Its Wednesday and time once more for Father Geek to post up Scott Green's AICN Anime Report for the week. Buuuuut first there is this little news item that just arrived here a Geek World Headquarters in Austin, Texas...
Check our DV videopaint anime project.
Yours,
TIMESHIP ANIME PROJECT
Borislav Belovarski (writer/producer)
http://timeship.tv
http://belovarski.com
"The best science fiction is science faction!"
Now on to Scott's report...
X Info
X is the epitome of CLAMP manga. CLAMP is a team of women manga (comic) creators who specialize and odd twist of familiar stories, and romances, often including unorthodox, and ambiguous relationships. Character designs typical feature slender figures, and distinctly shaped large eyes for a very recognizable take of what many regard as anime clichés. X starts with a young man with psychic powers named Kamui who returns to Tokyo after a six year absence to face dreams about the destruction of the world. The series has very large cast, and detailed back story.
Anime Next is reporting that in addition to a new TV series, there will be an X OAV (direct to video release) starting August 25trh in Japan that will serve as a prologue to the series. This is speculated to mean a bridge from Tokyo Babylon, an early CLAMP series about a team of paranormal investigators consisting of a priest, his sister, and a stranger with a dark past who joins them. Kawajiri Yoshiaki (of Ninja Scroll fame) will be directing. There's an interview with him in the May issues of the Japanese magazine Asuka.
A movie was made based on the X manga series when only seven of the manga's 22 volumes where completed. The movie received a limited theatrical release in the US, and has been released on VHS, but the DVD release has be continuously delayed. With the recently release of the movie on DVD in Japan, perhaps it will finally be released in the US. The movie features amazing animation, with some of the most creative and intense battle scenes between individuals with supernatural powers, but the attempt to fix too much story and too many characters into the short feature makes for a jarring and disjointed effect.
Due to protracted licensing problems, Viz has decided to remove X/1999 from the lineup of its monthly manga-anthology magazine Animerica Extra. "Without a contract, we can't publish, and we still have no idea when we'll have a signed contract in-hand," said Animerica Extra's editor Bill Flanagan. "I don't want to cancel it, but we have to coordinate each issue with quite a few different freelance translators, letterers, rewriters and others. We can't leave everybody up in the air forever." So the search is on for another format that will best serve the manga series. "We all love CLAMP's work," comments X/1999 editor Julie Davis, "We've brought it back twice before, and the minute we have a contract, we'll find a way to continue the X/1999 series again.but for now we have to wait until it's legal to publish."
Tezuka Online
Animated renditions of manga (comic) by Osamu Tezuka will be coming online starting this August from Tezuka Production Co. and Contents Japan. His "Black Jack" will be appearing at here Tezuka's (best known in the US as the creator of Astro Boy, and Kimba the White Lion) original stories will provide the source materials for the animation. J-Pop singer and songwriter Hikaru Utada (see here) will supply the vocal content for "Blackjack. Hikaru Utada will also be on the soundtrack to Rush Hour 2. Two episodes of the story will be shown every month, and customers are expected to pay 600 yen in monthly membership fees through providers.
Black Jack is a scarred, unlicensed surgeon, whose unorthodox methods are provided for those able to pay for the service, and those he wishes to help. Though some of the cases are rather fantastical Tezuka brings a great deal of medical knowledge and detail to the work. Black Jack manga has been released in the US by Viz, and has been collected in graphic novel for. An anime movie has been released in the US by Manga Entertainment. Unfortunately is it was of the few Tezuka series released in the US. Another is Adolf, a character driven World War II story of a half-German, half Japanese boy, and a Jewish boy which has been collected as 5 graphic novels.
New Gainax
Gainax is probably best known in the United States for creating the hit Neon Genesis Evangelion. According to Fanboy Entertainment Kenji Tsurata of Spirit of Wonder fame has done character designs for a new Gainax anime. He will also be illustrating the manga version of the anime for Kodansha's AFTERNOON. Character designs can be found at www.gainax.co.jp
Dark Horse Comics has released a volume of Spirit of Wonder manga (comics) that is available as a graphic novel collection. The romantic comedy about a Chinese inn keeper and her tenants, a mad scientist, and his young assistant, set Victorian Englind. Tsurata's facial design are very memorable, and have a cute, and sweet quality to them.
Gainax is expanding their operations into more multi-media endeavors. One of their other new projects will be a new manga series in Shonen Ace A from Kadokawa.
Designs from their new series Mahoromatic are also on the site.
Manga News
The new August issue of NYLON magazine will feature a fall fashion special illustrated by manga artist Takeshi Miyazawa.
Dark Horse will be publish Kenici Sonoda's Exaxxion manga soon it seems. Dark Horse Comic's September solicitation for Dark Horse Extra #39 that reads "And don't miss this month's poster, a sneak peek at Exaxxion, our new upcoming monthly manga series from the creator of Gunsmith Cats, Kenichi Sonoda." Dark Horse comics is nearly complete with their release of Gunsmith Cats, a series about Rally Vincent, a gunsmith, and Minnie May, an explosives enthusiast, a pair of young women bounty hunters in Chicago. As well as its action the series is noted for its attention to detail with regards to fire-arms, and cars.
Exaxxion is a science fiction series with giant robots, but continues Sonoda's gun fascination.
Sonoda is also known for his work on Bubblegum Crisis, an OAV about a group of four women with exo-arms who attempts to deal with out of control robots.
Trigun Manga Talk
Fanboy Entertainment's C.B. Cebulski recently spoke on their forum about the potential for a release of Trigun in the US, which they don't currently have the rights to. CB is a friend of the series creator Nightow-sensei, and the two have discussed a release of the series. When asked about the potential for covers by American comic artists rather than Nightow, CB pointed out one 200 page Japanese "tankobon" breaks up into 6 or 7 U.S. size, which means that seven color covers would be needed for one provided. Nightow-sensei does not often work in color so additional artwork is limited as well. When asked about colorizing the black and white series for American release it was points out that Nightow, who is a fan of US comics wants the series to be released in the US, and wants this book in color. CB says that Nightow would like him to handle the release because of his work with Kia Asamiya's color Dark Angel project. The thread can be seen at
Vash the Stampede is a strange gunslinger walking across a desert landscape, sparsely populated by towns, and giant light bulb like "plants". With a large red trenchcoat, spiky blonde hair, and think rimmed sum glasses he hard to miss. Though he never seems to kill anyone he causes a great deal of destruction and has a $$60,000,000,000 bounty on his head. The series was originally released as "Trigun", but after three volumes, and a change of publishers the name was changed to "Trigun Maximum" The Trigun manga is generally regarded as similar to the anime series, but more violent, and the final five episodes of the anime series follow a different storyline than the continuing manga series. The anime series has been released in the US by Pioneer.
A good Trigun manga resource is Make a Little Light Bulb in Your Soul
Media Blasters October Releases
Media Blasters will be releasing the first five episodes of Weiss Kreuz "Knight Hunters, Weiss Kreuz, Vol 1 Dead Ringer" will be released on dubbed VHS, subtitled VHS, and bilingual DVD on 10/30. Weiss Kreuz is a series story of a group of four bishounen (beautiful males) who are flourists, and idols of the local girls by day and assassins by night.
A 90 minute collection of Jewel Hunter Lime BEM will be released on 10/30 on dubbed VHS, and bilingual DVD. Media Blasters describes the series as "There is another world alongside ours. It is a world of demons and all manner of peculiar creatures. Strange monsters known as BEM's have escaped from the other world, and the have possessed the indignant spirits naturally occurring inside of everyday items. To stop them, Lime emerges from the other world with a heart full of honesty and a head full of air! She may not be the brightest being from the other world, but she means well. With her magical powers and gorgeous body, she's determined to rid earth of the insidious BEM's!"
Rurouni Kenshin "Innocence and Experience" - (Episodes 53-57) will be released on 10/30 on subtitled VHS, dubbed VHS, and bilingual DVD. This volume continues the Shishio story and features Kenshin's showdown with Sojiro, a polite young man who kills without remorse. He has adopted Shishio's survival of the fittest, and Tenken (Heaven's Fist) sword skill that match Kenshin's Kenshin's Hiten Mitsurugi.
FIGHT, Spirit of the Sword is a 60 minute feature that will be released on bilingual DVD, described as "Yonosuke Hikura appears to be an ordinary high school student. Yet he has inherited the important role, passed down through generations of his family, of protecting the harmony between Heaven and Earth. With the help of the magical sword Chitentai, and Tsukinojo Inbe, a Protector sent to him by the high Priests of Earth, he courageously battles the demons, sending them back to the Earth World, from which they have escaped."
The first five episodes on Gokudo, Swordsman Extraordinaire will be released on dubbed VHs and bilingual DVD on 10/30, which has been described as " Where is it written that heroes have to be heroic? Gokudo is the perfect adventurer, reckless, greedy and ambitions. Unfortunately, that makes him one imperfect crown prince and an even worse hero. With his flaming sword, a tomboy looking for excitement and the prince of his rival kingdom, he sets off on a quest to uncover all the great treasures of the world. He'll succeed, or he'll make a total fool of himself trying!"
Bandi Interview
Anime Dream has posted an interview with Bandai's Jerry Chu from E3 at here Some interesting points brought up include that the name change from Candidate for Goddess to Pilot Candidate was at the request of Cartoon Network.
". And actually, Pilot Candidate is a much better descriptive term for the show itself, so as for release on that show, we don't have anything set yet. Probably we'll announce something around Expo (Anime Expo, July 5-8) time. We're going to try and show a preview at Anime Expo." When asked if there was any truth to the rumor that Cartoon Network may air Escaflowne, it was clarified that Fox retains the rights to the series. The release schedule for The Big O will be "It's going to start in June. First DVD comes out in June. Skip July, then August. Skip September, October. Skip November, December."
As for other news
"Basically, we have Mobile Suit Gundam... basically the whole Universal Century, One Year War. That includes Mobile Suit Gundam, the original television series, reanimated... well, not reanimated, but remastered. We also have 0080, 0083, Gundam 08th MS Team. Release dates for our DVDs, we've pretty much set for July for MS Team on VHS and DVD. August will be Mobile Suit Gundam, after that will be Star Dust Memory, 0083, and after that will be 0080. Besides Gundam, we're working closely with Bandai America to do the whole Anime Collector's toy line, which will include action figure toys for Cowboy Bebop, Pilot Candidate, which is also coming to Cartoon Network later this year. Um, Blue Submarine, Escaflowne, Big O, and Outlaw Star. So those assortments of toys should be hitting pretty soon. Otherwise, other news... we'll confirm it with you guys, but we've already confirmed it before: We do have the rights to Love Hina. Whether or not that's the 24 episodes,!
plus whatever specials, we don't know yet, soo... actually, we know, we're just not going to say anything yet. But within the next month, if you go to bandai-ent.com's website, there will be a promotion, a fan survey, where you can actually choose what we release in 2002 in January. The first thing that we release in 2002. And one of them will be love Hina. So there's going to be, I believe, Silent Mobius on DVD, Brain Powered on DVD, Better Man, which is a new show we've picked up, Love Hina, and Fancy Lala. So, people can go and vote for that. "
As for soundtracks
" We'd have to deal direct, and actually that's the hardest part in doing anything like soundtracks. I don't know if you guys recall, but back when we were Anime Village we actually made an announcement that we were going to get into the whole soundtrack business, and it really turned out to be too difficult. You have to deal with so many different licensing people; it's not just dealing with one group. You start dealing with the composers and the singers and the music company themselves, the labels, and the studio that created the show. It just got too complicated, so we're going to try and work through it, but we'll see what happens."
DBZ Update
FUNimation has sent out their latest updated schedule. Beginning in late August, the company will begin releasing edited and uncut versions of the next saga of the series, Babidi.
Like all of the past DBZ movies, FUNimation will be creating separate edited and uncut versions of Lord Slug on DVD. Unfortunately, if you want the uncut DVD version, you're going to have to wait until September to see it.
Official release dates are as follows:
The Garlic Jr. DVD's should be available soon. Z Warriors Prepare has also been rescheduled. We are adding the Episodes 106-108 from the Trunks Prelude to Terror video to the Z Warriors Prepare DVD so it will contain 5 episodes (106-110
After months of rumors, Faulconer Productions has announced that they will be releasing 2 DBZ soundtracks on 7/15: the Trunks Compendium and the Best of DBZ. Both CD's will contain the controversial background music that Faulconer created for FUNimation's DBZ dubs.
Ironically, neither soundtrack sports any actual DBZ artwork.
Wizard Tries Anime
Wizard Entertainment, the makers of the comics magazine have announced "Wizard Anime Invasion", a trial issue of an anime magazine. The issue will feature the Top 50 anime DVDs of all time, a Manga Price Guide, an episode guide to Dragonball Z amongst other articles. The magazine will be released this month with two covers, Akira by DarkMinds creator Pat Lee, and a Cartoon Network Dragonball Z/Sailor Moon Cover.
Information on New Vampire Hunter D
Urban Vision has given the new Vampire Hunter D movie a subtitled to differentiate it from the 1985 OAV. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Urban Vision will be screen a new trailer at this weekend's Anime Expo 2001. Bloodlust is an entirely new film, based off primarily the third novel on D written by Hideyuki Kikuchi, with a completely original story and new characters. It has also been animated by the renowned MADHOUSE STUDIOS, directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, best known for productions such as Ninja Scroll and Wicked City.
"D" is a half-human/half-vampire creature with a symbiotic being that appears a face on his hand. He struggles to control his vampire lust for blood, and hunts other supernatural creatures that harm humanity. In Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust he is hired by a elderly village chieftain to rescue his daughter from the vampire Meier Link before she becomes a vampire, or if too late, kill her. A group of vampire hunters known as the Marcus Brothers are hired to perform the same task, and Meier Link's mercaneries are set out to destroy both hunters.
Open Letter On Fanboy's Status
From Fanboy Entertainment's C.B. Cebulski:
I hate rumors... especially when they are about me. And I know a lot have been circulating about Fanboy Entertainment recently. Forget what you've heard. I am going to clarify mattters here and now.
We are not bust. We are not bankrupt. We are not dying. We are not dead. Yes, as I discussed at Anime Central, we are scaling back our publishing operations. But truth be told, Fanboy is growing and expanding in other areas actually. Our focus has shifted.
As I have mentioned, we will not be publishing as much ourselves anymore and many of our planned projects have been postponed or cancelled. We are currently making alternate plans for their publication through Fanboy, looking at co-publishing them with other companies or, in some cases, seeking to sublicense them out. There are a number of reasons for this.
First off, I believe the monthly manga market here has become stagnant. (I specify "monthly" here as I do believe that manga graphic novels and special projects have a bright fututre ahead of them.) It is no secret that the U.S. comic market is not as healthy as it could be. Manga is an even smalller part of this already small market. Every manga publisher is competing for the same pieces of the pie. While the popularity of anime increases exponentially, the same growth is in no way reflected in manga sales. New fans aren't flocking to the comic shops to buy black and white manga like they are to the video shops to purchase DVDs. We are only selling books to the same fanbase month after month. And those fans only have so much money. As publishers, we are only cutting each others throats by putting out new titles every month to compete with one another for the fans' dollars. Additonally, the bigger and more established publishers have more money and staff to invest in promoti! on! and advertising and they also have their long-standing reputations to ride on. I cannot directly compete with them.
Secondly, as anime sales increase, newer and bigger companies have jumped into the manga game looking to make a quick buck. They do not neccessarily understand the market and their presence here hurts. They have succeeded in driving up prices and licensing fees to levels that are hard for smaller publishers like me to match. They also have the funds to do mulitple title deals for large sums of money which the Japanese publsihers are more than happy to accept. Over the course of the first four months this year, I have had three manga titles I had agreements in place for bought out from under me for riduculous licensing fees AND I saw the price tag on one deal triple as I was forced to enter a biddding war I eventually backed out of. I know manga and I do not see how any of these deals could possibly be profitable for the publisher who agreed to pay these exhorbitant amounts of money.
Lastly and most importantly, other opportunities have presented themselves to us and something had to give. I now have lots of new and exciting projects lined up that will not only keep me busy day in and day out, but will also serve to push manga more into the mainstream market. This is what I originally set out to do and it looks like I will now be able to accomplish this is ways I think will surprise people. I have always prefered working directly with the creators and artists themselves anyway and that is what I will continue to do in the future in an even greater capacity.
In the meantime, here is the run down of what I can tell you so far:
.
As a fan myself, it is heartbreaking to have to cease publication of some of these titles. I offer my sincere apologies to people who picked up the first issue of both Spellbound and Mobius Klein. I also feel terrible that fans will have to wait to see the marvelous comic that is Feather. I will do my best to see you get the rest of these stories as soon as possible in one way or another.
C.B. Cebulski;
Fanboy Entertainment;
June 29, 2001
Mainfraime Info
An article at Cinescape has updated the status of some Mainframe projects. They are working on 13 episodes of Daemon Rising. "The entire project will then be broken down into the 13 episodes for regular broadcast. At present, the working title for this new season of Reboot is Daemon Rising and the main villain will be Hexadecimal. The sequence I saw featured Hexa blowing up Bob and Enzo`s city to kingdom come. Heck of a way to start. " They also announced plans for Jill Thompson`s Scary Godmother, Steve Seagal`s Dot`s Bots and a feature-length IMAX treatment of Gulliver`s Travels in the near future. For more information see Anime on DVD's forum billboards have started to appear in California that are advertising an orange energy drink with Rio from the Burn Up W anime series. "She's in her short-skirt, chest-stretched uniform - I guess a naked-bungee-jumping version would've caused too may accidents." According the ADV rep David Williams the company licensed Rio's image and an anime clip for an adverting campaign that should be nation wide and extend beyond billboards. A billboard can be seen at here
Tokyo Pop Announces New Manga Series
Tokyo Pop has announced that they have acquired the rights to the comic sword and sorcery manga series Riotous Dragon Knights, which they describe as "If you think having to face a man-eating witch is dangerous, imagine having to face the one-eyed monster that ate it. TOKYOPOP® Manga today announced that it has licensed the offbeat adventure Dragon Knights, the tale of three young warriors struggling just to survive in a bizarre and magical world. The manga was published over the last 10 years in Japan in 17 graphic novels. The series pairs a mythological setting with the use of contemporary humor and street style to appeal not only to fans of manga, but to fans of genre-mixing fare such as Final Fantasy, Battle Chasers and Warlands."
What Is Gundam.
With all of the Gundam series comic out on DVD, and on Cartoon Network many may be wonder what exactly Gundam is.
Gundam is a science fiction war series that features human piloted, humanoid shaped mobile suits called Gundam. A Gundam is a type of humanoid shaped mobile suit like an Apache is a type of helicopter.
Gundam series can be divided into One Year War/The Universal Century series and Alternate Universe (Gundam Wing a more female oriented series with attrive male pilots, and less utilitarian looking mecha), Gundam X, a variation of the original Gundam, G Gundam, a Giant Robo, fight anime-esqu series, and Turn A Gundam).
The original Gundam series debuted in 1979, and featured 39 episodes of what was originally planned to be 52. It starts during a war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon. Due to human overpopulation of Earth human have begun to migrate the twenty mile long colonies in space known as "Slides", situated on stable points in Earth Orbit. 50 years into the Universal Century 80% of humanity lives in Slides, but the race is still governed from Earth. The Principality of Zeon is established on co-opted the philosophy that migration is space is a key step in human evolution, and that humans are ready to evolve into newtypes. Zeon begins militarizing to break away from Earth, utilization new technology to build mobile suits that jam radar, reducing warfare to the vision range.
The original Gundam start during the One Year Warwith 15-year-old civilian Amuro Ray commandeers one of the prototype mobile suits - the RX-78 Gundam. Amuro turns out to be a newtype, and evolutes human with special abilities. O8th MS Team tells the One Year War from the perspective of typical soldiers rather than elite newtypes.
For more Gundam information see Gundam Project
