the girl who leapt through time (2006),and through a slow paced plot.

Directed by: Mamoru Hosoda | Written by: Satoko Okudera, Yasutaka Tsutsui (novel)
Produced by: Madhouse
Awards

• Best Animation Film; 30th Japanese Academy Prize & 61st Mainichi Film Awards
• Special Award; Hochi Film Awards
• Feature Film: Special Edition; International Animation Film Festival (Annecy 2008)
• BeTV Award; Brussels International Animation Festival (Anima 2008)
• Best Animated Feature Film;  Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival
• Animation Of The Year; 6th Tokyo Anime Award
• Best Performance in a Voice-Over Role - Young Actress; Young Artist Award
• Golden Dragon Award; OACC 2008 (china)
• Best Media; 2007 Seiun Award

Instead of the usual manic anime approach, the film is rich and observant in the manner of the great Hayao Miyazaki ("Spirited Away") and his Studio Ghibli colleagues Isao Takahata ("Only Yesterday") and Yoshifumi Kondou ("Whisper of the Heart"). -TY BURR, Boston Globe

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (時をかける少女 Toki o Kakeru Shōjo), the predecessor of the highly acclaimed Summer Wars, made by the same talented madhouse-driven duo who have proven their worth after winning 'Best Animation Feature' at the Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival and 'Animation Of The Year' at the  Tokyo Anime Award, Mainichi Film Awards and the Japanese Academy Prize no-less with both movies. Which makes me wonder if the upcoming summer movie The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki will be the third in a seemingly perfect record of Award nominations . 


When assertive high school girl Makoto Konno (Riisa Naka) is thrown off her feet (literally) by a "mysterious man" in her school science room, she discovers she can "time leap" when an unfortunate incident occures that should've been her last bike ride. The story proceed to elaborate on the young girls interest after mastering her sometime clumsy landings in the recent past while re-evaluating the direct and in-direct consequences of her selfish acts. The premise of the movie is great and enchanting, the movie plays itself in a loop of events that goes over a few days of time-leaping without dramatically overreacting consequences made by a young girl in the spur of the moment unlike 'The butterfly effect'. The endless versions of the few scenes that where unimportant gradually elevate to key elements of her excessive time leaping. The simple problems and joys of an innocent teenager are greatly accentuated and pushed forward (which is a little to emotional at times).


Despite the aforementioned story and craftsmanship that was pored into this work, I was slightly disappointing in the visuals of the characters who were poorly drawn which fell flat against the more detailed background and objects unlike its successor which fared much better in that category. It came closer to the Short Film "Naked Youth" by Kojiro Shishido than to a professionally animated feature. The story takes longer than it need to get to the core of the movie, The time leap is mostly a playful feature in the beginning of the movie. I was left wondering multiple times what the true problem was and if the movie had the dept and magic it was praised for. The ending and last 30 minutes where worth most of the preparations and stretched emotional moments. Also; the voice actor's cries were far from being life-like and kind of alienated me in terms of emotional situations.

Rating:
***+ Leap through greatness! While facing obstacles...
The shift between harmless time leaps to chronological importance of the people you harm around you. It is a shame that it took a few empty scenes to fully develop later one (making it lose half a star) which makes me disagree the quoted statement by Ty Bur of the Boston Globe who compared this to the likes of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. It might have been as observant but sadly, not as rich as it could have been...

M.

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Made In Asia 4, Belgium's own Anime Expo

The 4th Annual Brussels Expo Made In Asia  Is at the door again with more featured faces!
For many of you this might be the first time you ever heard of this Expo... and for even more of you this might be the first time you heard about brussels. 

In 2009 the Conceptum! group and Little Big Company where summoned for a new Brussels Expo that was to be revealed in march of 2009 (way before I had knowledge of the existence of this particular new Expo) that became the Belgian equivalant of the more hyped Japan Expo in Paris, France which is Internationally known due to it's impressive guest list and exclusive game demonstrations (Dragon Ball : Ultimate Tenkaichi was last year's major game content) .
Although this Expo isn't quite there yet, it has still lots of impressive features and content which may appeal more to the die hard fans of the anime/japanese festivities dubbed "Japanese culture" which is heavily orientated nationally unlike the Japan expo much to my dismay

The overall stages & activities 

Click on the picture to enlarge

Just for the record this still is a french/dutch expo which is still struggling to breach internationally. And with that said, it will be a pleasure to elaborate on a few featured guests you may or may not know:

Tensai Okamura

2011 – Blue Exorcist (TV) : Director, Storyboard & Episode Director
2011 – Hanasaku Iroha (TV) : Storyboard
2007 – Darker Than Black (manga) : Original story
2007 – Darker than Black (TV) : Director, Storyboard & Episode Director, Original creator
2004 – Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow : Director (main movie), Storyboard
2003 – Wolf’s Rain (TV) : Series Director, Screenplay, Storyboard, Episode Director
2001 – Cowboy Bebop: The Movie : Director & Storyboard (Western Scene), Key Animation
1998 – Cowboy Bebop (TV) : Storyboard (7 episodes)
1995 – Stink Bomb (movie) : Director, Storyboard

Mashiro Ando

2011 – Hanasaku Iroha (TV) : Director, Storyboard & Episode Director
2009 – CANAAN (TV) : Director, Storyboard & Episode Director
2009 – Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (TV) : Storyboard
2007 – Sword of the Stranger (movie) : Director, Storyboard, Unit Director
2005 – Fullmetal Alchemist: The Movie – Conqueror of Shamballa : Storyboard
2003 – Fullmetal Alchemist (TV) : Storyboard (OP3) & Episode Director
2003 – Wolf’s Rain (TV) : Storyboard & Episode Director
2002 – RahXephon (TV) : Storyboard & Episode Director
2001 – Cowboy Bebop: The Movie : Animation Director Support, Key Animation

*Which reminds me I should really watch 'Sword Of The Stranger'.

Be there

Made In Asia 4 (MIA4) will be held on the 30th of March (for free only that day) t'ill the 1st of April. The 15 000 m² floor will be divided in many activities both energetic and cultivating...and it will be filled with cosplay...much to my displeasure... 
For those interested who won't be able to make it due to geological reasons(...and the fact that this might be the first time you hard of it): there will always be next year!

M.

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Annecy 2012! Magnific poster!

Every year again and again my curiosity is filled with one of the greatest animation film festival  (Which i can't go too...do cry me a river...) which I'm currently channeling on it's new featured poster Designed by Marion Franck. Ingenious isn't it?

Annecy 2012,a curvacious visual...      - Posted a week ago on their Facebook page

Am I the only one reminded of this when seeing this poster? Anyone?

Annecy 2012 Official Selection. 
Over 2 374 where send to this glorious festival and -if you wondered yes that is more than 300 hours of film- of which the tremendous majority was rejected leaving only the gold after carefully removing the few stones.

As of march 2012 the official selection was made as follow:

• 49 Short Films 
• 21 TV Series 
• 2 TV Specials 
• 5 Educational Films, Science or Enterprises
• 18 Commercial Films
• 14 Videoclips
• 55 Graduate Films
• 40 Short Films (non-competitive)

Ao no Exorcist （エクソシスト - Ao no Ekusoshisuto）

Yukio Okumura from Blue Exorcist

Under the category of "TV Series" is an Anime adapted from the manga written by Kazue Kato which is being published in the monthly magazine Jump Square ,  the Shōnen Equivalent of the more popular   Jump. I was quite surprised when this particular anime (the only one in the list by the way) was chosen out of  the vast variety of submitted/recommended series. It might be time for me to re-watch and re-evaluate this one.


Annecy 2012 - Expect great things!

M.

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Summer Wars (2009), A Summer Animation.

Directed by: Mamoru Hosoda | Written by: Satoko Okudera

Produced by: Madhouse

Awards

• Best Animation Film; 33rd Japanese Academy Prize & Mainichi Film Awards
• Best Animated Feature Film;  Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival
• Animation Of The Year; 9th Tokyo Anime Award
• Best Media; 2010 Seiun Award

...excellent anime... There's a lovely, unhurried quality to Mr. Hosoda's storytelling, which nicely matches the clean, classically composed images of his outer story.  -RACHEL SALTZ, New York Times

 Summer Wars (サマーウォーズ Samā Wōzu)  Is yet another great animated featured straight from the productive and creative core driven by Madhouse Studio's best defining the line between modern times and Sci-Fi fantasy trough keen and down-to-earth animation .

Anime Festival Asia 2009 : 22 Nov 2009 (Photo credit: chinnian)

 Could you Imagine if Facebook, the largest social Network known to man, was acknowledged worldwide as the greatest and only virtual social contact network by default used by nearly every human being with technological access (=everyone) making it a tool for great distribution and safe keeping for people and companies/government alike while being a heaven for virtual interaction and games (NO farmville!). Now remove the "Facebook " image and slap the word "Oz" on it; a virtual social giant protected by the words best encryption. You will be left wondering where the line between scripted information and virtual reality meet as the servers and use of avatars manifest themselves like 3D animations in this virtual city.

When Kenji, a mathematically skilled boy -and Oz server-maintainer- is asked to play the academical boy friend (unbeknown to him at the beginning ) of Natsuki Shinahara,a cute girl descending from Samurai's of the Tokugawa clan, a somewhat crowded family with a strong heritage and interesting personalities and individual which fill the screen with a joyful amount of interaction and family matter on the anniversary of the eldest member. Which went unnoticed until Kenji accidentally cracked Oz trough an unknown scripted message he solved mathematically allowing an individual access to all the accounts on Oz manifesting itself as a Virus, making Kenji a criminal for a short period and bringing both of the culprits in a tight spot. The Anime-like cliché has it however that the bonding process is unavoidable... I was surprised how acceptable it felt tough, for the shy boy to be acknowledged step by step which was essential being one of the only few who knew the dangerous of hacking  such a vast system.

The Oz- Crisis and underlying family matter are a successful blend that draws all the unsolved issues back to the family in question when the "hacking" goes from innocent to dangerous. Oz isn't just a social giant, but it is also a governmental used control panel INTERNATIONALLY.

The visuals are gentle and find their beauty in a simple yet detailed manner deeply contrasting more vivid and sharp works like Redline.

*Special thanks to this blog



Rating:
***** Summer-Buster! 

Gobelins "L'ecole de l'image"

Gobelins School of the Image  is a school of Visual art situated in Paris. Their Illustrious animations (both 3D and 2D) are always greatly appreciated by  a vast audience on Youtube and on the annual International Animation Film Festival (Annecy). Did I mention the many festival intro's submitted by the skilled Students? No ? Well I will now! They are the definition of short entertainment featuring a diversity of  joyful frames parading wit a kind of innocent wit, which improves each year. 

Example

Did you know an old student of this particular school is Pierre Coffin, the director of Despicable Me (which won a blimp award...yes, I'm currently re-evaluating the importance of the said award myself...not really high on my list right now).

Despite it's French demeanor (...and the fact half of you can not pronounce it right), It has grown to know International success as promising graduate find their place in companies such as Universal Studios,Warner Bros, Pixar , DreamWorks, Hanna Barbara and even Disney. It's hard to look past such talent I guess.

Furthermore I'd also like to add that their Youtube channel is bursting of graduate Clips much like Rain Town, Please visit and subscribe to show your appreciation.

M.

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Top 3 Recommended animations of 2010-2011 that I am dying to watch.

There have been many animations I set my eye on but never had the time nor/or the means to see them. Well... I guess this could be subbed as my "to-watch" list. I better get started then...

 1. Tatsumi (2011)

Directed & Writer by:  Eric Khoo

*Starring: Tetsuya Bessho, Motoko Gollent , Yoshihiro Tatsumi (narator)

Produced by:  Infinite Frameworks Pte. Ltd., Zhao Wei Films

Director & Author

An animated biography based on Tatsumi Yoshihiro's 13th Osamu Tezuka Cultural prize winning manga A Drifting Life and his many short works. The movie was first shown at the 64th Cannes Film Festival and again at the 5th Brussels Animation Film Festival (ANIMA 2012).

The well made animation is supposed to capture the feeling of his short stories on the screen and carefully mimic Tatsumi Yoshihiro drawings, which should've worked due to the fact that the whole project was supervised by him. This drama-biography is a gate way to the life and works of a Gekiga veteran and manga pioneer.

(Read more here)

Awards won (so far):

• Best Animated Feature Film; Asia Pacific Screen Award
• Best Film; 8th Dubai International Film Festival
• Asian Film Award - Special Mention; 24th Tokyo International Film Festival

 2. Paths Of Hate (2010)

Directed & Writer by:  Damian Nenow

Produced By: Platige Image

A short tale about the demons that slumber deep in the human soul and have the power to push people into the abyss of blind hate, fury and rage. From IMDB 

Damian Nenow

Paths Of Rage is a polish war-drama animation directed and written by Damian Nenow. While I do admit that I know only little of this movie also due to the lack of resource and distribution. I can say that the comic-like visuals drew me to it as I found out that it was screened at the ANIMA 2012-Córdoba Animation Film Festival (Not to be confused with the one in Brussel).

 Despite its low interest rate and distribution, it seems to rival with it's more popular peers. if this movie is half as good as I think it is, then this could be up for review as soon as I can find a copy of this animated action-adventure.

  Awards won (so far):

• Grand Jury Price; ANIMA - Córdoba International Animation Festival
• Best Animation & Best Action/Adventure Short; San Diego Comic-Con international Independent Film Festival

  3.  From Up On Poppy Hill (2011)

Directed by: Gorō Miyazaki | Written by: Hayao Miyazaki, Keiko Niwa

*Starring: Junichi Okada, Masami Nagasawa

Produced by: Studio Ghibli

From Up On Poppy Hill (コクリコ坂から Kokuriko-zaka Kara) is a Japanese animated Drama based on a manga written by Tetsurō Sayama and illustrated by Chizuru Takahashi. 

A Miyazaki movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki's son and written by the one and only Hayao Miyazaki (obviously). I gotta say that gets my blood boiling, especially knowing that the later wants his son to stand on his own to feet without his support or funding (much like Jackie Chan did with his son... without the obvious failure that is). 

The movie got it's share of possitive feed back much like it's predecessor The Secret World of Arrietty and won a Japanese academy award for 'Best Animation Film'. Something to be expected from a Studio Ghibli Film.

  Awards won (so far):

• Best Animation Film; 35th Japanese Academy Prize

That's about it...

Well... I think that it's pretty obvious that I saved my best pick for last. But I am really looking forward to see all of them and to focus on more recent works (non-Ghibli this time...). 

Expect more to come and more to be revealed.

M.

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p.s: many thanks to Raju for it's simple yet effective tutorial for the "Facebook like button",  it is truly appreciated.

 

Madhouse gained rights to the comic strip peanuts?

The well-known comic strip written by deceased artist Charles M. Schulz 'Peanuts' Syndicated by Moonscoop in 2006, had a short animation produced by the Japanese animation giant Madhouse Inc. in January 2012 supposed to be "somewhere in Tokyo". The animation in question is supposedly on the web somewhere.



Yes, the Iconic figures Charlie Brown and his companion Snoopy ,who's tales claimed the hearts of many since 1950 has come into the hands of one of  (in my opinion) one of Japans finest after Peanuts Worldwide LLC assigned Madhouse Studio to Animate the 60-year-old franchise.
 Tough I'm still surprised that madhouse shows  interested in Peanuts, I can only hope they'll make the best of it. After all, it wouldn't be the first time Madhouse encountered western franchises making a success out of it no less (with the exception of Wolverine...skinny is not his thing.).


Further more I'd like to add that an update has been made on the 22th of February saying that "The screening for the short animation has finished", prompting us to look forward for  further release.


Source: Madhouse (site)

 

Redline (2009/2010-japan), the Japanese Wacky Racer movie on Acid.

Directed by Takeshi Koike | Written by Katsuhito Ishii ( Known for' The Taste Of Tea', an all time favorite of mine)

Screenplay: Katsuhito Ishii - Yōji Enokido - Yoshiki Sakurai

Produced By: Madhouse

Awards

• Achievement Award; Newport Beach Film Festival

Source: IMDB

Kwenton Bellete of Twitch Film described this movie as "Speed Racer on crack", while the people that haven't seen this funky high definition marvel are scratching their heads to comprehend that one sentence or are utterly excited to watch this film (please be the latter) , will think back on that specific sentence and undoubtably think that THAT sentence, describes the movie to a T. Because that's what Redline is; A funky bright super-speed interstellar death race held every 5 years portrayed in a slightly mature and comic fashion with visual popping screenplay (and oh so funky !).

Sweet JP and his sweet comb

The main protagonist is Sweet JP a Retro greaser who refuses to mount guns and other arsenal on his car (hence the name "sweet" JP). But what he doesn't have in gear he makes up in skills as he is by far one of the greatest pilot due to his perseverance and ability. But then again those are much needed skills when you compete with a heavily modified TransAm against things that can only be called spacecrafts-on-wheels, yet even that feels like an understatement.
Sweet JP races while unknowing that his sole purpose is to lose at the end so that he and his auto-mechanic/Best friend Frisbee (who rigged it)  can pay-off some shady people, something that will last t'ill the beginning of the Redline causing distrust and suspense as the movie turns from good to extreme. Why? Because the hosting planet of the interstellar phenomena  Robotworld; a militarized cyborg planet with few low class inhabitants is threatening to hunt down any man who dares participating so to conceal their biologic weapon Funky Boy.
This is also the reason how Sweet JP, who lost due to the fact it was a fixed race (I'm unsure if he knew his best friend sabotaged his race. Mainly because he still tried to win the Yellowline and he almost did before his engine went 'Boom-chaka-laka'. It is still an enigma for me but there are events hinting to the fact that he knew )was able to participate because two racers withdrew from the competition. 

The turmoil between Robotworld's vast military forces and the insane racers is topped by the Racing Guru who won  5 consecutive times while becoming part of his enormous machine over time (fittingly named " Machine Head"). The death-race becomes a battlefield for victory and a challenge for Sweet JP and the beautiful Yellow Line winner by default  Sonoshee.

Local Inhabitants of the planet hosting the 'Yellowline', the less important competition before the 'Redline' (Note the sharp Visuals and the dark shadows emphasizing the lively colors in a contradictory fashion, a real Madhouse feature)

The Races are chaotic and  ordered at the same time as you feel the heat and suspense rise with every heartbeat. The stunning visuals change with the dramatic change of speed and so do the cars ( JP's Trans Am was able to spin so fast it could go over a large surface of water). Every car -with the exception of JP's- has gadgets and secondary capabilities which are revealed at a certain climax as you follow the protagonists.

There is a romance rooted deep withing the premise of this movie in which our racing nut JP falls for a talented girl who he knew in his childhood, of course the cliché has it that she does not remember. The romance worked but was plain and misplaced throughout the movie. Seriously all the dept was sucked up by the main event leaving the romantic side of this movies with scraps and bits. None the less it did not hinder the experience one bit but it did not change it either with the exception of the final quarter of the movie.

Rating:

**** Viewtiful Racing! A tripping death-race!

A movie with jaw dropping visuals known only to Madhouse. Al thought the movie did it's job as Interstellar death-race with a touch of originality weapon and car wise, it felt plain on the overall execution of the dialogues and dept of the story making it lose a star. Nonetheless a must  watch! Did you see it? Please comment about what you thought of it!

• This movie is not meant for children! Please take that into consideration.

M.

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