The official website and accounts for Japanese diesel engine and heavy machinery manufacturer Yanmar today revealed a brand-new key visual for its upcoming five-part commercial anime project, now titled Miru: Paths to My Future and scheduled to air on Japanese television next year in an omnibus format. It was also announced that veteran anime producer Masuo Ueda is participating in the project. Related: Original Anime Project Miru Unveils Concept Movie at Ax 2023 Studio Nue's Shigeru Morita, who has worked on many sci-fi mecha/robot anime series, such as Mobile Suit Gundam Seed , Code Geass , and Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato , serves as screenplay writer, while each part is being animated by five different up-and-coming anime studios. The project's official website describes its concept as: " 'Confrontation and Harmony between Humans and Nature.' The protagonist will navigate challenges and personal growth, striving to preserve the environment required for our existence,...
- 7/18/2024
- by Liam Dempsey
- Crunchyroll
Animator / director / manga artist Yoshikazu Yasuhiko ( Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin ) has provided the official illustration for the Domannaka Anime Film Festival (pictured below), a two-day event featuring movie screenings and guest speakers that focuses on classic anime films from the 70s, 80s and 90s. The Domannaka Anime Film Festival will be held on May 17 – 20, 2024, at the Midland Square Cinema venue in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Domannaka Anime Film Festival poster Related: Crunchyroll to Bring Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island Anime Film to Theaters in September The films screened include: the Mobile Suit Gundam trilogy (1981 – 1982), Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993), Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (1984), Harmagedon (1983), Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (1987), Akira (1988) and Venus Wars (1989). Quest speakers include: Shinichiro Inoue, Masuo Ueda, Yutaka Izubuchi, Kazunori Ito, Ichiro Itano, Shoji Kawamori, Masao Maruyama, Kazuhide Tomonaga, Hiroki Yamaga, Shigeru Watanabe,...
- 4/4/2024
- by Paul Chapman
- Crunchyroll
The anime industry’s outward shine might temporarily blind you to the dark inner workings of studios. But it won’t be too long before more animators expose the industry’s failures.
The latest person to speak up is Terumi Nishii, the chief animation director of Jujutsu Kaisen 0. While this isn’t the first time that Nishii has warned people about the struggling industry, her latest tweet exposes the naked truth to anime worshippers.
Is the anime industry going bankrupt? Experts Share
In a recent X post (formerly Twitter), Terumi Nishii made a grim forecast of an upcoming bankruptcy in the anime industry.
“In the future, the capacity of each company will be completely exhausted. We expect to see more and more bankruptcies due to the fact that a production scheduled for 3 years from now will be finished in 5 years, but the budget has been spent on another production. I...
The latest person to speak up is Terumi Nishii, the chief animation director of Jujutsu Kaisen 0. While this isn’t the first time that Nishii has warned people about the struggling industry, her latest tweet exposes the naked truth to anime worshippers.
Is the anime industry going bankrupt? Experts Share
In a recent X post (formerly Twitter), Terumi Nishii made a grim forecast of an upcoming bankruptcy in the anime industry.
“In the future, the capacity of each company will be completely exhausted. We expect to see more and more bankruptcies due to the fact that a production scheduled for 3 years from now will be finished in 5 years, but the budget has been spent on another production. I...
- 3/31/2024
- by Aaheli Pradhan
- FandomWire
The Nippon Anime & Film Culture Association, or Nafca, recently published its findings from a survey of over 300 animators working in the industry in Japan, and the results on their annual pay and working conditions have proven distressing.
Nafca revealed that 40% of the 311 animators surveyed made a yearly income of under 2.4 million yen -- less than US$16,000. This rose to 50% for animators in their 20s and 30s. In addition, 68.7% of respondents worked eight hours a day or more, with over a quarter working over 10 hours or more. Nafca noted little reduction in working hours even for animators aged 50 and over, posing serious health risks. Additionally, with older animators unable to take any time off to train the younger generation, this has contributed to the skill gap that Jujutsu Kaisen 0 chief animation director Terumi Nishii, a key Nafca supporter, has been calling for the industry to correct.
Related Jujutsu Kaisen Animation...
Nafca revealed that 40% of the 311 animators surveyed made a yearly income of under 2.4 million yen -- less than US$16,000. This rose to 50% for animators in their 20s and 30s. In addition, 68.7% of respondents worked eight hours a day or more, with over a quarter working over 10 hours or more. Nafca noted little reduction in working hours even for animators aged 50 and over, posing serious health risks. Additionally, with older animators unable to take any time off to train the younger generation, this has contributed to the skill gap that Jujutsu Kaisen 0 chief animation director Terumi Nishii, a key Nafca supporter, has been calling for the industry to correct.
Related Jujutsu Kaisen Animation...
- 2/16/2024
- by Chike Nwaenie
- CBR
Representatives of Japanese film and anime hope that the acting union SAG-AFTRA can inject their knowledge into a "crumbling" anime industry.
Discussing the ailing anime industry, Full Frontal sat down with animation director Terumi Nishii and voice actor Ayano Fukumiya. Fukumiya represents Nafca (Nippon Anime & Film Culture Association) and explained to Full Frontal why, despite Nafca being an association of like-minded individuals, it is not a registered union. "Well, a lot of young people are afraid of fighting. But what we’re fighting for is our rights. So first, we need to educate people about history and collective action," she said. "Because if we just start up a union right now, nobody will come. We mustn’t rush and skip the steps."
Jujutsu Kaisen Anime Staff Calls Leakers "Shameless," Animators Wrongly Accused
"As things are today, it’s a time where a lot of people are afraid of fighting," Fukumiya continued.
Discussing the ailing anime industry, Full Frontal sat down with animation director Terumi Nishii and voice actor Ayano Fukumiya. Fukumiya represents Nafca (Nippon Anime & Film Culture Association) and explained to Full Frontal why, despite Nafca being an association of like-minded individuals, it is not a registered union. "Well, a lot of young people are afraid of fighting. But what we’re fighting for is our rights. So first, we need to educate people about history and collective action," she said. "Because if we just start up a union right now, nobody will come. We mustn’t rush and skip the steps."
Jujutsu Kaisen Anime Staff Calls Leakers "Shameless," Animators Wrongly Accused
"As things are today, it’s a time where a lot of people are afraid of fighting," Fukumiya continued.
- 11/15/2023
- by Chike Nwaenie
- CBR
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
Officially bowing Aug. 30 at the Big Apple Anime Fest 2002 -- but sneaking in Aug. 11 for Los Angeles fans at the American Cinematheque's third annual fest of fantasy/sci-fi/horror films -- "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie" is an expanded version of the Cartoon Network hit and should find target-audience acceptance when it's released by TriStar Pictures in January.
Set on Mars in the year 2071 and residing firmly in the practice of recent Japanese animation that takes a less-than-positive attitude toward the future but stops short of being pessimistic, "Cowboy" finds interesting angles and visual details to complement its overall design.
Relying on evocative cityscape and planetscape backgrounds and coming to life most memorably in the action sequences, the film is serious in its approach. But those not dazzled by its handful of all-too-human principal characters may feel -- like with a lot of anime -- that's there's plenty of neat things to look at but little to hold onto in the way of original drama, comedy and storytelling coherence.
The picture's fast-moving two hours still manages to be confusing. (One major issue that only occurs late in the movie is how similar the lead hero and main villain sound.) The film, originally in Japanese with subtitles, has been revoiced in English. The sound effects (nonenveloping) and musical choices (contrasty TV commercial fodder) will underwhelm some, but those previously tuned in with the TV series will be happy to see the team of bounty hunters back in action.
Working together but often critical of each other and usually finding stuff to quarrel over, the heroes in question are slacker Spike Spiegel (voiced by Steven Jay Blum), grouchy Jet Black (Beau Billingslea), maverick Faye Valentine (Wendee Lee) and their Welsh corgi, who doesn't speak and acts like such a regular canine that some of the team don't seem to be aware he's a "data dog." These four fly around in the Bebop and stumble into a plot to bring down the Martian government.
A seemingly invulnerable creep named Vincent (Daran Norris) sets off a biological weapon in a large tanker-truck explosion on a freeway. Faye is about to nab him when this deadly event occurs, and she and Spike compete to finish the job. The mystery deepens to include a large pharmaceutical company's experimentation in applying nanotechnology to warfare and a fetching company enforcer, Elektra Ovirowa (Jennifer Hale), who is instructed to terminate Vincent.
Along with such down-to-earth sequences of surprising resonance as Spike's visit to a "Moroccan Street" informant and over-the-top confrontations like that between Vincent and two pursuers on a monorail train, "Cowboy" has enough style, wit and speculative ideas that an adult can be reasonably entertained, while many younger viewers will undoubtedly have no problem resolving its minor inconsistencies -- and probably happily have nightmares afterward.
COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE
Sony Pictures Entertainment
TriStar Pictures presents
Sunrise, Bones, Bandai Visual
Credits:
Director: Shinichiro Watanabe
Screenwriter: Keiko Nobumoto
Producers: Masuo Ueda, Masahiko Minami, Minoru Takanashi
Executive producers: Takayuki Yoshii, Ryohei Tsunoda
Character designer/animation director: Toshihiro Kawamoto
Mechanical designer: Kimitoshi Yamane
Editor: Shuichi Kakesu
Music: Yoko Kanno
Voices:
Spike Spiegel: Steven Jay Blum
Jet Black: Beau Billingslea
Faye Valentine: Wendee Lee
Vincent: Daran Norris
Elektra Ovirowa: Jennifer Hale
Running time -- 113 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Set on Mars in the year 2071 and residing firmly in the practice of recent Japanese animation that takes a less-than-positive attitude toward the future but stops short of being pessimistic, "Cowboy" finds interesting angles and visual details to complement its overall design.
Relying on evocative cityscape and planetscape backgrounds and coming to life most memorably in the action sequences, the film is serious in its approach. But those not dazzled by its handful of all-too-human principal characters may feel -- like with a lot of anime -- that's there's plenty of neat things to look at but little to hold onto in the way of original drama, comedy and storytelling coherence.
The picture's fast-moving two hours still manages to be confusing. (One major issue that only occurs late in the movie is how similar the lead hero and main villain sound.) The film, originally in Japanese with subtitles, has been revoiced in English. The sound effects (nonenveloping) and musical choices (contrasty TV commercial fodder) will underwhelm some, but those previously tuned in with the TV series will be happy to see the team of bounty hunters back in action.
Working together but often critical of each other and usually finding stuff to quarrel over, the heroes in question are slacker Spike Spiegel (voiced by Steven Jay Blum), grouchy Jet Black (Beau Billingslea), maverick Faye Valentine (Wendee Lee) and their Welsh corgi, who doesn't speak and acts like such a regular canine that some of the team don't seem to be aware he's a "data dog." These four fly around in the Bebop and stumble into a plot to bring down the Martian government.
A seemingly invulnerable creep named Vincent (Daran Norris) sets off a biological weapon in a large tanker-truck explosion on a freeway. Faye is about to nab him when this deadly event occurs, and she and Spike compete to finish the job. The mystery deepens to include a large pharmaceutical company's experimentation in applying nanotechnology to warfare and a fetching company enforcer, Elektra Ovirowa (Jennifer Hale), who is instructed to terminate Vincent.
Along with such down-to-earth sequences of surprising resonance as Spike's visit to a "Moroccan Street" informant and over-the-top confrontations like that between Vincent and two pursuers on a monorail train, "Cowboy" has enough style, wit and speculative ideas that an adult can be reasonably entertained, while many younger viewers will undoubtedly have no problem resolving its minor inconsistencies -- and probably happily have nightmares afterward.
COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE
Sony Pictures Entertainment
TriStar Pictures presents
Sunrise, Bones, Bandai Visual
Credits:
Director: Shinichiro Watanabe
Screenwriter: Keiko Nobumoto
Producers: Masuo Ueda, Masahiko Minami, Minoru Takanashi
Executive producers: Takayuki Yoshii, Ryohei Tsunoda
Character designer/animation director: Toshihiro Kawamoto
Mechanical designer: Kimitoshi Yamane
Editor: Shuichi Kakesu
Music: Yoko Kanno
Voices:
Spike Spiegel: Steven Jay Blum
Jet Black: Beau Billingslea
Faye Valentine: Wendee Lee
Vincent: Daran Norris
Elektra Ovirowa: Jennifer Hale
Running time -- 113 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 8/22/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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