out VIZ Anime’s page for the supernatural series, which tells you all about Yoshimori and Tokine, two teens who have inherited the power to defend their homes from monsters.
While there are more than a handful of shakycam videos of TAF trailers out there, I feel like it’s not worth pointing to them unless you can actually hear what’s going on without hundreds of Japanese convention-goers jabbering over the blurry video. The Sarai-ya Goyou trailer comes as a breath of fresh air, late as I am to this party – the music is gorgeous, and while th eart style isn’t what you’d expect from an average anime, the style and story look like they’ll be great.
Sarai-ya Goyou starts airing in mid-April in the noitaminA time slot, but if you want to know more about this fascinating story about the steady descent of a naive samurai into the underworld, you can read eight chapters of the original manga for free over on VIZ’s IKKI site. I highly recommend it – it’s a far from your standard samurai chanbara fare, and it really makes me want to see what they can do with it.
The whole VIZ Anime lineup - for now.
VIZ seems to be making a concerted effort to pull their properties in closer to the chest and improve their brand. Before, if you wanted to watch InuYasha, you had to go to the Shonen Sunday site or to Hulu. If you wanted to watch Naruto Shippuden, it was off to Crunchyroll for you, and if Bleach is what you were looking for, then, um, I don’t remember where Bleach lived. To fix that problem, VIZanime.com is now open and offering all of Viz’s titles from the same place. Right now, it has over 400 episodes online, including the entire Naruto and Death Note series, 117 episodes of Bleach, and some lesser-known hits like Nana and Honey and Clover.
In the long term, it will be interesting to see if Viz Anime goes the route of Comedy Central, pulling its videos from Hulu and other sources in order to keep more of the ad revenue. For now, that’s pretty much a pipe dream. Viz’s videos are all coming from Hulu, and sadly, that means that this new site is still a no-go for those of you who are outside of the United States.
The weekend is over, and that means that the usual suspects are up on the official streaming sites – the new One Piece is up on FUNimation’s side, Fairy Tail and Sora no Woto on Crunchyroll, and InuYasha: The Final Act on Viz. The new One Piece is interesting, since it’s one of the few times you’ll ever see Luffy utterly beaten, while Fairy Tail has a lot of topless Gray for your fangirl pleasure.
There are two older shows that deserve your attention, though: first, Crunchyroll has decided to get people ready for the upcoming Gundam Unicorn by posting the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, and while it’s incredibly dated, it’s still worth seeing as a historical piece. The second is Buso Renkin, a series that has old-school action sensibilities and perhaps the most awesome opening theme in the history of anime.
Out of the two, I’d suggest skimming Gundam for a few minutes as a historical frame of reference, but you really should go back and watch Buso Renkin because it’s actually way more fun in anime form than it was in manga form.
Anime Reel - Anime & Manga TV News 
Recent Comments