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Fortean Anime

I've heard a lot about Bleach, worth downloading then?
 
Just a reminder that downloading copyrighted material without paying for the privilege is theft.

As we don't tolerate illegal activity of any kind on this board, broadcasting the availability of illegal downloads is a warnable offence. Repeat offenders will be banned.

Jane.
 
Fair enough. These are fansubs, though, fan-made subtitles, because the shows aren't available in official english language versions. I realise that doesn't make it legal, but I buy every show I enjoy when it gets a proper release. Fansubs were (and still are to some extent) tolerated by the copyright owners because it encouraged people to watch and buy more anime.

If only the music and movie studios would catch onto that...
 
mejane1 said:
Just a reminder that downloading copyrighted material without paying for the privilege is theft.

As we don't tolerate illegal activity of any kind on this board, broadcasting the availability of illegal downloads is a warnable offence. Repeat offenders will be banned.

Jane.

Just a reminder that these are unlicensed fansubs we're talking about here. They are shows that are unavailable anywhere outside of Japan. As soon as an anime is licensed, it is taken off the legitimate fansubbers' websites. People who want licensed stuff will just have to get them on DVD.

It is a bit of a grey area, but as hokum says, the copyright holders in Japan are okay with it (barring one certain TV company, whose releases aren't available anyway). They respect that many of the releases will never see the light of day overseas, and also see it is a chance of promoting anime, manga and Japanese culture in general.

For the record, the highly respectable Animenfo database gives links to fansubbers' web pages.

Quick quote from wikipedia, which might explain it better than me:

Though the unlicensed distribution of movies and television programs is a violation of copyright law, prosecutions almost never occur. Most fansub groups will not distribute a product that becomes "licensed", which is the term used to describe a series or movie that there is evidence that it has a distributor in the fansub groups' country.

It is generally argued that for Japanese fansubbing, there is an unspoken agreement between the fansubbers and Japanese copyright holders that fansubs help promote a product.

Fair enough, though. I won't say any more on the matter :)
 
The japanese are very different over the matter than we westerners.
 
I wonder if "Carl the Butcher" is involved this time round? :)
 
Awesome. Thanks for the link. The animation does indeed look fantastic.
 
And another.

http://www.bravestory.net/

Click the button next to the link labelled 'Top' to see a short teaser. It's a Gonzo production so the animation is up to their usual standard.

Synopsis: http://www.gdh.co.jp/english/news/20040629.html

Wataru, the main character, is a 10 year old 5th grade elementary school student . His grades are so-so and he is a meek and unassertive boy who is easily manipulated by girls. One day his father runs off with a mistress, leaving Wataru and his mother behind. In shock, his mother suffers an accident and is near death. Brokenhearted, Wataru goes inside a neighborhood building that is reputedly haunted. The building actually is the entrance to a delusional world called Vision, in which Wataru must master magic techniques and collect hidden treasures to meet a goddess, who, it is believed, can make wishes come true. Together with new friends he meets there, Wataru's magnificent journey through Vision begins. Adventure, friendship, growing up, family ties, love and magic: this fantasy includes everything viewers expect and can be enjoyed by a wide range of audiences.

Very Miyazaki.

Up-and-coming director Koichi Chigira of LAST EXILE, Full Metal Panic! and Gatekeepers fame will make his theatrical directing debut with this title. It is planned to release the animation in summer 2006 and a worldwide release is under consideration.

Last Exile is excellent, I can highly recommend that. Will do a review of it soon. Heard that Full Metal Panic! is another worth watching.
 
I LOVE Spirited Away and everything else from Studio Ghibli. You can buy most of these in your local HMV. However some of them are only subtitles in English for the hearing impaired so you get thing like 'phone rings' etc in the sub. You can watch the dub but I don't know why you would want to. I would recomend inporting from the states or Hong Kong.

My recomendation is CHOBITS can be bought from HMV etc (or if you are a person of limited morals then visit www.kickassanime.com as I think you can download it there, not sure if that address is correct, I'll check with the hubby later) It's about a boy from the country who moves to Tokyo and is stunned by Persocoms, these are robots to help you round the house. Just trust me and watch it. and then join me in walking down the road chanting 'pantsu koudasai' (sp)

edit; web address is wrong, I'll get it later!
 
liveinabin1: I've removed that BitTorrent link (see Jane's post above) and this article:

hokum6 said:
Good Wired article on the rise of anime in the US:

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,14 ... _tophead_1

shows why:

And there's an even bigger problem. Run a Google search for "Naruto," and the top hits won't be Toonami. You'll get sites like NarutoFan that serve up the latest episodes of the show, recorded straight from Japanese TV.

Within days, fans subtitle the shows on their own and release them over peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent.

One answer to both of these problems, said ADV spokesman Chris Oarr, is to invest upfront in new anime shows rather than waiting around until a series hits it big in Japan. "ADV has been an equity partner and a co-producer of anime series for over 10 years. It's now commonplace to see us in the credits for shows like Samurai Gun."

Oarr also believes that sewing up U.S. rights early on helps prevent piracy. "They know that we will go after people who are ripping us off. You can't find a single torrent of Samurai Gun out there."

And once Naruto hits U.S. TVs and DVD racks this fall, "fansub" sites like NarutoFan may find their days numbered.

Even if it is a grey area (which that suggests it isn't) we are going to err on the side of caution.
 
I don't see fansubbing as being anywhere near the kind of problem ADV suggest. The hardcore anime fans will always buy their favourite series, we're too obsessed to just put up with digital copies and there's something very nice about having a large collection of anime on the DVD shelf.
For example, I just spent almost £100 importing a series I've already downloaded and watched, just because I wanted the proper discs, even though it'll be ages before I view it again.

Don't agree with downloading stuff that is already licensed and released, but in many cases fansubbing is done to make available series that are either taking a while to get over here or will never make it. Good examples are Karas, which is allegedly going to see a one year gap between each of its half-hour episodes, or vintage shows like the fantastic Space Battleship Yamato which only ever got onto DVD as the butchered 'Star Blazers'. Some enterprising fansubbers are even working their way through all 52 episodes of the awesomely cheesy sci-fi epic Space Runaway Ideon, which has never been given an english language release and probably never will.

ADV should perhaps look at the price of anime before blaming downloads for the drop in sales. Charging $20-$30 for a disc with just two episodes on is really pushing it, even obsessive fans baulk at paying that much (we get it a *little* better in the UK, you can find them for about £8-£10 if you shop around.) That's why thinpak's that contain the whole series sell so well. Compare it to something like the Simpsons. How many people out there would be buying the Simpsons DVDs if they were split up into volumes, with two episodes per disc and a price tag that was the same as a new movie release?

/rant :)

(edit: I can highly recommend searching Ebay for anime. So long as you're careful to avoid the bootlegs there are some *great* deals to be found. I got the complete 8-disc, 26 episode run of Gasaraki for £13 and the complete Dai-Guard for just a tenner.)
 
hokum6 said:
Emperor said:
I am looking forward to Samurai Champloo from the same creators and was thinking of seeing their previous masterwork.

From what I've seen of Champloo it's just as good as Bebop, the first episode is fantastic and I've already started importing the DVDs rather than wait for the R2 release. The mix of samurai sword-fighting and hip-hop works really well, especially since one of the characters uses fight moves that look like breakdancing.

Yeah having seen now seen and reviewed:

www.forteantimes.com/review/champloo.shtml

the first volume I have to agree - really nice work. I admit the hip hop mix and anachronistic touches was worrying me but it works really well. At least at the moment it isn't quiet as weird as Ninja Scroll but it certianly has that feel and although it is difficult to fault NS there has been quite a bit of water under the bridge since then and SC seems sharper and fresher and improving on somehting whch is already so impressive is major feat. I'm really looking forward to further installlments.

Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_Champloo
 
I bought the R1 release of Champloo, with the fancy box (took me ages to find, it's pretty rare now). Loved the first episode, second was average filler, last two are an improvement. I've heard from various sources that the rest of the show isn't that great, but I'm enjoying it so far. Mugen makes me laugh. Does confuse me hearing the voice of Spike from Bebop coming out his mouth, though.
 
A god among animators

Hayao Miyazaki's hand-crafted fables have made him Japan's most successful film-maker. In a rare interview, he talks to Xan Brooks

Wednesday September 14, 2005
The Guardian



In the garden of his Venice hotel, Hayao Miyazaki proves quite the celebrity. He signs autographs with a flourish, poses gamely before a barrage of photographers and excuses himself only briefly for a call of nature. "You have been called the god of anime," an Italian journalist shouts at his retreating form. "How does it feel to be a god?" He visibly flinches on his way to the loo.

In the opinion of Pixar's John Lasseter, Miyazaki is "the world's greatest living animator". According to the numbers, he is Japan's most successful film-maker, with his 2001 fable Spirited Away breaking the domestic box-office record set by Titanic. But away from the limelight this white-haired little professor leads a monastic existence (all work, no play, TV or internet). His publicist tells me that this is the first interview he has agreed to in 10 years.

Miyazaki's latest film, Howl's Moving Castle, plays out in a valley kingdom inhabited by wizards, fire demons and undulating shadow monsters in natty straw boaters. It's based on a children's book by Welsh author Diana Wynne Jones; Miyazaki has visited Wales several times and has a deep affection for the place. He was first there in 1984, witnessed the miners' strike at first hand and farmed the whole harrowing experience into his 1986 animation Laputa: Castle in the Sky. "I admired those men," he says, sitting in the sun as the photographers melt away. "I admired the way they battled to save their way of life, just as the coal miners in Japan did. Many people of my generation see the miners as a symbol; a dying breed of fighting men." He shrugs. "Now they are gone."

And here's the thing. Miyazaki, for all his fame and acclaim, could soon be following them. It is his fate to find himself hailed as the greatest practitioner of hand-drawn cell animation (perhaps the greatest there has ever been) at a time when the art form appears to be headed the way of the dodo. He seems curiously Zen about this. "If it is a dying craft we can't do anything about it. Civilisation moves on. Where are all the fresco painters now? Where are the landscape artists? What are they doing now? The world is changing. I have been very fortunate to be able to do the same job for 40 years. That's rare in any era."

This shifting world is something Miyazaki has long been fascinated by. His films feature cute creatures fighting tooth and nail to preserve their communities, and bucolic landscapes under threat of destruction. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds, his 1984 film, depicts a post-apocalyptic enclave menaced by toxic spores and giant insects. Princess Mononoke (1997) concerns the battle between the animals of the forest and the human developers holed up in an industrial stockade.

All drama depends on this kind of conflict. And yet Miyazaki's stance can be bizarrely even-handed. Invariably his hero or heroine is cast in the role of peacemaker, or piggy in the middle, while his supporting players are an unruly bunch. No-Face, the timid, helpful spirit in Spirited Away, blooms into an all-consuming carnivore. The wicked witch in Howl's Moving Castle winds up as a cherished family member, slumbering in her armchair like some dotty old aunt. Most children's storytellers install their characters as fixed symbols of good and evil. Miyazaki makes them bounce around like pinballs.

In 1997 the director signed a distribution deal with Disney. It was to prove a springboard to global renown, paving the way for a dedicated exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art and helping him secure the 2003 Oscar for Spirited Away. Even so, the nature of Miyazaki's films has been tweaked in transit. In Japan his films are blockbusters the whole family can enjoy. In Britain and the US he remains a predominantly adult, art-house phenomenon.

Miyazaki taps a cigarette from a silver case. The Disney deal suits him, he explains, because he has stuck to his guns. His refusal to grant merchandising rights means that there is no chance of any Nausicaa happy meals or Spirited Away video games. Furthermore, Disney wields no creative control. There is a rumour that when Harvey Weinstein was charged with handling the US release of Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki sent him a samurai sword in the post. Attached to the blade was a stark message: "No cuts."

The director chortles. "Actually, my producer did that. Although I did go to New York to meet this man, this Harvey Weinstein, and I was bombarded with this aggressive attack, all these demands for cuts." He smiles. "I defeated him."


Disney releases Miyazaki films in two formats: a subtitled version for the purists and a dubbed extravaganza for the popcorn crowd. Howl's Moving Castle is no exception. It features the voice of Billy Crystal as the obstreperous fire demon and Lauren Bacall as the Witch of the Wastes. This is fine, says Miyazaki, because Bacall is "a fabulous woman" who brought something to the role that home-grown actors couldn't. "All the Japanese female voice actors have voices that are very coquettish and wanting male attention, which was not what we wanted at all."

In any case, he adds, who is to say that a subtitled print is any more authentic? "When you watch the subtitled version you are probably missing just as many things. There is a layer and a nuance you're not going to get. Film crosses so many borders these days. Of course it is going to be distorted."

In the meantime Miyazaki continues to hone his traditional art-works at Ghibli, his Tokyo animation studio. In the past he has been vocal in his criticism of computer-generated imagery, describing it as "thin, shallow, fake". These days he seems to have made his peace with the beast. He admits that he likes Toy Story because it opened the doors to a new breed of animation and even admits to using CGI in his own movies (but never more than 10% of the finished print). "Actually I think CGI has the potential to equal or even surpass what the human hand can do," he says. "But it is far too late for me to try it."

His is a very serene and contented brand of fatalism. He talks about New Orleans, and Hurricane Katrina and insists that the same thing will happen in Tokyo. There are a lot of water-gates in the city, and the river runs past his home. He smiles and taps ash from his cigarette. There are too many people in the world, he says, and too many wrong turns along the way. At the age of 64, he gives the impression that the planet is doomed but he'll soon be leaving it, and not a minute too soon.

"Personally I am very pessimistic," Miyazaki says. "But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby you can't help but bless them for a good future. Because I can't tell that child, 'Oh, you shouldn't have come into this life.' And yet I know the world is heading in a bad direction. So with those conflicting thoughts in mind, I think about what kind of films I should be making."

Perhaps this is why he tells children's stories. "Well, yes. I believe that children's souls are the inheritors of historical memory from previous generations. It's just that as they grow older and experience the everyday world that memory sinks lower and lower. I feel I need to make a film that reaches down to that level. If I could do that I would die happy."

I ask if he feels he's managed that already and he chuckles and shakes his head. Nor does he feel that film can be employed as a force for good. "Film doesn't have that kind of power," he says, gloomily. "It only exerts its influence when it stirs patriots up against other nations, or taps into aggressive, violent urges."

This is a black diagnosis indeed. But then, inexplicably, Miyazaki's mood lightens. Perhaps it's the sunshine, or the cigarette, or the fact that the interview is almost over. "Of course," he relents, "if, as artists, we try to tap into that soul level - if we say that life is worth living and the world is worth living in - then something good might come of it." He shrugs. "Maybe that's what these films are doing. They are my way of blessing the child"

-----------------
· Howl's Moving Castle opens on September 23.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/in ... 89,00.html

More details on Howl's Moving Castle:

www.imdb.com/title/tt0347149/
 
Legend. I feel sorry for people that dismiss his work as kids stuff, they're missing out. Movies like Spirited Away, Totoro, Nausicaa and Kiki's Delivery Service are absolute classics, up there with the best films ever made.

His pessimistic comments are interesting. Although the films often have happy endings there's a underlying sadness in all of them, that eventually and inevitably the world will change. Nausicaa especially has that atmosphere about it, as does the music video 'On Your Mark' (I think they're both vaguely related.)

There's a collection of Ghibli short films coming out in Japan before the end of the year: http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/003324.html
 
Ghibli fans, hold onto your hats:

Source

Play.com link

26/09/05
* Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
* The Cat Returns

27/02/06
* My Neighbour Totoro
* Laputa: Castle in the Sky
* Pom Poko

10/04/06
* Whisper of the Heart
* My Neighbours the Yamadas
* Princess Mononoke

01/05/06
* Only Yesterday
* Porco Rosso
* Kiki's Delivery Service

Hell yeah! There's some real classics in there, no excuses not to watch all of Ghibli's output now!


(Emps, better get in touch about review copies eh? ;) )
 
Howl's Moving Castle

**** Cert U

Peter Bradshaw
Friday September 23, 2005
The Guardian


Hayao Miyazaki is the 64-year-old Japanese animation genius whose mastery of the form has, through a piquant turn of fate, come to its full flowering just as his craft is on the verge of becoming forever obsolete. He is a real artist of cinema who works with hand-drawn images in the old style while everyone about him is fully immersed in computer techniques. I came relatively late to his rich, kaleidoscopic fantasies, having been baffled but intrigued by his Princess Mononoke, and then utterly bowled over by his great movie Spirited Away. Howl's Moving Castle has worked its charm on me as well: a floatingly delightful fairytale with its heart set on repealing the law of gravity.

Like his other movies, it is influenced by western authors ranging from Homer to Lewis Carroll, L Frank Baum and Frances Hodgson Burnett, but this is explicitly based on the work of a British writer. Diana Wynne Jones's 1986 fantasy novel Howl's Moving Castle has the wizardry and spells that JK Rowling has made fashionable again; perhaps Miyazaki's happy conversion of her book into Japanimation will bring it to a new audience through an unexpected route.

The film is a touching parable about the transforming power of love and the scary burden of youth. It is set in a fictional middle European town on an unnamed coast - sort of Bath crossed with Bruges, with a hint of Vulgaria, the city-state in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. There are trams and quaint automobiles, and town squares lined with buildings sporting picturesque oak beams. But it is a town at war; the bewildered populace witnesses incursions from retro-futurist ships and planes, disgorging missiles and bombs.

It is in this Ruritanian place that teenage Sophie works in a hat-shop, humbly believing herself to be plain, while her more glamorous sister, Lettie, is surrounded by male admirers as she serves behind the bar at a fashionable cafe. Sophie's life is turned upside down when she is rescued from two boorish soldiers by Howl: a notorious wizard rumoured to eat the hearts of young maidens, who lives in his own moving castle: a wheezing, steaming mobile edifice clanking around the landscape on four spindly legs, like something by Hieronymus Bosch.

Her association with this dashing, dangerous outsider excites the fury of Howl's enemy, one of Miyazaki's obese characters with jowls flowing outward like molten lava - the Wicked Witch of the Waste, and I didn't catch how or if the pun works in Japanese, despite having watched the subtitled print. (A dubbed version, with the voices of Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall and Billy Crystal, is also on release.) The witch casts a spell on Sophie, turning her into an ancient old crone, the hex cruelly intensified by making it impossible for Sophie to say what has happened to her. How can the spell be reversed? She determines to find Howl - with whom she is more than a little in love anyway - and beg for his help. The adventures disclose unexpected reversals, turning enemies into friends.

The bittersweet irony Miyazaki places at the centre of his fairytale is that Sophie is at first horrified to find that she is an old woman, and then sadly and obscurely relieved. Comforting herself, she tells her hideous reflection: "You're still healthy, and these clothes finally suit you." Her face has changed. Her clothes haven't. Later she finds herself grimly empowered by her own decrepitude: "The good thing about being old is that you have so little to lose." One of the great truths of Howl's Moving Castle is that youth is not always an exquisite blessing wasted on the young. It is a torture which the young do not deserve. For many people, youth can be a trial, a time when you don't know who you are supposed to be, or what you are supposed to want, when you have no money or status and when, in all probability, you will fall in love with someone who does not love you back, and have not yet grown the outer skin necessary for dulling the pain.

As for Howl, he has his own problems. He is being chased by the Witch, and by the King's own sorceress Suliman, and is at one stage transformed into ugliness. "What is the point of living if you are not beautiful?" she asks, in anguish - a good question, but a tactless one in front of poor, besotted Sophie, who nevertheless begins to change back as she gains insight into her feelings.

Miyazaki's films require a conscious investment of attention; you have to immerse yourself in them, and soon you will find yourself floating, buoyed up by his gentleness, his visual exuberance, and his unshowy intelligence and emotional literacy. It is a lovely film for all ages.

Source
 
Neon Genesis Evangellion

Did anybody ever get around to starting that Evangellion: WTF? thread, in the end?

I'd be very up for discussing what happened, as I see it. A very complicated, but thoroughly enjoyable if you stick with it series.

I'm also a huge fan of Cowboy Bebop, which is finally on DVD here in the UK after what seems a totally unfeasable wait...

I fell in love with the anime genre when I first saw Akira and Ghost in the Shell, back in the mid 90s. There really is a hell of a lot more to it that many people ever give it credit for.

The 'crappy animation' claim you often hear simply doesn't hold true. True, the lip synch when put in English dub isn't always terribly good, but it has improved a lot in more recent times. We've come a long way since Akira was dubbed by the guys who voiced the NInja Turtles (I can't watch that without subtitles - it utterly ruins it for me... :D )

I think that the key stumbling block for Anime, in the western world however, can be summed up with one simple word.

Disney.

They had a spree during the 1990s of buying up any anime feature to have made it big in Japan, and have it released in only a handful of cinemas in the USA. They were then able to claim there was no demand for the film, and make it literally disappear in a couple of weeks.

They even spent big money on getting well know American actors to voice the movies. They didn't care. As long as they got to safely remove the movie as competition, it did not matter.

The most noteable example of this subterfuge would probably be Princess Mononoke. A huge movie in it's native country, but tactically done away with by Disney, for Western Audiences. This movie contained the vocal talents of Gillian Anderson (At her X-Files high point) Claire Danes, and Minnie Driver, among others. The English rewording was done by English comic book writer and fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman. A lot of time money and effort went into it.

But it wasn't until it's DVD release that the majority of people ever got to see this, in the US or UK. Only a handful of cinemas stateside showed it, and inevitably it didn't run for long. And this is the sad truth of anime in the Western World.

Disney really do see Japanese aniation houses as a threat. And to be fair they are. The fact of the matter is that a good number of them are better, and a shed load more innovative, in method and output, that Walt's former company are these days. But sadly Disney have the money to run them out of the market...
 
Re: Neon Genesis Evangellion

CuriousIdent said:
Did anybody ever get around to starting that Evangellion: WTF? thread, in the end?

I'd be very up for discussing what happened, as I see it. A very complicated, but thoroughly enjoyable if you stick with it series.

I still need to watch End of Evangelion...when I've done that I'll be well up for an in-depth Eva discussion.

I'm also a huge fan of Cowboy Bebop, which is finally on DVD here in the UK after what seems a totally unfeasable wait...

Took their time. I imported the whole series from the US. The last disc turned up a day before I heard about the remastered edition and UK release. Grrr.

I fell in love with the anime genre when I first saw Akira and Ghost in the Shell, back in the mid 90s. There really is a hell of a lot more to it that many people ever give it credit for.

The 'crappy animation' claim you often hear simply doesn't hold true. True, the lip synch when put in English dub isn't always terribly good, but it has improved a lot in more recent times. We've come a long way since Akira was dubbed by the guys who voiced the NInja Turtles (I can't watch that without subtitles - it utterly ruins it for me... :D )

Most people can't look past the fact that it's a cartoon. Even the more mature shows like Bebop get ignored.

I think that the key stumbling block for Anime, in the western world however, can be summed up with one simple word.

Disney.

They had a spree during the 1990s of buying up any anime feature to have made it big in Japan, and have it released in only a handful of cinemas in the USA. They were then able to claim there was no demand for the film, and make it literally disappear in a couple of weeks.

They even spent big money on getting well know American actors to voice the movies. They didn't care. As long as they got to safely remove the movie as competition, it did not matter.

The most noteable example of this subterfuge would probably be Princess Mononoke. A huge movie in it's native country, but tactically done away with by Disney, for Western Audiences. This movie contained the vocal talents of Gillian Anderson (At her X-Files high point) Claire Danes, and Minnie Driver, among others. The English rewording was done by English comic book writer and fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman. A lot of time money and effort went into it.

But it wasn't until it's DVD release that the majority of people ever got to see this, in the US or UK. Only a handful of cinemas stateside showed it, and inevitably it didn't run for long. And this is the sad truth of anime in the Western World.

Disney really do see Japanese aniation houses as a threat. And to be fair they are. The fact of the matter is that a good number of them are better, and a shed load more innovative, in method and output, that Walt's former company are these days. But sadly Disney have the money to run them out of the market...

That's true, Disney are often complimented for releasing Ghibli's films, but the only reason they do such a good job is that Miyazaki had it in the contract. They're not allowed to change anything. Just watch some of the early laserdisc, VHS and DVD editions and you'll see what happens when the distributors are given too much control. They totally butchered Nausicaa as well as a number of others.

It's not just Disney though, the majority of western audiences still can't get past the cartoon aspect. A British newspaper slated Howl's Moving Castle and said it was too complicated for kids. Who said it was for kids anyway?
 
I also still need to watch the extended/alternate endings. As it is, without it, it feels as if there is a definite missing episode which should link the final to epsodes to therestof the run.

If a thread is started, I guess we'd better put a spoiler warning across its title.

I think you're right there. Somehow, even if you stick an age certificate across the poster/box, many people just see it as a cartoon and therefore - in their limited view - it must be 'for kids'. Videogames suffer from a similar problem, there, but I think in both cases people are starting to get used to the fact that this is not what they are looking at.

Anime is a good medium to work in. You can do a hell of a lot more with animation cells and computer touch-ups than you can in a Hollywood Sci-Fi movie, for a more reasonable budget. It has always surprised me that companies in the west haven't thought to try more it themselves.

What attempts have been made so far have been disappointing.

There's a company based in the UK called Renga Media who are attempting a similar approach with computer graphics. The company was started by comicbook writer Alan Grant and Doug 'Pinhead' Bradley.

Sadly their early offering was a little disappointing.
 
Mighty_Emperor said:
liveinabin1: I've removed that BitTorrent link (see Jane's post above) and this article:

hokum6 said:
Good Wired article on the rise of anime in the US:

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,14 ... _tophead_1

shows why:

And there's an even bigger problem. Run a Google search for "Naruto," and the top hits won't be Toonami. You'll get sites like NarutoFan that serve up the latest episodes of the show, recorded straight from Japanese TV.

Within days, fans subtitle the shows on their own and release them over peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent.

One answer to both of these problems, said ADV spokesman Chris Oarr, is to invest upfront in new anime shows rather than waiting around until a series hits it big in Japan. "ADV has been an equity partner and a co-producer of anime series for over 10 years. It's now commonplace to see us in the credits for shows like Samurai Gun."

Oarr also believes that sewing up U.S. rights early on helps prevent piracy. "They know that we will go after people who are ripping us off. You can't find a single torrent of Samurai Gun out there."

And once Naruto hits U.S. TVs and DVD racks this fall, "fansub" sites like NarutoFan may find their days numbered.

Even if it is a grey area (which that suggests it isn't) we are going to err on the side of caution.

If the fansubs stop, I will simply stop watching Naruto. I saw the dubbed version on Cartoon Network when I was over in the States visiting my fiancee, and it was appalling. They seem to have chosen the most annoying (and shrill) voice actors ever.
 
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