Father Geek here... yep finally got a bit of time to sit at the ol' workstation, annnnnd I've got Scott's regular report on Manga & Anime for you...

AnimAICN...

by Scott Green

Anime Spotlight: Fighting Spirit
Volume 2 The Debut Match
Volume 3 Test of Endurance

Released by Geneon

There are enough failed boxing movies, not to mention two reality shows to illustrate that dramatizing the sport isn't automatically to capture an audience. Boxing, as it really exists doesn't fulfill the requirement of dramatic fiction. Stylistic differences do sometimes capture the personality of a fighters, and it is possible to appreciate the story of a fight but between the mental half thoughts in neural shorthand, mixed lots of training engrained unthoughtout actions and reactions of the fighter, and from a spectator respective the speed in which a complex set of events can happen, there isn't the room clear progression or emphasis on drama.

The always impressive Studio Madhouse shows that animation might be a right medium to depict a boxing drama. While not done as artfully as Raging Bull, and with a few obvious short cuts in reused animation, Madhouse is able to distend the action to evaluate the strategy and emotions without falling victim to excess that the anime medium tends to court. Fighting Spirit’s technique allows the viewer to become engrossed in the exchange of punches.

The reasons to attempt to dramatize boxing are deep. While professional boxing seems to be in a holding pattern on a rung above professional wrestling in the public, between Million Dollar Baby, Ken Burns' Jack Johnson documentary, and maybe Don King's ESPN lawsuit boxing is experiencing one of its periodic resurgences in the general consciousness. Regardless of the ebb and flow of its professional variant, boxing is always ready make a grab to the imagination. Along with amateur wrestling and racing, it’s one of the eternal sports. Every human capable of doing so has run from, put their weight on and struck at another person. Since for non-fans/participants, racing can seem a little limited in dimension, and wrestling can be a bit Byzantine, boxing has the most on sight reaction, whether it be awe, excitement or revulsion.

In particular, boxing invites more philosophical consideration that win or loose ball sports. Its foundation is an action that sober people work to avoid. Instinct is dead set against taking a punch to head, making the entrance into an arena where strikes to the head are the instrument of success immediately establish it as a recognizable hurtle of will. It’s an existential outlet to shape oneself into a fighter. In fiction, its been done plenty of times before, but done right, a nobody making themselves into a nobody through boxing it the find of self-creative progressive that will always remain engaging to watch.

Already, the once friendless, outcast Ippo has shaped himself into a boxer, not to avoid the bullies that plague him, or as a more lucrative career than his mother's fishing boat rental business, or to gain recognition, but because he had decided to become a boxer. Despite the series length (75 anime episode, far more manga), it has been moving quickly, Ippo has already shed his soft disposition and seems to be done with the equivalent of chase the chickens training.

Volumes 2 and 3, with healthy 5 episode blocks of the series, give Ippo a match against his rival, the cold prodigy Miyata, a boxing licensing, an odd crew of fans, and entrance into the Japan's rookie tournament. Each step has been make interesting, and seemed significant.

A key aspect in maintaining the drama has been to set Ippo against opponents with their own stories. Not just his rival, but the other stepping stones. Shaking up the formula path, his first professional fight is against an underachiever who Ippo is expected to beat without much difficulty. Except, his opponent’s trainer is fed up with the slacking, and the boxer's girlfriend, the coach's daughter, can't take much more either, propelling him to actually engage his fighting spirit. Sympathies are still squarely with Ippo, but apart from one thug, the series build the opponents up as likable and interesting characters in their own right. The hope for a good match comes almost as much from wanting to see both competitors served well as it is to see some good action.

Manga Spotlight: Blue Spring
By Taiyo Matsumoto

Released by By Viz

Taiyo Matsumoto's the kind of creator that makes commentators feel like nags. Commentator always implores readers to try the off beat work, and then only see each other exciting about the next example to come along. It's a case where leading readers to pick up on the creator validates the task and makes it worth while (not mention feeds the inherent narcissism).

Blue Spring, which doesn't have the fantasy or action aspects of Matsumoto's Black & White and No. 5 is a harder sell. The labels "indy" or "arty" could be applicable, and it isn't what many manga readers go to the medium for. For some, it may be a bit of an "eat your vegetables", "add more bran to your diet" read.

Matsumoto’s illustration style immediately sets his work apart from most manga. He employs a European taken on character design, with unidealized expressiveness. His characters are occasionally cute, but more often he stays away from attractive symmetry, proportions or even posture. The characters are formed into the kind of people you take notice of, and read into.

Yet, Blue Spring is a painfully rewarding work. By its second read, it’s a manga that will stick with you. The distilled mixture of frustration and boredom evokes acridly nostalgic memories of when things are bad, and they're about to get worse because pretty soon they are going to have to be dealt with. In his collection of short works, Matsumoto finds something heroic in the self knowledge of a passing youth and half-smart, or in some cases much less than half smart plans to alleviate the tension.

Blue Spring treads some of the same ground as genre work, but Matsumoto's stories are more about experience than conventions. It's The Wire of teen delinquent manga. Larger than life characters and circumstances are the opposite of how fiction generally employs them. A society of a delinquent filled “Yankee” high school gangs and yazuka are part of a numbing world, where there are no guaranteed routs to comfort or excitement. Sex and violence are mundane, become stripped of their glamour. There are stories that express a familiarity with the harder criminal works with hidden guns, gun deals and gun brandishing psychos, but they share a tone with the stories of one-upmanship dares releasing a grips from a ledge's rail to see how many times the participant can clap while maintaining their balance or members of a baseball team who, after failing to make it to the finals, decide to hole themselves up in a shack and play mahjong for the summer

Comically, if there is a series whose staging resembles Blue Spring, its the puffy, generally carefree Azumanga Daioh, with its lenses similarly focused on the unstructured part of life, moments where people passing out of youth get to express themselves. There's a sense of marking time before the next thing happens, whether it’s to pay a bill, end a summer break, or choose a path.

There are few good reputations in manga translations. Generally the endeavor invokes more gripes than praised, but Viz’s Editor's Choice line has produced some outstanding adaptations. Like many of these works, Blue Springs looks like it was a labor of love, capturing a natural cadence in the dialog, and a depth in the effort. Blue Spring is riddled with graffiti, and it’s all translated in footnotes. It's the kind of attention is rare is localization, and makes a clears difference.

Also of note, like Taiyo Matsumoto's domestically unavailable hit Ping Pong, Blue Spring has been adapted into a live action movie. In this case, the movie is available subtitled in English through ArtsMagic US

Manga Spotlight: The Wallflower Volumes 1 & 2
By Yamatonadeshiko Shichihenge

Released by Del Rey

The Wallflower is a Pygmalion extreme-makeover story, with several twists to appeal to shoujo manga fans. First, it boosts the count of the socials sculptors to four, top of class handsome young men , who are promised three years of free board if they can make the land-lady's niece into a lady. Second, the target is a fun, geek character, a sullen slasher-horror fan whose looks are likened to The Ring's Sadoko.

The series is something of a guilty pleasure. The drama or characterizations doesn’t match up with many shoujo romances, but the titular Sunako brings plenty of geek appeal as a geek heroine. While it waivers on how superficiality its implementation of the premise is going to be, the story indicates that Sunako is a step away from being attractive on her own and that her agoraphobic self exile isn't healthy. Bad skin and some bad habits rather than her interests are to blame for her physical issues, and some of many of the best moments are when she expresses herself.

Other than their aesthetic appeal, there isn't much to attach to in the four make-over-ers. There are over obvious attempts to give them individual personalities, but the role of being attractive and reasonable compassionate doesn't make for an engaging character. Shichihenge mines her creation of plenty of visual humor from the through the long bangs Sunako-vision to Sunako's nose gushes blood when she gets close to one of her four "creatures of light". Continuity through the stories makes The Wallflower, a quick, fun read.

Anime Spotlight:
Ghost in the Shell: Special Edition

Released by Manga Entertainment

As the Ghost in the Shell renaissance continues, Manga Entertainment has released a new edition of Mamuro Oshii's original adaptation of Masamune Shirow's cybernetic sci-fi action. Given that it can viewed in a sitting, among adult anime, Ghost in the Shell is probably the most viewed, or at least most widely recognized titles. Greeted with echoes of the Akira, Ghost in the Shell, along with the cult status of televised shows like Sailor Moon, heated the waters of anime fandom in the 90's, preparing it for the boiling in the medium's popularity.

Almost a decade later, slows that it isn't just a house hold name, it's a classic. Inevitably, it is no longer state of the art. Digital animation has largely overtaken cel work, and the integration of CGI effects has become common place. Its own sequel makes the long progression. Still, the movie doesn't rest on novelty and Oshii's directorial vision holds up. Aside from a school of yearly franchise entries for series like Dragon Ball, One Piece, or Detective Conan, anime movies arrive in a trickle, and the Miyazaki's are outnumber by visually awing soap bubbles.

Ghost in the Shell is something rare. Familiarity with its concepts and techniques

Almost a decade later, there are still aspect worth re-examining and re-exploring in Ghost in the Shell.

In its special edition, disc production is the determining factor is whether it’s worth an upgrade. The earlier 1998 release did well with Dolby Digital 5.1, and Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, but the special edition features 6.1 DTS-ES Surround in English and Japanese 5.1 Dolby Digital-ex surround in English and Japanese in addition to remastered anamorphic video. If you already have the movie in your library and these technical specs justify the upgrade, the new edition is worth acquiring. If your AV set-up can't take advantage of it, the bonus material isn't going to bridge the deficit.

Rounding out the special edition features are a storm of bullet points that for most will not amount to much. Given the preferences of most anime fans, Spanish, French, Italian and German audio aren't strong selling points. The "Custom Motion Interactive Menus" certainly look nice (though even if Ghost in the Shell's green 3D display's prefigured the Matrix's, they probably should have been used a little more sparingly on the DVD's interface given show connected they are to the latter work), but it is hard to consider a menu a DVD feature.

Aside from the opportunity to hear opinions from the always illuminating Oshii, the bonus disc was the packages' disappointment, especially considering how much information and opinion Ghost in the Shell spawned.

A making-of had some interesting information, but unfortunately took the worse features of a promotional video and a Power Point presentation. The text pieces on the characters and creators were the brand of info bytes that would be found on an official web site. Characters descriptions that are a couple of sentences, and nothing that someone who had already seen the movie wouldn't find glaringly obvious. Creator profile were similarly sparse and to some degree dated. For example, the information on manga creator Masamune Shirow only mentions some of his early works, leaving out the interesting bits, such as his reclusive habits or even that his name is pseudonym, which according to some sources was adopted because manga work would be frowned upon in his then day job work as a teacher.

Manga Spotlight: Berserk Volume 5
by Kentaro Miura

Released by Dark Horse Comics and Digital Manga

Kentaro Miura's illustration sets him apart as a singular force in medieval-fantasy story telling. Volume 5 of Berserk exhibits a level of detail that brings a fresh perspective and weight to the events that shows what can be done when the genre isn’t as a for granted, find the threat, kill it, repetition.

After the sampler hunt the monsters up the later to the overfiend plot driven action of the first three volumes, Berserk has settled into character development, where the personality of Guts, a swordsman who will one day become a vengeance haunted man with no name, takes shapes. What was missing in the early phase was that while the illustration drives the series' life by the sword brutality with startling effectiveness, the characters drama and character reactions make it compelling had not be introduced.

The series abhors stagnation, there is no long term status quo, but it has been establishing what may pass as its initial status quo for the young upstart period of Gut's life. He's surrounded by an unorthodox group of very talented, generally young people, who, under the leadership Griffith whose genius and charisma are only matched by his ambition. The tempestuous relationship of Griffith and his inner circle then begins to froth in the tradition of high achievers with different outlook and a lot of uncertainty on their way up.

In the progression this volume, Guts establishes himself as a battlefield captain, and in what to the characters is a lightning strike shock, sets him against his chronologically first otherworldly opponent, legendary immortal Nosfertu Zodd.

There are many short cuts to be taken in comics, and Miura takes none. The full range illustration is immaculate in its jarring impact, the design of the character, with weapons and arm, or the motion of their attack, to their expression, the violence of the results. There is always solid context rather than back backgrounds, with clear terrains or thought out architecture. Crowds, whether they are standing in a cathedral or corpse of a battle field are never left as empty forms, they are always given distinguishing individuality. Amazing that he's been able to produce so much Berserk (over 28 volumes at this point) at this quality.

The fight between Guts and Nosfertu Zodd in particular is a concussive spectacle. It's not just another swordsman fighting another monster, but a vivid depiction of man against a force man isn't made to handle. It's something closer to Aliens' depiction a competent, trained, accomplished force within its' own domain fighting something beyond it's experience; monsters not against victims of knowledge hunters, but a personal who will scrape ferociously for self preservation and fail. Setting a supernatural warrior who curves gory paths through battle fields against an determine human fighter could be big swordsman versus bigger fighter, but the look of awe and determination on Guts face and the ferociousness of the fight set the benchmark in medieval horror action.

Tentative Howl's Date

Box Office Mojo is reporting that Disney has scheduled a June 10th, 2005 date for Howl's Moving Castle.

Beck Licensed

TOKYOPOP now lists rock manga Beck for a July release.

The registration of a domain name has hinted that FUNimation may have interest in the recent anime adaptation of the series.

Cartoon Network Anime Plans

From Anime News Network Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe’s scratch style Samurai Champloo and Satoshi Kon’s (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers) Paranoia Agent will air on Cartoon Network's Saturday action block this summer.

Adult Swim anime programming director Kim Manning spoke to a number of aspects of Cartoon Network's anime programming in their Adult Swim Block.

No schedule has been revealed, but Cartoon Network has licensed all 167 episodes of Rumiko Takahashi’s feudal adventure/romance Inu-Yasha, for American broadcast.

Cartoon Network will continue to air the 50 licensed episodes of Case Closed, but due to poor ratings they will not acquire more.

Though calling Naruto an "amazing series", there are no plans to license the popular adaptation to Shonen Jump's ninja manga seires. Likewise, there are no plans for the upcoming Full Metal Alchemist movie, or classic English localized anime Robotech. The Cartoon Network has no plans to co-produce a third season of The Big O.

Broadcast rights to Outlaw Star have been allowed to expire.

They still plan to air anime movies Metropolis, Taro Rin and Katsuhiro Otomo’s adaptation of an early Osamu Tezuka manga , the first two Inu-Yasha, and Cowboy Bebop this year. The Cowboy Bebop movie is planned for fall, but there was no indication of when the others' will run.

Miyazaki Working on Shorts for Museum

Nausicaa.net reports Hayao Miyazaki is storyworking, and possibly directing, three short films for the Ghibli Museum. Sample can be seen here

Bandai Visual Moves into the US

Bandai Visual has opened a Bandai Visual USA subsidiary office in California in order to market anime. The role of Bandai Visual USA in regards to Bandai Entertainment, who current translated and distributes anime in North America has not been elaborated on.

ShoPro Entertainment Inc. and VIZ, LLC to Merge

ShoPro Entertainment Inc. and VIZ, LLC (“VIZ”), two prominent North American based companies specializing in Japanese content, are merging this spring to create a groundbreaking new entertainment company. The still unnamed venture (“NEWCO”), to be based in San Francisco, will leverage the unique collaboration, vision and ownership of three global powerhouses in Japanese manga and animation, Shueisha Inc., Shogakukan Inc. and Shogakukan Production Co., Ltd. (“ShoPro Japan”).

ShoPro Entertainment - an affiliate of ShoPro Japan, a subsidiary of Shogakukan Inc., one of Japan’s largest publishing companies - is a leading global licensor specializing in animation, entertainment production and consumer products for such properties as INUYASHA and MEGAMAN NT WARRIOR. VIZ - a subsidiary of Shogakukan Inc. and Shueisha Inc. - is a leading publisher of manga for English speaking audiences, including the best-selling graphic novel titles YU-GI-OH!, DRAGON BALL, ALICE 19TH, RANMA 1/2 , and the mega-hit SHONEN JUMP magazine. VIZ is also a top producer of Japanese animation home video/DVD titles such as POKEMON, INUYASHA and BOYS OVER FLOWERS.

No BAAF In 2005

Anime News Network reports that John O'Donnell of CPM has informed Anime-Cons.com that he is not aware plans for a Big Apple Anime Fest (BAAF) in 2005. BAAF was canceled in 2004 due to scheduling conflict with the Republican National Conception in New York City.

Fourth Stars Announced

AnimeNation reports that the official BeSTACK has announced the development of Banner of the Stars 3, the fourth entry in Stars cultural sci-fi space opera.

Initial-D On American TV In May?

Anime News Service reports that a TOKYOPOP flyer for their release of the 10th volume of street racing anime lists "Coming To Television In May 2005".

Next Ghibli Wave DVD Menus

Nausicaa.net points out that UltimateDisney.com has captures of the menus from Disney's next wave of Ghibli DVDs here . Nausicaa, Porco Rosso, and The Cat Returns are scheduled for release on February 22.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 Anime Coming?

Animated Bliss reports that Manga Entertainment will be a previously announced releasing Street Fighter Alpha 2 on June 6th, based on the prequel chapter of the popular fighting video game series.

TM Revolution in Gundam Role

Gunoto and Anime News Network reports that j-pop star Takanori Nishikawa (T.M. Revolution) will voice character Haine Westenfluss (a play on the performer's name) in Gundam SEED Destiny, the sequel series to Gundam SEED. In addition to performing theme songs for Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny, Nishikawa previously voiced Miguel Aiman in the first 3 episodes of Gundam Seed and narrated the last episode of the 1st season

May Media Blasters Releases

Anime Work Line Releases

5/10

• Otogi Zoshi - Vol. 2: Enemy Shores (epi 6-9)
• Shura no Toki - Vol. 4: Age of Chaos (epi 15-18)
• BLAME

5/31

• Midori No Hibi - Wrong Hand Man (Vol 2 6-9)
• NaNa 7of 7 - Final Countdown (Vol 6 23-26)

Media Blasters Press: