By AnimeEv 1 year, 6 months ago
Since I’m riding a no-sleep/coffee/push-up/anger bender, I’m just going to provide some brief notes on the Otakon panel for those of you interested in one of Japan’s premiere studios’ output.
The president of Otakon, Mr. Maruyama, was present. He is a small, bald man with driven eyes and an air of experience about him, and he seemed very collected in terms of both his presentation and general presence. The panel was designed to be focused on Madhouse’s current titles which include Highschool of the Dead, Tatami Galaxy, Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Bloodtrail, Rainbow, and Trigun: Badlands Rumble.
Video previews and breakdowns of staff were presented for HOTD, Tatami Galaxy, Black Lagoon, Iron Man, Trigun, and and the upcoming Redline movie. Sadly, no previews were shown for Rainbow, but there will be a showing scheduled for tomorrow with the director present.
We started off with a video of High School of The Dead. If you know me, you know that I love this show. Maruyama mentioned that an uncut version would be Geneon’s choice upon its release on DVD, as there was some stuff blurred out here and there, most notably in the last episode. Fan reaction was strong, and who could blame them? I mean, ZOMBIES, people.
Zombies.
Tatami Galaxy is the story of a rambunctious and strange college student with the hobby of breaking up couples at his school. The kicker? He repeats the first year of college over and over in a kind of harsh cyclic loop, a la Groundhog’s Day. The same artist who does the distinctive Asian Kung Fu Generation art does the press materials for the show, and it looks pretty imaginative in terms of direction. It’s streaming now at various online outlets.
Full stop: The Black Lagoon OVA looks bad ass, high quality, and really striking. Lots of smoking and gunplay in the preview, so this could be a good move to make. Directed by Sunao Katabuchi, who did Mai Mai Shinko, which is still in theaters in Japan after 8 some-odd months!
Rainbow’s director was present in the room. Rainbow is a dramatic story about 7 kids placed into jail for unjust charges. Maruyama described the story as heavy drama, not heavy action. Hopefully I’ll hit up the preview and panel tomorrow and get that together for errebody out there.
Quick note on the fan favorite Trigun Movie Preview: It has the SAME EXACT STAFF AS THE TV STAFF, so there’s not a major disconnect in terms of style and design. During the Q/A section, Maruyama noted that the Trigun series will replicate the original and try to improve upon it by utilizing both the increased experience of its staff and their upgraded knowhow. A larger budget, commiserate with the theatrical nature of the show, should bring about a high quality finished project. Eiter way, the fans were psyched to see the preview!
Maruyama also presented some of the upcoming features from Madhouse, which included some nice surprises for fans. Jump on it!
Tibetan Dog which is a working title, is a first-time collaboration between Madhouse and the Chinese government. It is currently in production and will be released by the end of the year. Naoki Urasawa character designs did the designs, and it will be directed by Masayuki Kojima (*Monster, Master Keaton*). Maruyama himself traveled to Tibet against the wishes of his staff and almost died in the process.
I can’t believe I went this far without making a joke about Chinese politics. Go me.
Marvel Animation is collaborating on a few titles with Madhouse: Iron Man, which is 12 episodes, will air from October, and then comes Wolverine, X-men, and Blade. Iron Man will run on G4 in the states. Sadly, we didn’t get to see the first episode of Iron Man, which apparently ran at Comic Con recently. The preview looked good, if a bit non-descript. Lots of flashing red suits flying around, for sure.
The good news for people who were wondering if it would be a total mishmash was that Madhouse was given a lot of leniency with the Marvel stuff in terms of input and collaborative ability. The hope is that they could put their own spin and input into the title, and Maruyama stated that he was a big fan of Marvel comics growing up and wanted to make sure that he respected the integrity and inspirational nature of the brand.
The driving and action feature film Redline has been in production for 6 years, and some early cuts were shown in London and other parts of Europe recently. All we got was a trailer, though. The film is being directed by Takashi Koike and the original version and the script version were done by Katushito Ishii. Maruyama admitted to the crowd in a direct fashion that he was worried that he might die before the series was finished. It will be released in Japan in 10.9, will be released in the US by Anchor Bay. The show has a massive amount of characters.
As for the trailer… er… well, to me, Redline looks like an abortion made of burned bodies, volume, tears, and shiny shit. Maruyama advised people to bring eye drops because of the intensity of the animation, and felt that it was hard to watch the series at 69 years old, although the film kept him tied to it masochistically for some reason. EVERYTHING this film is hand-drawn, which Maruyama believes may be the end of the era. Even so, it looks a bit shocking in terms of its garish loudness. Who knows? It may be a cult classic… just not my thing so far.
Before leaving Maruyama mentioned something about the upcoming adaptation of the Supernatural series. He noted that the supplementary material will be done by the Japanese dev team completely, and that the majority of the adaption issues will mostly spring from time constraints, etc. A kappa (traditional Japanese monster) will appear in one story, although the show will be set entirely in the United States.
Good times, ya’ll. Stay tuned for more!
High School of the dead, Madhouse, black lagoon, redline, trigun
con, con, con, I want to go
bleachfreak73
7 months, 1 week agoneed to go to a con badly