Back to Anime (Was Re: [thechat] [OT] IM Question)

[Ben Dyer]

On Friday, Jul 25, 2003, at 02:22 US/Central, Ashok Hariharan wrote:

> -crying freeman (it was in episodes, maybe
> originally a tv show? the naked old woman
> was a bit gross though...),

Crying Freeman is what is known as an OAV, an Original Anime Video.  
Basically, the anime equivalent of what is called a direct-to-video 
release elsewhere, but without all those negative connotations (cheap, 
boring) that American titles like "Land Before Time XXIV" carry.

I've never seen Crying Freeman myself (one of these days...), but I 
know it's from the old school of ultra-violence in the late 80s.  OAVs 
were really popular in that time because they did all sorts of things 
you couldn't show on TV at that time (i.e., sex and violence).  OAVs 
tend to have slightly better production values than a full-length TV 
show, too.

> -grave of the fireflies (kinda sad and tragic),

Very true.  It actually hurt to watch.  Excellent movie, though.

> -ghost in the shell (awesome! cyborg chick rules!),

For those that liked Ghost in the Shell, there is also a TV series 
based on GitS, called Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.  I think 
the run is almost over on Japanese TV, and it is going to be brought 
over to the U.S. sooner or later.  Cartoon Network has previously 
stated that they have the American TV license for it, but there are no 
dates for its release.

Anyways, it's a new TV show and the clips I've seen of it looks 
absolutely *gorgeous*.  This is going to be a very beautiful series 
(although I have no idea what the story is about).

There's also another upcoming movie, called Innocence: Ghost in the 
Shell.  However, that's still in production.

There's more information on all this at the animation studio's English 
web site: http://www.productionig.com/

> -metropolis (is that really anime? though
> the artwork looked really good)

Yes, that is indeed anime.  Metropolis was a reinterpretaion of Fritz 
Lang's Metropolis, created by the late, great Osamu Tezuka himself.  
It's a recent film, so it's merely an interpretation of his manga, 
Tezuka himself is, of course, no longer around to witness this film.

I felt it looked visually stunning, but lacked something that I could 
never quite place my finger on...

Not a bad film, but not an especially great one either.

For Americans with cable, I've seen Metropolis run on Starz! Action 
channel, if you get that.

--Ben

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Radical Bender
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