Land of the Rising Fun

Go Fish, the new distribution outlet set up by Dreamworks SKG to compete with Warner Independent Pictures, will be releasing Ghost In The Shell II: Innocence next spring, reports the Anime News Network. And ICv2, noting that the film will follow GF's first limited release, Satoshi Kon's Millenium Actress on September 12, adds: "It should be interesting to see if Dreamworks primarily uses Go Fish to compete with Warners for indie films or to gain a beachhead for anime feature films in the rough and tumble arena of theatrical exhibition." Meantime, once again, that 17+meg promo clip for Innocence.

Clearly, anime is on a roll. What's not so clear is just how lucrative that roll is, even when the numbers are offered up in a short, evidently very roughly translated news clip at Anime News Service seem to indicate that it's "about 3.2 times" as lucrative an export for Japan as steel. But I'm not sure, really, that that's what's meant. Still, it's hardly any wonder that, according to another snippet Natsume Maya points to, the Japanese Ministry of Culture will soon begin offering financial aid to promising anime artists. Hard to imagine such obvious logic ever clicking with the current administration in the US.

Also going on at the Anime News Service: A poll that's generated lively comments, "Is North America Ready for J-Pop?," and an interview with voice actress Luci Christian (Those Who Hunt Elves, Gamera 2 and 3 and Full Metal Panic): "This is not the sort of medium the majority of people know much about. You know, when I said I was doing it [anime voice acting], people automatically jumped to maybe I'm doing the porn stuff, and I'm like, 'No no no no no!', you know?"

By the way, back at ANN, Bamboo Dong has a new "Shelf Life" column up. Two Shelf Worthies, oodles of Rentals and three forget-about-it Perishables.

Over at Anime Tourist: "In an out of the way room at a recent anime convention, I was surprised to discover that they were not showing anime, but live action shows from Japan." The reviewer's intrigued but can't catch the name of the show he's watching. No longer a problem, now that there's The Dorama Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese TV Drama Since 1953. Fine of the Tourist to mention that the book "is published by the nice folks at Stone Bridge Press," but they really should have added that it won't be released until November.

Also on the non-anime front, Steve at Milk Plus writes, "Witness the death throes of one of cinema's most idiosyncratic talents!... [A]t least Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill (of which Pistol Opera is a loose remake) had a bare minimum of structure and sense attached... [Seijun] Suzuki has pitched headlong into total style at the expense of everything else that makes a film work. The result is a pile of gibberish, a Lisztomania for the Hong-Kong-action-movie crowd." Ouch. Granted, word of mouth on Pistol Opera has been bad, but it should also be noted that not all the reviews have been.

Posted by dwhudson at August 16, 2003 10:18 AM