Recently (Nov. 29 – Dec. 1), a play was staged at MIT’s Kresge Little Theater called Madness at Mokuba. It was described as a “live-action anime show”. The synopsis of the play (from MIT’s press release):
“The stage is set for the finals of the giant robot contest at the Mokuba Institute of Technology. But as the two teams prepare for battle, a strange disease called VIRTIGO is sweeping the school, causing unpredictable reality slippages. And it’s getting worse. Does it have something to do with Homeland Security’s suspicious arrest of undocumented workers nearby? Can our heroes solve the mystery of VIRTIGO, help the workers, and . . . find love?”
The play was written by cultural anthropologist and MIT associate professor Ian Condry. He specializes in contemporary Japan specifically focusing on media, popular culture, and globalization. An example of this is his book, Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization.
To help promote the play as well as the lecture (Explaining Anime’s Global Power) which preceded the first show, the MIT News Office interviewed Dr. Condry. He briefly talked about how his students got him involved with the play, the convergence of hip hop and anime, and the globalization of anime. In the following excerpt , Dr. Condry explains how anime and hip hop are similar:
“Both hip-hop and anime are media forms that were initially denigrated by media elites as not being something that could gain a wide audience. They both show the power of globalization from below, and they provide hope that ideas and practices that are seen as unimportant, fringe or sub-cultural can nevertheless become global powerhouses in their own right.”
Live Action Anime logo by Ashley Micks
Photo of Dr. Ian Condry by Stephanie Schorow
ANN Story: MIT Professors Write, Direct Anime-Themed Play
MIT News Office Interview: Condry discusses anime’s global reach
Inaugural New York Anime Festival
In late November, Publishers Weekly Comics Week reporter Kai-Ming Cha spoke with John McGeary, Vice-President of Reed Exhibitions (a show organizer). He is the show manager of the inaugural New York Anime Festival. He talked about how NYAF came about after the success of New York Comc-con, that NYAF will have multiple tracks (fan, professional, and educational), as well as speculation on future NYAFs.
In this excerpt, Mr. McGeary explains why the NYAF was launched in December rather than the heart of the convention schedule (spring/summer):
“A lot of people have asked that and one of the reasons is dates of availability at the Javits Center. But fans feel a bit starved. They’ve gone to the major anime events over the summer. We had a volunteer meeting recently, and they say a lot of anime releases come out in January and February, and they can preview them in December. Also, it’s the holiday season, so why not celebrate anime?”
PWCW Interview: NYAF’s John McGeary Talks Anime
Takehiko Inoue Mural
Back in October, I mentioned that manga-ka Takehiko Inoue would be creating a mural for the new Kinokuniya store in NYC. He worked on the mural from Nov. 16 through Nov. 19. It turned out to be a black ink work in the style of Vagabond on the wall plus a small omake on the ceiling.
During the unveiling event co-hosted by Inoue-san and Viz Media, ANN was able to have a short interview with him. Inoue-san talked about basketball (from his manga like Slam Dunk to his own experiences to his recent involvement with a scholarship for Japanese player/students), the artistic style used in Vagabond, and his involvement with the upcoming Xbox 360 game Lost Odyssey.
In the following excerpt, he expresses his feelings about working on the mural:
“When you create manga, you basically sit at a desk for a long, long time, and I’ve been doing that for many years. This, however, is a big space! I had to come here on a plane to draw it. It’s something different, and that’s refreshing. It gives me more motivation. I’ll be using that motivation for whatever I work on next.”
Photos from ANN
ANN Story (which includes more photos of the mural, omake, and event): Takehiko Inoue at Kinokuniya NYC
Voice Actors At The London MCM Expo
Hopping across the pond, Nargis of Anime UK News recently posted an interview with voice actors Laura Bailey (Dragon Ball Z and Crayon Shin-chan) and Colleen Clinkenbeard (Full Metal Alchemist and One Piece) during their visit for the London MCM Expo. They spoke about how they first met, their feelings about Fruits Basket, playing male roles (specifically boys like Trunks and Luffy), and comparing US and UK anime conventions.
Here is an excerpt featuring Colleen:
AUKN: …how does being a director differ from being a straight up actress?
Colleen: Directing for me is far more difficult that acting. Acting, you have a director there and so you’re able to take someone else’s vision and help them make it a reality and as a director you have to come up with the vision on your own, which has a lot more responsibility attached to it and directing is much more technical and requires so much more time. It’s actually lower paying, it’s all a harder job.
And here is a lighter excerpt featuring Laura:
AUKN: Laura, you play Lust in FMA. You normally play goody two-shoes characters, so I was wondering what was it like having to switch over to play the very sexy villianess, Lust?
Laura: It’s nice actually. If I’m auditioning for film roles or on camera I don’t get to play the sexy vixen very often because I don’t have the boobs for it and Lust did have them.
AUKN: I can’t believe you just said that but I’m glad you did!
Laura: It’s nice to live precariously through my characters.
Photo of Colleen Clinkenbeard and Laura Bailey from Anime UK News
Anime UK News Interview: Interview with Laura Bailey and Colleen Clinkenbeard
There was another US voice actor who was at the Expo. That was Johnny Yong Bosch, who was also interviewed by Anime UK News in the form of a podcast. The interviewer is again Nargis. They spoke mostly about his role as Ichigo in Bleach. They also talked about voice actors using aliases rather than their real names, doing his own stunt work in live-action films, and his feelings about the Power Rangers.
This excerpt has Mr. Bosch describing how he started his voice acting career:
“After Power Rangers, I did a live-action film where all the audio was screwed up so I had to re-dub the film…and one of the producers thought that my voice sounded like a decent hero voice. And he wanted me to come in and asked me to come audition for a show called Trigun and then I went in, auditioned and got the part of Vash and then from there it’s just, you know, become a steady thing.”
Photo of Johnny Yong Bosch at Power Morphicon 2007 by HaiTien
Anime UK News Interview: Anime UK News podcast interview with Johnny Yong Bosch
Appleseed: Ex Machina
A new CG movie set in Masamune Shirow’s cyberpunk world of Appleseed, had its US premiere on December 15 at the 15th Annual Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival in Los Angeles. The film is called Appleseed: Ex Machina and its Japanese premiere was on October 20, 2007. The movie is set in the same world as the 2004 Appleseed film with many of the same characters. However, the movie is not a direct sequel to the earlier film. Here is a synopsis from the Jules Verne Festival website:
“Following the non-nuclear war that killed half the world’s population, the city-nation of OLYMPUS stands as a beacon of hope in a world of chaos and conflict. The utopian metropolis in governed by GAIA, a vast artificial intelligence, and administered by genetically engineered humanoids known as Bioroids, whose designer DNA suppresses strong emotions. With Bioroids being half of its population, peace and order are easily maintained.
DEUNAN, a young female warrior, and BRIAREOS, a veteran cyborg-soldier, are both partners and lovers. As members of ES.W.A.T the elite special forces serving OLYMPUS, they are deployed wherever trouble strikes. The two fighters find their partnership tested in a new way by the arrival of a new member to their rank – an experimental Bioroid named TEREUS.
Created by Gaia using DNA from Briareos, Tereus uncannily resembles Briareos before the wartime injuries that led to his becoming cyborg. Not only does this trouble Deunan, but Briareos’s DNA give Tereus more than just top-notch fighting skills, for this battle-ready Bioroid is like Briareos in another way: he has strong romantic feelings for Deunan!
At the same time, Olympus finds itself under a stealth attack by a mysterious cabal of scientists intent on imposing their own version of world peace upon the people of the world. Cyborg terrorism, deadly nanotech, fanatical zealots, and rioting citizens are just some of the threats that Deunan must contend with as she fight to save Olympus, and save mankind from plunging into a new kind of hell.”
Appleseed: Ex Machina was previewed at the recent New York Anime Festival. Shortly before the NYAF, ANN interviewed producers Joseph Chou and John Woo as well as director Shinji Aramaki.
Joseph Chou was a producer for the Japanese version and executive producer for the English version. In his interview, he talks about the development of Ex Machina, how John Woo was brought on board, his duties as a producer, difficulties (and their resolutions) of creativity and communications issues, the appeal of the Appleseed franchise, and his acting role(s) in the film (his favorite seems to be the ‘brainwashed killer’ role). Here is an excerpt:
ANN – Tell us about how the film’s language tracks were produced, in terms of the differences between the English and Japanese versions.
JC – We went through a bit of unique process for anime localization for Ex Machina. Normally you would have a finished Japanese language anime to dub the English lines. However, due to the time constraint, as well as the fact that this is a US-Japan production, required us to go almost simultaneously with Japanese dubbing. Having experienced the level of dubbing effort that was spent for The Animatrix, I wanted to make sure we do a ‘quality’ dubbing for Ex Machina. Furthermore, I did not want the English track to just mimic the Japanese track, but wanted it to be ‘culturally relevant’ for the English speaking audience who may not necessarily be anime fans who understand the conventions of Japanese anime.
Fortunately we had a great English script to begin with by a writer named Todd W. Russell (who happens to be the brother of the voice actor behind Disney’s Aladdin), and Steven Foster, our ADR director, did a wonderful job transferring and adapting the script to the screen.
Naturally, the audience will see some discrepancy in dialog between English dub vs. English sub versions, which affects the personality of characters and how the story unfolds. There were lines and English-specific humor that even had to be approved by director Aramaki, but the intention was clearly to make the ‘best movie experience’ possible.
When the DVD comes out, I recommend watching and comparing the dub vs. sub versions – you might feel like watching 2 different movies.
Producer John Woo is known for his live action directing work. His style of Hong Kong action films (A Better Tomorrow and Hard Boiled) influenced Western film makers like Robert Rodriguez (Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico) and the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix trilogy). In his brief interview, he talked about his introduction to anime, his interest in the Appleseed universe, and his future plans with respect to anime and Appleseed. Here is an excerpt:
ANN – How do you feel about working with animation, as opposed to live-action?
JW – In some ways it’s easier. You can put whatever you want in an animated movie. But you need to have good drama, not just action, which is hard to do in any medium. Aramaki is very good with emotion, as well as action, which is why I felt a good connection. Ex Machina has action, drama and romance. I think the audience is going to love it.
Shinji Aramaki was the director for the 2004 Appleseed movie. Besides directing (Madox-01 and Megazone 23), he is also a mechanical designer (Naruto The Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow and Oh! Edo Rocket – TV) and a production designer (Bubblegum Crisis – OVA and Fullmetal Alchemist – TV). In his brief interview, he compared Ex Machina with the first movie and spoke about the challenges with working on the new film. He also gave a short (and not very informative) glimpse into his future projects. Here is an excerpt:
ANN: You’ve been working in the anime industry for a long time; how have things changed in terms of production? Do you ever miss the old production methods?
ARAMAKI: The biggest difference is that the procedure of coloring the cels with paint is gone. I had always thought that the real thrill of producing anime was the moment of seeing the cels from the front (that was colored from the back side). Therefore, it seems a little sad that that process no longer exists.
Movie Poster from Ex Machina website (Japanese)
Images from Ex Machina from Jules Verne Festival website
ANN Interviews: Appleseed: Ex Machina – Interview: Joseph Chou, Producer
Appleseed: Ex Machina – Interviews: John Woo and Shinji Aramaki
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