Philip

Being a fan of the outlandish films like Versus and Volcano High I just had to mention that Tak Sakaguchi is close to a release of his new film, “Be a Man! Samurai School” or “魁!!男塾” which is “Sakigake!! Otoko Juku” which sounds like my sort of film, which appears to be the usual sort of microcosm of thuggery in a school setting (is there any other?). Most people would remember Tak from his breakout film Versus as the lead character of zombie-kicking goodness. You can read the English info here and the main web site is here. Hideo Sakaki also is in the film, however not sure how big his role will be.

OK, I’ll admit it: I’m a big fan of Tsutomu Nihei’s Blame! manga (or rather, Blam!) which details a desolate Earth that has been consumed by an ever-expanding city which acts as infrastructure to the mythical NetSphere, a completely computer driven alternative world. Just one slight problem - after the rise of infected cyborgs known as silicon creatures the NetSphere invoked their autonomous defense system, known as the SafeGuard to protect them by terminating all humans without Net Terminal Genes (who were able to be infected and converted into silicon creatures).

As a result, nobody left alive has the ability to communicate directly to the NetSphere to halt the expansion as almost all communication has ceased between the real world and the NetSphere. A roaming agent known as Killy is requested to find any remaining person with Net Terminal Genes to try and stop the uncontrolled growth of the city. Several other manga exist such as prequels (NOiSE, Biomega) and sequels (NetSphere Engineer) and one-shots (DigiMortal) that drop hints about the world of Blame!

What’s interesting is that life is cheap in Blame! as most people no longer have truly human bodies and can be turned into a digital persona with ease, extending their lives well past what you’d expect. Time also takes on new dimensions as regularly days or years pass getting from A to B or for a variety of other reasons. Effectively life has ground to a halt as survivors are effectively left between the iron age and limited information age eras struggling to survive without input from the NetSphere.

I missed it earlier, but it appears that Jinni’s Animation Studio have taken on a Blame! CG movie with Production IG. A Prologue DVD with about 3 minutes of footage + statuette of Killy costs about $63 Au (argh, 35c/second?) has recently come out that gives more hints about the upcoming CG movie release.

See it here, French.

By the looks of things it’ll be close to the end of the manga if the statuette of Sanakan is to be believed, what with her arm-fused GBE and wings when she took out an army of silicon creatures to save Killy’s friend, Cibo. Hopefully we’ll get to see some serious silicon creature ass-kicking from both Killy and Sanakan along the way.

Odex, a Singaporean based anime distributor has decided to target BitTorrent downloaders with $3000+ fines in Singapore for downloading copies of Inu Yasha and Bleach (among other licensed shows) after claiming their sales dropped 60 - 70% in just 2 years. This would be one of the first efforts in clamping down on fansubs outside of Japan, so it brings up the question of where the anime community will be going in the future.

Read about it here.

I just read recently that one of my favourite mangas, Shin Angyo Onshi is wrapping up far sooner than I expected in the next month or two. I guess the “let’s drag it out as long as possible” ie Berserk isn’t flying but I was hoping for another few volumes of manga now that the back story is complete. Hopefully it’ll be licensed for an English release sometime soon.

Shin Angyo Onshi is a Korean manga by Youn In-Wan (story) and Yang Kyung-Il (artwork) and follows the travels of the anti-hero Munsu, who claims he is the last Angyo Onshi (secret agent) of the destroyed country Jushin. Using his magical mahai (medallion) he is able to summon an army of spiritual warriors to bring his own (almost immoral) sense of justice to the land with his sando (warrior) Chun-Hyang, a beautiful but mysterious woman who joins up with him after losing her loved one.

What’s interesting about the series is that Munsu is a true anti-hero. His methods are certainly below the belt and shows a disregard for almost everyone and everything. During the story it is shown that Munsu is pretty much living only to kill his eternal enemy (once-friend) Aji Tae who he holds responsible for destroying Jushin and all the events leading up to it. Munsu turns out to be the famous general of Jushin who with his famous swordsman Won Sul, they managed to kill the Queen of Demons, Kaidaten. The battle left Munsu a changed man, and shortly after he both left his position and Jushin before it was destroyed.

Chun-Hyang (known as Sando) is a mysterious woman who joins up with Munsu during his travels after her beloved was killed. She has an immense innate skill in fighting and seems to be able to wield a massive sword with ease, and is hinted that she may not be fully human like several other characters who appear to be human or animal depending on the person beholding them (for example, one of the characters looks like a human female, or a large black panther). Apparently Sando always wears a very brief outfit to keep the artist Yang Kyung-Il happy drawing good looking women.

Aji Tae is Munsu’s enemy (although, Aji Tae probably wouldn’t say that) and used to be Munsu’s most trusted advisor until the fall of Jushin. The closest we can say is that Aji Tae is truly amoral, and delights in tinkering with the lives of others to keep himself amused - whether they live or die is of no concern to him. With his exceptional magical powers he was able to subvert most of the highly skilled survivors of Jushin to his side and build an army of demons and undead to take Munsu on.

Anyhow, the artwork and story line is superb, so you shouldn’t miss out on reading it when you get a chance. Etc… has translated 13 volumes out of the expected 17 volumes, and should finish the back story shortly and begin the massive battle between Munsu and Aji Tae which should wrap up in a month or two in Sunday GX (where it’s serialised). You can get the scanlations here.

In a move that may have more conservative types in USA seriously concerned, Iris Print announced on 24/05/2007 that they would begin publishing the first boys’ love (yaoi) magazine known as BL Twist in USA. Apparently yaoi manga is very popular in USA and will preview in October 2007 at Yaoi-con in SF with a general release in January 2008.

Read the press release here.

I’m reminded of Col. Frank Fitz from American Beauty:

“This country is going straight to hell!”

There’s already been some serious rumblings about borderline young adult situation titles like Nymphet being delayed from conservative concerns over possible indecent material. Read about it here. Good thing nobody’s importing doujinshi from Japan, don’t think much of it would be legal.

OK I’ve sort of recovered from the second day at Wai-con, however it still feels like a large semi-trailer ran over me a few times. The JAFWA booth did some good advertising business thanks to Lindsay bringing in his PS2 with his legitimate copies of Final Fantasy XII and Naruto games which pretty much made us quite popular with everyone passing through. I managed to sneak in a few games of Melty Blood at the same time and got my ass handed to me by some adroit button mashing by the guests as I decided to play some of the more weaker characters this time to give everyone a good chance.

Towards the end of the day great deals were to be made by traders hoping to get rid of excess stock to avoid hauling it back to Perth. I’d like to thank Empire Toys for donating quite a bit to the JAFWA door prize pool, it looks like we won’t have to worry about door prizes for quite a while now! The president of PANIC also managed to talk her way out of getting her head shaved, since they didn’t crack 800 members of the public going through the doors. They did raise quite a bit of cash with the special auctions however, it’s a really good way to raise money it seems.

I also sat down to watch the second day of the cosplay competition. The first day was pretty good, but the second day proved just as good with quite a few people cosplaying new outfits or taking care of skits and acts. Again, they need a break after 45 minutes or so, there’s just no way people can keep still over that period of time in the chairs they had. I did find the gaming center had Guitar Hero, but apparently the plasma screens had some nasty latency so it was unplayable, so I settled for the JAFWA setup to play Naruto instead.

Apparently the yaoi panel was the most popular with people - a sizeable percentage of females at Wai-con all love yaoi for some reason. (Probably the same reason guys love lesbian couples). I guess females really do want their sensitive new age guy that looks like Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom judging from how popular it is. I’ll talk about that later when I do a few book reviews soon.

I also saw some of the AMV’s that won awards are Wai-con during the closing ceremony, the technology has come a long way since the early days since computer video editors are making life a lot easier for them rather than laboriously doing it on a couple of VHS decks. Special effects are also big as well as lip synching, probably the best was an AMV from the Oh! My Goddess movie to the main song from Phantom of the Opera. (If you’ve seen the movie you know it’s kind of apt).

I’ll make another post with some of the pictures I took so you could get an idea of the main hall and traders hall. I’ll see about getting the cosplay photos dumped up somewhere soon.

I’ve been up at Wai-Con yesterday and I’ll be there today promoting JAFWA, the local anime group. Due to a series of events I had to sit through about 2 hours of watching people cosplay (Nick should know why). Actually it worked out better than I expected with about 40 people cosplaying in the contest that day and about another 40-60 people wandering around in anime and game themed outfits, Final Fantasy: AC, Naruto and Bleach being popular choices. (Argh, another 2 hours today to go…)

While this is going on JAFWA has a table in the trader’s hall where people sell stuff, the biggies being Madman and Empire Toys. I managed to pick up one of the few box sets of Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo since Madman made a few box sets up which aren’t due out for another 6 months or so they claim. Other people at the hall are independant anime/manga stores that are around Perth and a few independant doujinshi producers which I like to support. (Yes, we do have doujinshi in Perth! Nothing like the Japanese doujinshi however, it’s actually pretty safe to read for once).

Anyhow, the second day (Sunday) is about to start in about 1 hour, so if you’re interested in going it’s $35 for a day (it was $40 for 2 days) up in Joondalup Arena. I’d say it’s more for fans only, but if you’re interested in seeing what’s going on head to Wai-Con’s web page at www.wai-con.org. I’d say they need to get some more gaming happening, I can see a DDR faceoff with Heanson and Nick kicking some ass in Guitar Hero II being pretty popular. As it stands, we’ll probably be getting through Final Fantasy XII and Melty Blood at the JAFWA stall as something to watch while wandering the trader’s hall.

Cruising the usual web sites I discovered that they’ve started releasing the live action drama of Jigoku Shoujo (Hell Girl). Basically, the premise is that if you log into a web site at the right time, you can make a pact to send someone to hell - with your soul forfeit, so when you die you get sent to hell too to keep your ex-buddy company. Naturally, being on the web this means any disgruntled person in Japan can find it quickly on www.google.co.jp (maybe with “Send someone to hell” and “I’m Feeling Lucky”?).

Having followed the generally repetitous anime version of Jigoku Shoujo, one of the more interesting characters is the young girl Tsugumi who seems to have a connection with Enma Ai, the afore-mentioned Jigoku Shoujo. Most of the series involves Tsugumi seeing what Ai is up to, and with her father Shibata they attempt to stop people getting sent off to hell (and usually failing miserably). Basically, Tsugumi is probably one of the better young girl characters I’ve seen in anime of late, so I was interested to know who was playing the part in the drama.

It turns out it’s Saaya Irie. OK, some teenager from Japan. Nothing new there, bit disappointing given that I was hoping I could see someone like Suzuka Ougo pull off a serious dramatic role as the precocious Tsugumi. After reviewing some images of her, the realisation dawns on me that most of them were taken when she was 11 or 12. With a C-D (US) or F (Japan) cup endowment. Now, I don’t know about some people, but damn, they must be putting something into the Japanese food but that seriously doesn’t sound normal (though, given the Japanese predilection for lolikon I’m not that surprised).

It seriously makes you wonder if the hypersexualisation of media is definitely starting to take a few steps too far down the wrong path. Despite assurances that there won’t be more gravure photoshoots with bikinis, water and suggestive poses, it seems Saaya’s managers couldn’t afford to capitalise on drooling lolikon addicts and are pushing it fairly strongly despite the fact she’s still a pre-teen (well, she turns 13 in 3 days. Whatever). It seems any Japanese who are over-generously endowed like the practically emotionless Eiko Koike (more images here to see what I mean, she has Blue Steel down to an art!) get top billings in Japan. Oh well.

Anyhow, anyone hoping to see her so far will be disappointed, we may see how she acts in episode 2 or 3 of Jigoku Shoujo (it’s the same in the anime), but I’m not holding my hopes too high for a serious dramatic role out of her. I’ll keep to watching the Kikoushi Enma OAV’s, it seems Go Nagai wasn’t happy with Cutie Honey and Getter Robo, he’s branched into Japanese mythology as well, so it’s interesting to see what his spin is like on it.