“That’s really just a rumor,” Levitt told MTV at the Toronto Film Festival, adding, “that just goes to show what you can believe about what people write about movies.” Levitt says that the “loves” the original movie but as far as he knows there isn’t even a script for the film yet.

Who do you think should be Tetsuo? Will Live Action Akira ever get made? Vote in the poll, then tell us your thoughts in the comments!

I know I’ve done that. I simply cannot believe a studio ruined a perfectly good manga. First off, how could they mess up the anime when the script is already written and storyboarded right there in black and white? Isn’t it a simple thing to draw the character designs and panels and make them move? It’s not as if there’s actual story or character development needed; it’s already done. How can they botch something so seemingly simple?

I think many things contribute to the failure of a manga-to-anime series. A major factor is the timing, as in the manga is as yet incomplete when the anime is being produced. Why oh why studios even bother to create a series from an incomplete manga makes no sense from a fan’s perspective but probably makes perfect $ense to the marketing department. Too often a studio is left to their own devices when devising further story to pick up where the manga is stalling at. They’ll rush through some “story” and tack it on. Sometimes, it might work, but oftentimes, it blows.

Another contributing factor is mass marketability. Studios think, how can we make this manga more appealing to a more diverse audience? Should we add romance, action or fanservice? Why not all three?! Then a horror manga becomes a tragic, romantic comedy with the meddling of marketing and bad decisions. Why? How did the mangaka let this happen?

Then, there’s the omissions which bring about failing marks. It’s one thing to add things to a manga-to-anime series it’s another thing to completely leave out necessary story arcs and background stories. Whoopsie.

I’ve seen far too many anime which were bad beyond belief yet were based off terrific manga. Spiral, which is supposedly phenomenal, is one which springs to mind as does Trinity Blood, although Trinity Blood was a series of light novels as opposed to manga.

I know there are nigh uncountable amounts of fans out there who have a beef with a studio for mistranslating a manga into an anime. Which manga do you feel was given the shaft in terms of production or story? Is there a manga that deserved better? Which manga do you think was horribly translated into an anime?

Hmmm, lets’ approach this with my personal pros of cosplaying first:

• I’d get to dress up in an awesome costume and have adoring fans want their picture taken with me.
• I’d meet new people.
• The ol’ creative muscle will get flexed.
• I’d get to sew a challenging costume.

Let’s look at the cons of cosplaying:

• Fans wouldn’t want their picture with me, they’d want their picture with the character.
• I’d meet new people.
• To do a costume justice would potentially cost hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours.
• The ol’ creative muscle might get torn.
• I might get glomped, which might lead to a ripped costume, which would then lead to me behind bars for beating someone to death with a cosplay prop.

The number one reason I don’t cosplay, however is:

• I look nothing like my favorite characters.

What gets me, is some people dress up as cool looking characters they have zero connection with. They’ve never even watched the anime their cosplay’s in. It’s like wearing a band shirt and you don’t own any of the band’s albums or listen to their music. Posers. If I were to dress up as a character, it’d be a proper homage to one I like.

I like good cosplay, don’t get me wrong, but one of the reasons some cosplays just don’t work out is because the person wearing it doesn’t go the extra mile. If you’re not ripped and you’re playing a ripped character, maybe choose a costume the character wears which hides your unripped-ness. Finagle with the hair or buy a really good wig. Dressing like the character is only a part of the cosplay. Frankly, I just don’t look good in costumes, which, ahem, hug curves.

Those are my reasons I don’t cosplay. I like cosplay, though. It’s fun and something which fans of it bond over. That’s gotta be a good thing. If you don’t cosplay, what’s keeping you? Do you think it’s stupid and a waste of time and energy? Do you just like to gawk at the lovely and scantily clad ladies? Are you wanting to cosplay but can’t sew? Is shyness your issue? C’mon, dish: What’s keeping you from cosplaying?

Please share your reasons, in the comments below, for not dressing up as your fave character! (Even the “lame” ones.)

I’m not saying I could do a better job, but let’s say I was given the reins for one day to license whatever I wanted, regardless of cost effectiveness or popularity. I think I’d have a tough time choosing which gets picked, to be perfectly honest. Just because an anime is popular in Japan doesn’t mean it’s any good. Choosing the most popular doesn’t equate with good anime so I’d be “forced” to watch every single series before deciding which to pick, and if I only have one day…. I do know what I wouldn’t choose, though; anything with too many lolitas, blushing moe girls, and fifteen year olds driving mechs. I’ve had enough of that, next!

What if you were given the opportunity to pick which anime gets licensed. How would you choose which anime comes to America? What would your criteria be for making the choice in licensing? Would it be a personal choice, something which you personally like? Would you choose new themes or same themes different series? Would you listen to what average American fans want and then give it to them? Or would you license titles which are obscenely popular in Japan, banking on if it’s popular there, it’ll be popular here? How would you choose which anime gets licensed?

Don’t you wish you had some of the toys the anime characters play with? Some people already pretend they do have some of the same props as anime. Take the death note for example. Anime fans are writing names of enemies in notebooks, just like Light in the Death Note manga. That’s just creepy and not quite right, especially in today’s society, when doing something like that can get you suspended or worse.

Me, I’d want something happy and cheery from anime to be a reality. Like maybe an amulet that leads me to another world, like in Escaflowne. Or the Net from Ghost In the Shell. Something that’s exciting but not too profound or life changing. Props which are profound and life changing have a nasty habit of backfiring.

What’s a fantasy or sci-fi anime prop you’d like to see in the real world? A giant robot to do your yard work? A magic wand so you can have all sorts of fun magical girl powers? Or is something simple, like say a trans-dimensional teleporter? Which anime prop would you like to see a reality?

Share what you’d like to see a reality in the comments below! You never know, maybe if there’s more than one person who wants a Gundam, you can all chip in and buy one together!

Geneon’s US demise this past October left a bad taste in my mouth. I figured a monopoly was the worse that could happen, but also that other unsavory outcomes were possible. Some fans had the opinion Geneon’s tanking was no biggie, while others who’ve seen this sort of thing before took a “wait and see” approach to the episode.

As ADV started laying off employees, the bad taste in my mouth went from slightly sour to icky. When I read ADV was closing their wallet to anime clubs and shutting down Newtype, I think I became ill. And then when unofficial news surfaced about ADV’s discontinuation of titles, I had to rethink what I originally thought of the US anime landscape.

What would happen if little by little, anime in America, as we know it now, began to disappear? What if, instead of recent anime being released on DVD, any “new” anime was solely available on cable? And what if those titles were nothing but shows like Bleach and Naruto?

Sure, fansubs would gain new fans and a bigger audience, but wouldn’t anime crawl back under the rock it came from in terms of its popularity and mainstream appeal (I use “popular” in a relative context and a loose one at that)? What would happen to manga? Would manga keep the anime culture in America afloat? Or is this a minor setback, one we’ll bounce right back from?

These questions and more are the ones I ask myself and other anime fans whenever there’s some disturbances with the distribution companies. Some questions I toss out to get the dialog going but some I honestly want to know. The biggest, ultimate question, however, would be: What if anime in America were no more…Period.

No fansubs, no new Adult Swim, no video on demand, no YouTube, nothing. Zip. No more anime. Just the series and movies already in your and your buddies collections. All the cool new super awesome shows you hear are being released in Japan would be nothing more than wishful thinking in America.

Reruns would rule supreme (imagine Cowboy Bebop back on Cartoon Network in an endless loop- forever!) Fans would start to further pick apart old series, looking for some fresh nuance to keep discussions alive. Anime conventions would slowly devolve into burnt out shrines of anime past, with no new cosplays, no announcements, just a bunch of fans reliving the Golden Years. It’d be like a Star Wars convention…

And what would you do? Would you give up the medium? Or buy an $80 bootleg DVD of crappy anime from China and Europe? Would you still cosplay? What would your room look like with no new plushies to brighten it? How would you get your fix? What would you do if anime were no more in America?

Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds like I’m being all doom and gloom (it’s only a hypothetical discussion), but please comment below on what you’re anime disaster plan would be!

Maybe it’s because some of the movies I love are so simplistic and so fun, they don’t require much effort on my part. I tend to not re-watch movies with themes that are too heavy or too depressing. I take those types of films in once and let the messages slowly titrate into my skull.

I find some anime lend themselves to being highly re-watchable. Anime with light, disconnected themes are the top ones on my re-watch list. I love Cromartie High, and haven’t grown tired of it yet. It still makes me laugh and I still think the gags are great. Azumanga Daioh is another highly re-watchable series, probably for the same reason Cromartie High is. Both series are disconnected, random and funny.

I also like to re-watch action anime. That stuff never gets old. But it’s gotta be good action like say, Cowboy Bebop. That’s a damn fine anime with a fast pace, lots of action and plenty of intrigue.

What qualities do you like in a re-watchable anime and which anime has what it takes to be re-watchable to you? Does it need to be an action, comedy, sci-fi, or romance anime? Should it be funny, fast-paced, or should it be something you need to ponder over? Which anime has the best re-watchability?

Share your most re-watchable anime in the comments below! We all wanna know which anime gives you the most entertainment for your dollar!

Neon Genesis Evangelion was the first anime series which left me screeching at the TV and going “WTF?!”, due to it’s sensationally crappy ending. Why Eva? Didn’t we have a good thing? I thought you enjoyed what we shared. How could you take all the time we had together and flush it down the toilet? I want answers!

I invest many things in anime: Time, money and emotion. I expect a payoff in the way of either answers or a satisfactory ending. And by satisfactory, I don’t mean “happy” or even comprehensive. I mean a proper ending apropos to the general flow, feel, and direction of an anime. If it’s a flighty, random anime, I’ll be satisfied with a flighty, random ending. If I’m watching a mystery-themed anime, I expect the ending to either answer riddles or remain a mystery. On the other hand, if I’m watching a happy, bright anime with rainbows and unicorns, I sure as hell do not want an ending showcasing chainsaws and glue factories.

Considering there’s no way in hell we’ll ever get any good answers outta the fine folks who wrote and developed Eva (puh-lease, one series and two movies later, I’m not holding out any hope), I’ve added Eva to my mental list of “I wish they’d re-write this” anime. Gantz is the only other anime on that list, though. Every other anime with a crappy ending was a crappy series overall and needs to be tossed, not have its ending re-written.

Who else has suffered the pain of feeling gypped out of a satisfactory ending to an otherwise good anime? How many were the times you wished you could re-do the finale so it made more sense? Which anime’s ending would you re-write if you could?

Please share your painful finale experiences and re-write wish lists below!

Over time, weirdness has become part and parcel of anime, and makes it better because of it. Some fans might take umbrage to hear that some people think what’s mundane in the anime world is strange and borderline wacko outside it. But it’s what makes anime, anime, and even in the anime world, there are series and styles that are considered over-the-top by members of the community itself.

I personally like the fact that I can thoroughly enjoy an over-the-top anime with far-fetched backdrops and hyper-creative character designs and then be able to watch a more mundane and ordinary anime and get just as much pleasure out of it as its outlandish brethren. Tis the beauty of anime to have so much choice and so many possibilities.

I like variety and don’t have a preference for anime beyond it being well conceived and told. However, I don’t like anime that’s too ordinary; if I wanted ordinary I’d watch soap operas or sitcoms instead of anime.

Do you like anime with far-reaching ideas, or do you like the more down-to-earth variety? Do odd concepts flip your switch or do you choose to watch slice-of-life series? Do you prefer over-the-top anime or mundane anime?

When I was first getting into anime, I watched some anime at least once a week. At the time, the longest I would go without watching anime would be about a week. The more I became interested in anime, the more I would watch. Eventually, I was watching anime three to four times a week and little else. Then things evened out, and watching anime became a regular bi-weekly habit.

These days, even if we’re (David and I) busy, we try and watch anime at least once a week. There was a time though, when we weren’t able to watch the anime which was piling up, due to circumstances beyond our control. I think the longest we went then was a month or two. We had to play hardcore catchup to stay up to date with all the anime we needed to watch, and I would like to forgo a repeat experience.

How long have you been deprived of anime, at the longest, either by your own will or against it? Was it a week, day, hour, month or was it more like years? What’s the longest you’ve gone without watching anime?

Feel free to comment about your anime abstinence below!