According to Variety Asia Online, Japanese film distributor Kadokawa will import Imagi films CGI adapation of Osamu Tezuka’s beloved Astro Boy, for release in October 2009. Though I’ve seen precious little of Imagi’s output other than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film that came out a couple of years back, I’m optimistic. The TMNT flick wasn’t half bad, and they’ve shown that they know cool when they see it by nabbing both Astro Boy and Tatsunoko’s Gatchaman.

FUNimation is gobbling up anime properties left and right, which honestly I don’t have a problem with as they have been putting out some seriously kick-ass releases lately. The latest toon to disappear into FUNimation’s gaping maw is Gonzo’s Kaze no Stigma, directed by Cardcaptor Sakura director Jun’ichi Sakata. Here’s the synopsis straight from FUNimation’s announcement.

Kazuma is a descendent of an ancient clan skilled in the magical Fire Arts. Unfortunately for him, the gift seems to have skipped a generation. Defeated by his younger, female cousin, Ayano, in a battle to become the clan’s successor, Kazuma is exiled with only the smoldering burn of failure to keep him company. But now he’s back, risen from the ashes and armed with a powerful new mojo that’s sure to fan the flames of the family rivalry. The cooler he gets – the hotter she burns, and when Wind and Fire collide, Tokyo is caught in the eye of the storm.

…and if you act quick you might be able to check out a few episodes at YouTube before the IP police start issuing takedown orders.

Okay, Miyazaki-san didn’t use those exact words, but his sentiment to reporters after a screening of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea was in a similar vein. I’ll always defend anime, if only on the grounds that it is the last (and perhaps greatest) bastion of traditional animation left in the world.

As much as I enjoy Pixar films, and the generation of computer-animated imitators which have followed, there is a sterile quality to computer animation that no one has yet to overcome. Call it the ‘uncanny valley‘ if you will, but there simply is no comparison between Wall-E and Spirited Away. None.

Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale “The Little Mermaid,” the film tells the story of a little goldfish who longs to become a human to be with her love, five-year-old boy Sosuke. It uses hand-drawn art throughout.

“I think animation is something that needs the pencil, needs man’s drawing hand, and that is why I decided to do this work in this way,” the silver haired, notoriously shy director told reporters after a press screening.

“Currently computer graphics are of course used a great deal and, as I’ve said before, this use can at times be excessive,” he added, speaking through an interpreter. “I will continue to use my pencil as long as I can.”

Kristen Bell, ex-star of UPN’s teen mystery program Veronica Mars, has signed on to play - well, someone - in the upcoming CGI Astro Boy flick. I’ve never seen Veronica Mars, though it comes highly recommended - now that the series is running 20-odd bucks on Amazon I might have to pick it up.

I’m actually quite excited about this project. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, also handled by HK-based Imagi, was quite good - and their upcoming Gatachaman film looks like it won’t disappoint either.

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, we’ve been hearing the reports for over a year now, but the first official numbers are in from the Association of Japanese Animations and it ain’t good. According to the AJA, sales of anime have dropped 6% since 2007, the first decline since the Association began tracking statistics five years ago.

Now, a five-year sample doesn’t sound like much, but based on all the other evidence, as well as the severity of the decline, I’d say it’s a solid indicator of the way things are headed, at least in the short term. The report singles out a decline in the amount of anime actually being produced, but I think there are other contributing factors, some of them originating here in the United States (fansubbing being the typical culprit). So what does this mean to you? Probably not much in the short term; but its’ clear the studios will have to get creative in how they market their product, in the same way the U.S. recording industry will have to turn things around.

A main reason for the shrinkage is a decline in TV anime broadcasting hours. Revenues from TV anime production fell from $515 million in 2006 to $441 million in 2007 — a drop of 16%. The number of Japanese TV toons produced likewise started dropping in 2007 and is expected to continue falling throughout 2008.

The industry also suffered declines in earnings from theatrical BO, video production and sales, royalties, character goods and overseas sales, while recording modest increases in music publishing and webcasting revenues.

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).

I haven’t seen Kung Fu Panda myself (apologies to Mini-Musashi - I’ll get you covered when the DVD comes out), but this piece at the Los Angeles Times (China had to import ‘Kung Fu Panda’) is a pretty interesting look at the cultural differences between the film’s American roots and its’ Chinese inspiration. A lot of it boils down to ‘Lazy pandas makes for bad P.R.’, but the truth of the matter is that Kung Fu Panda could not have been made in China because of basic differences between lazy, undisciplined round-eyes (Jack Black) and lock-step Confucian Chinese (Mao).

The idea that Po would lift a hand to his kung fu teacher, a raccoon named Shifu, is beyond the pale in Confucian China, with its deep respect for elders. Nor would a teacher in a Chinese film be so “weak” as to show sympathy for the evil snow leopard character, Tai Lung.

“If ‘Kung Fu Panda’ were produced in China, audiences would be sniping at the director for not setting a good example,” said Cao Sidong, a movie critic and promoter.

Others say change is coming slowly. “In cartoon school, we learned to combine instruction and entertainment,” said Chen Ming, vice president of Beijing Crystal Film & Animation. “But we had a certain tradition before China opened up, and it’s hard to get away from that overnight.”

Yeah, I know Batman: Dark Knight opens tomorrow (tonight for those of you who saw the midnight showing), but Hayao Miyazaki’s new flick - Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea - opens this weekend, as well. Yes - it’s only out in Japan, but new Miyazaki is always something to be happy about.

Shamefully, I haven’t been following this one too closely, but AFP has a rundown of the film, which is apparently an adaptation of The Little Mermaid (the story, not the Disney film).

Miyazaki, who had used computer graphics since “Princess Mononoke” in 1997, decided to shun hi-tech effects in his latest film.

“Our experience told us that what you can do electronically doesn’t impress people much. We decided to go fully with pencils… That’s our strength,” he said in a recent interview with Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

The film used 170,000 hand-drawn pictures to animate characters and objects, a record number for a Miyazaki production.

It took one and a half years for 70 staff to draw the pictures, according to Studio Ghibli, which has released his works.

The film also uses numerous other manually drawn pictures as the background — with the succession of screens creating a slightly jittery atmosphere to the film.

“All things in the world are moving. I became an animator in order to move everything in the world. It’s not only human characters that move,” Miyazaki said.

I love old WWII-era cartoons, particularly when they relate to the war effort. This handful of Disney-produced training videos fit the bill nicely. They describe the operation of the Boys high-caliber anti-tank rifle.

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Home Media Magazine takes a look at the turnout from various anime purveyors at this weekend’s Anime Expo…and the signs ain’t good…

On the convention floor, the booth for leading anime DVD distributor ADV Films looked like a mom-and-pop DVD sidewalk store, with no signage and no representatives from the company.

“I just work here,” a young man selling DVDs said. “I can’t tell you anything.”

While ADV’s set-up was bare bones, anime powerhouse VIZ Media wasn’t on the show floor at all. Neither was The Right Stuf International. All three companies held panels to discuss their plans for the rest of the year and beyond, but their absence from the show floor was reflective of the slow-down of domestic anime DVD.

“You can see the decline in the industry,” said Adam Sheehan, senior events manager for Funimation. “A lot of the companies in the past were pushing every title as an ‘A’-list title, and it was too much for the market to handle.”

Of course, it’s nothing people inside and outside the industry haven’t been saying for the last year or so. Anime - in the U.S., at least, is hurtin’ - even when its’ popularity is at an all-time high. If you want my opinion (and I’m by no means an expert), what we’re seeing is a rough patch which represents the transition to new forms of distribution. While DVD was undoubtedly a gold-mine for companies looking to bring Japanese animation Stateside, it’s abundantly clear that the future of anime in the U.S. is online. A significant number of anime distributors have begun initiatives to push their product via the internet, and I predict the trend will continue into the forseeable future, at least for those with the vision and determination to stick it out.