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On October 15^th and 16^th Viz released into theaters the second live-action Death Note movie, following up its May theatrical release of the first film. My review of the second live-action Death Note movie is going to be much like my review of the first. Death Note II: The Last Name is a direct continuation of the first movie, picking up the story almost exactly where it left off.

Everyone’s feeling sorry for Light Yagami since the tragic death of his girlfriend Shiori- everyone except Ryuk the shinigami, who knows Light engineered his girlfriend’s murder with the Death Note. Light fakes a thirst for vengeance as an excuse to join his father’s task force, where he can keep an eye on L, the detective who’s pursuing Light’s murderous alter ago Kira.

Light thinks he’s got his bases covered, until a new complication drops in: Misa Amano, a pop idol who also has a Death Note given to her by the shingami Rem. Kira killed the criminal who murdered Mias’s parents, and she idolizes him. She finds out Light is Kira, and it’s love at first sight, at least for her. At first Light is annoyed by her devotion and her clumsy handling of the Death Note. But then he sees an opportunity to use her to further deceive L. Misa becomes part of an elaborate scheme to kill off L so Kira can ruthlessly create an ideal world devoid of crime.

What follows is an almost madcap plot of Death Notes claimed and given away, memories lost and regained, some slight bondage shinigami revealed, people killed and (in L’s case) massive amounts of sugar consumed.

From the beginning the movies have diverged significantly from the plot of the original manga, and The Last Name takes a completely different tack. Death Note weaves such a complex web of events, plans, counterplans and surprises that adapting it into two 2-hour movies could have been a nightmare. However, Tetsuya Oishi, the screenwriter, does a skillful job at presenting a believable alternate version of events. Sticklers who want to see every detail of the manga recreated will be disappointed, but other fans will see these films as a fun alternate history. The end of The Last Name is clumsier than the end of the manga and feels more heavy-handed, but it still holds up well.

The complete cast of the first movie returns for the second. We didn’t see much of Erika Toda as Misa in the first film, but The Last Name shows she can pout with the best of them. She doesn’t show much emotional range, but Misa is a shallow character by nature, so it works. Tatsuya Fujiwara is still delightfully smarmy as Light, though his dramatic turn near the end of the film strays perilously near histrionics. Once again, Kenichi Matsuyama shambles to perfection as L. He turns uncharacteristically sentimental and lucid near the end, but that’s not so much his fault as the writer’s (and, judging from the reactions of the teenage girls in front of us, fans might like it). Takeshi Kaga (Iron chef’s own Chairman Kaga) turns into a surprisingly powerful performance as Chief Yagami, head of the Kira investigation and Light’s father.

The story is fast-paced and is filmed accordingly, with lots of quick, sharp edits. The music, by Kenji Kawai (who scored both Ghost in the Shell movies) is suitably dramatic but never intrusive; there are even long stretches of the movie that have no background music at all. The inclusion of The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Snow (Hey Oh)” over the ending credits was an odd one to say the least, and it feels entirely out of place in a film like this one.

One of fans’ major concerns about a live-action Death Note was the portrayal of the shinigami. The first film proved that CGI technology is equal to creating Ryuk; this movie gives animators an even better chance to show off their skills with Misa’s shinigami Rem. The shinigami are beautifully detailed and recreate the manga’s original designs in every bizarre detail. We even get a peek into the Shinigami Realm, a barren wasteland (I was slight disappointed, though- there’s a certain shinigami with a Native American feather headdress and huge face-devouring sunglasses I would have liked to see).

Viz has released both films into theaters with a dub track. I was rather upset about that, since I personally prefer subtitles, but I have to admit the dub is excellent and I quickly got used to it. Again, though, Viz has neglected to subtitles things like signs and newspapers, so those who can’t read Japanese are left in the dark by the various news headlines that the camera often zooms in on. One odd choice made by the dub director was to give Rem a very deep, masculine voice- when in both the manga and anime series Rem is identified as being female, and the anime’s seiyuu is female(as female as a shinigami can be, anyway).

If you read my prior review (here!), you probably noticed me bitching about the proliferation of squealing, shrieking, wailing fangirls in the theater. Fangirls at a theatrical release of a Death Note movie are pretty much a given, but it was nearly unbearable. Thankfully this time around there were far fewer fangirls in attendance, most likely because we now live in a larger city where multiple theaters were showing the film (where we lived before, only one theater in town was screening it).

All in all, Death Note II : The Last Name is a solid conclusion to the first live-action movie, and offers a fun alternate ending to the manga for fans. It will be interesting to see how Viz handles a U.S. DVD release; hopefully the theatrical release’s few failings (no subtitles for written text, the dub-only track) will be addressed then.

Remember howafew months ago I reviewed the first live-action Death Note film, which was shown in U.S. theaters for two nights (and how I bitched about the fangirls?)?

Well, it’s happening again (and I’ll probably be seeing it again, and bitchng about the fangirls some more), only this time the movie is the second Death Note film- Death Note: The Last Name.

The nights are October 15th and 16th-appropriately close to Halloween- and here is a link to a list of participating theaters:

http://www.deathnotefilms.com/home.php

Saturday

I dragged my ass out of bed, determined to make every horror buff’s pilgrimage…to see Robert Englund!

I got dressed, and as I waited for the rest of the crew to perform their daily ablutions, sat at the window to watch the annual Dragoncon parade amble past.

This year, besides the approximately 30,000 Storm Troopers that march down the street, there was a Longcat. Yup, Dragoncon is chock full of b-tards (of course, I know almost every 4chan meme, despite never going on /b/, so maybe it’s not as bad I think). Longcat was carried like the dancing dragons in Chinese parades, by several people. Even six stories up I could hear spectators shrieking “Longcat is loooong!” God bless America.

(There was also an awesome Mach 5 from Speedracer- some guy actually modified his car to look exactly like it- and a Batmobile, some Disney princesses and about a billion and one superheroes)

My posse informed me that most of the previous night some asshole had been right below our window, shrieking this awful Joker laugh that kept them awake…six stories off the ground (no balconies at the Hilton). I of course was passed out with Gatorade intoxication and missed it. Damn.

I also learned that the night before, Shapiro Keats was hit on by a drunk chick. As he was coming back from his B5 panel, some blondie in high heels staggered up behind him, reeking of booze. She asked him to open the door for her because…she couldn’t find the handle! She was too drunk! And, as she explained, usually she didn’t get so drunk but tonight she was wearing a corset…! My poor husband backed away and ran for it. Luckily he has long legs and good eyesight (well, thick glasses anyway) so he made it into the elevator before she did.

Finally Shapiro Keats and I made our way to the Hyatt to see the lovely Mr. Englund. In case you have been living under a rock (or were born after 1990), Robert Englund is not only the star of about 34 Nightmare on Elm Street films, he was also in the sf miniseries V. So he’s like a genre double whammy.

Mr. Englund turned out to be charming and funny, and very well-spoken. He spoke at length about his past work (apparently in the 1970’s he was often cast as the redneck best friend/sidekick in sex comedies…who knew?) and what he’s doing now. I was gratified to hear that he is constantly acting, producing, and writing scripts or plays. I was also gratified to discover that we have the same favorite Freddy movie (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare) and he loves Japanese horror movies! Soulmates!

After Robert Englund’s panel Shapiro Keats and I wandered aimlessly around the three exhibit halls/dealers’ rooms with our mouths open and our eyes wide. I came up with a nice little haul:

Bettie Page stationary from the Dark Horse booth

A button of Gaz from Invader Zim for my work apron

The first live-action Dororo movie

That last one has been released in the U.S., sure…yeah.

After drooling a while over the super-expensive Museum Replicas costumes, we went our separate ways. I went to the Silk Road track, which is all about our favorite thing here at Yellow Menace: the yellow menace itself, Asian pop culture! The panels I wanted to see were:

Godzilla Trailers

Godzilla Stories

The trailers were one long reel of original Japanese previews for various Godzilla movies. Afterwards, I felt like I never needed to see another Godzilla movie again, because all the good parts are in the trailers. Just kidding- this weekend I am digging out Final Wars, Destroy All Monsters and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah for a marathon. The best part was these two little kids in the front row with their dad (I guess) who were Godzilla experts; at the beginning of every trailer they would shriek out “Godzilla versus Destroyah!” or “Godzilla versus Rodan!”. I got my self-esteem back when they didn’t know King Cesar, though.

Afterwards was the Godzilla Stories panel, where the audience was invited to share their heartwarming Godzilla memories. Being one of the younger people in the panel, I was unable to recall any Saturday afternoon matinees of Godzilla at the local theater or favorite Godzilla toys from the 1960’s. So I had to tell about how my first date with Shapiro Keats was to see Godzilla 2000. Everyone was suitably heartwarmed.

After throwing up for 24 hours, what could possibly sound good to me? Yup, you guessed it- Chinese food. Since the Peachtree Mall (conveniently located between the Marriott and the Hyatt) cannot possibly hold the joyous flesh of about 40,000 geeks, we took our fried rice and sesame chicken back to the room to devour. Oishi! After I’d ascertained that my stomach had accepted the offering, we went back out to take pictures of costumers. As we were crossing the street we passed Richard Hatch and he smiled at me!

At 8:30 we attended the Ghost in the Shell panel presented by the anime track. Anime really isn’t a big thing at Dragoncon, but at least this year the room was bigger than the one last year, which was super-tiny. I am a huge drooling GitS fan, so of course I had to see this.

And, to be completely honest, it was the single worst convention panel I have ever attended.

Yeah, I’m totally calling them out. That panel sucked. Usually a panel presents some new information, or invites audience participation, or acts as a forum for debate. This panel did none of these things. It consisted of three guys who offered the following revelations:

There have been executive producers chosen for the live-action movie, but the panelists didn’t know who they were and cited no sources (We here at Yellow Menace ALWAYS cite our sources! Take that!).

There might be a Neuromancer movie in the works (yeah…for the last hundred years- it will never actually be made).

Kusanagi is badass.

Stand Alone Complex is for adults. Also, it rocks.

After a few minutes I began to doubt if the panelists had ever seen the Oshii films or read the manga, since all their observations were based on the Stand Alone Complex series. And when one of the panelists (supposedly a raving fan) failed to remember the name of Paz. Now, Paz isn’t one of the major characters, but there are only seven members in Section 9 and only one of them has more than a single name. I don’t think it’s difficult to remember all their names if you are a big fan. They were summarizing parts of the show. Don’t get me wrong, but I’m guessing if you’re attending a Ghost in the Shell panel…you’re probably a fan already and know all this stuff.

I apparently wasn’t the only one who was disappointed with the panel as I was, since people started fleeing in droves about five minutes in. I gave them thirty minutes before I took off.

After more costume snapping (more on this in Part 3), we sat in for some of the Killing Characters panel. Writers discussed the strangest, most elaborate way they have killed off their characters, and since the panel consisted of sf writers and one mystery novelist, there were some pretty crazy methods. Also, apparently many people will purchase at charity auctions the right to be a character in someone’s book, and to die in the story. John Ringo said he did that once and had to kill 74 people in one book. Wow.

Bedtime was about midnight, which was partially because I am old and can’t stay up late anymore, and partially because I had to be at a panel on Sunday at 10 a.m., a panel for…

Dramatis Personae:

AnaKhouri: Your friendly neighborhood Yellow Menace poster

Shapiro Keats: husband to AnaKhouri

Captain Carter: best friend to AnaKhouri

Togusa: friend to Captain Carter, someone else to help pay for the room, a nice guy

Thursday

Thursday we left for Atlanta, roughly a 6 ½ hour drive. You can always tell when you enter Georgia: suddenly the landscape becomes littered with carpet outlets. Why carpet outlets? Does anyone know? Along the way Captain Carter introduced us to Your Vegas, a nice little British band that is struggling to make it. I liked their CD (sort of a mix of Duran Duran and Coldplay, only not lame like Coldplay) so I am giving them a shout-out here.

The con doesn’t technically start until Friday, but to avoid missing anything we always arrive Thursday night, check in, register, and relax until the next morning. As the years pass more and more people seem to be having this idea, so the registration line was hella long. It wrapped all the way around the block where the Marriott is. We got in line, but luckily for us they were letting people who hadn’t pre-registered (and were paying at the door) go in first because that line wasn’t nearly as long. Hooray! It cost us a little extra but I think the time we saved was worth it. There was kid walking the line, selling candy bars for his school. I thought that was brilliant and I hope he made tons of money.

Togusa had pre-registered, however, so even after we breezed out of the registration room we had to wait for him. As we were hanging out in the Marriott Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi from Babylon 5) walked right past us! He is taller than I expected, completely bald and was wearing white pants. According to Shapiro Keats, who attended one of his panels, he also has a mouth like a sailor. A pissed-off sailor who just stubbed his toe. More on that later.

Friday

Friday…time to start having a blast, right? Well…maybe not.

See, I was sick Friday. Really sick. Sicker than a dog your mean old neighbor poisoned with antifreeze. Puking my guts out sick. My friends blamed a certain Wendy’s franchise in Tennessee; I am inclined to think it was bad luck. I work in retail and am often sick from the unbearable amount of human contact I mist endure each day.

Here is a list of the things I missed while I was sick:

Q & A with Lance Henriksen

The Fiction of Robert E. Howard

Babylon 5 Reunion

Selling Your Fiction

What Editors Want

Mind-Melting Anime

The Peelander-Z Concert

Shapiro Keats also missed Friday, as he refused to leave me (except for the B5 panel, where he heard Jerry Doyle call William Shatner a motherfucker), and instead sat by the bed shoving Sprite and Gatorade down my throat.

In the evening I felt well enough to sit up and watch Dragon*con TV, the con’s in-house channel that is broadcast to all the host hotels. I was able to watch a live feed of the Battlestar Galactica panel, featuring about eight guys from the show. I learned that Edward James Olmos (Captain Adama) thinks North Korea has been cloning people for years, and that once Aaron Douglas (Galen Tyrell) accidentally smacked a sound guy in the face with his penis. Oh, the humanity!

After sleeping twelve hours, I felt much better and was determined to trek outside the hotel room on Saturday.

To be continued…

http://www.yourvegasmusic.com/

http://www.jerrydoyle.com/

http://www.lancehenriksen.info/index.htm

http://www.rehoward.com/

http://www.peelander-z.com/

It’s hard to believe it’s been a week already, but I’ve finally caught up on the sleep I missed from the awesome time Musashi and I had at GenCon 2008. As our esteemed editor in chief mentioned, we were joined by occasional contributor Centurion and his charming significant other Lindsey for a weekend of gaming, carousing and scoping out the newest developments in all kinds of games. We were joined by a record 28,600 unique and over 95,800 turnstile attendees.

This year, your humble staff indulged in gaming to an unprecedented degree. We started Thursday night with a modern-world-setting round of Call of Cthulhu. CoC is one of my all-time favorite RPGs, and it was a pleasure once again to experience the atmosphere of dread the game creates, especially since Musashi and I were denied in our attempts to join a session last year.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m knee-deep in uploading media to Flickr and YouTube from this week’s Gathering ‘o Geeks, Gen Con Indy, and thought I’d sum up the high points of the convention. Before I get started, though, I should mention that most of the (presentable) photos I took this weekend are now available for your perusal at our Flickr stream. I can’t guarantee satisfaction, even of the vicarious sort, but there should be something in there for everyone (except, perhaps, David Hasselhoff fans). Enjoy.

That said, here’s what I did on my summer vacation:

Read the rest of this entry »

Image via Wikipedia

I sat down with my son a week ago to watch Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away and was once again reminded how much I despise computer animation. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a luddite by any means (if I were, I doubt I’d be typing this right now) - but I do lament the fact that Pixar and their progeny have all but destroyed the traditional animation industry in the United States.

As a corollary, whenever anyone asks me why I watch anime my first inclination is to point out that at least the Japanese still appreciate the craftsmanship of hand-drawn animation, which no computer animated film to date has approached. Of course, one of the best studios still kicking it old-school is the aforementioned Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli. I was heartened to hear of a recent exhibition at Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghibli Layout Designs: Understanding the Secrets of Takahata/Miyazaki Animation, which takes an in-depth look at the painstaking process behind Ghibli’s films.

If, like me, you’re on the opposide of the planet from Tokyo, you might want to take a gander at this nice writeup at the Daily Yomiuri. It’s not as good as the real thing, but it does give one a sense of the kind of undertaking each film represents.

Arrows are also used to indicate movement, as in a scene from Kaze no Tani no Naushika (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, 1984) in which two parallel lines–each labeled “slide” in katakana–slice across a cloud bank. One shows the path of the titular heroine’s gliderlike flying machine, while the other shows the path of the machine’s shadow.

More complex movements are shown by a sequence of sketched figures, as when Nausicaa does a broken-field run toward the viewer across a jungle clearing, with her pose and position changing as she gets nearer and larger.

Some layouts contain several types of movement at once. An early scene from Laputa shows heroine Sheeta doing a slow-motion plunge from the sky into a mining pit (a straight downward arrow) while hero Pazu runs around the edge of the pit, and away from the viewer, to catch her (a curving series of diminishing figures).

If you live in New York City, or plan to be there this weekend, just a heads up: the Lincoln Center is hosting a retrospective of anime maestro Satoshi Kon’s work, dubbed ‘Satoshi Kon: Beyond Imagination‘. It’s things like this that make me wish I still lived in New Jersey (sniff).

The New York Sun gives prospective attendees a glimpse of what to expect.

Hitchcock was an exquisite motion picture craftsman who, like Mr. Kon, was wary of his own medium. He channeled his suspicion about heroic behavior stemming from self-serving motives into Jimmy Stewart’s kinky character in “Vertigo,” and his belief that moviegoing was inherently sadistic provided the meaty subtext for “Rear Window.” Mr. Kon embodies the same ambivalence, despising anime for its laziness and its substitution of safe yet empty spectacle for authentic but messy experience. In an early interview, he slipped a dagger in the ribs of anime artists when he dismissed their obsession with beautiful little girls and giant robots as “a little sad.” The movie he had just made, “Perfect Blue,” was more than a little sad. It was downright devastating.

As I posted some time ago, this week Cinemark is showing the first live-action “Death Note” movie for two nights in its theaters, due to Viz recently releasing the DVD in the U.S. My husband and I attend tonight’s screening. In a couple days I will get around to writing a real review, but until then…here is an open letter to the (apparently) MILLIONS of fangirls who were sitting around us:

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT THE FRACK UP. We paid $20 to see a film, not listen to you squeal and shriek every time the actor playing L twitches an eyelash.

>ahem<

Thank you.

PS- Light’s dad is Chairman Kaga from Iron Chef!

Cinemark recently released information about two anime films they will be showing in the coming weeks- the live-action version of Tsugumi Ohba’s Death Note and Bleach: Memories of Nobody. Check below for dates and locations; each of these films will be shown for two nights only.  So if you just have to see how creepy CGI Ryuk looks on the big screen, here’s your chance!

http://www.cinemark.com/deathnote.asp

http://www.cinemark.com/bleach_mon.asp