Marvel Turns Japanese, Gets Anime-ted, Blah Blah
Posted at 12:05 PM Aug 25, 2008
Well, you knew this was coming. After the financial success of DC's anime-riffic Gotham Knight—which was actually pretty lame except for the last chapter—Marvel is joining forces with anime studio Madhouse to make four anime of four of Marvel's heroes. Sez the NY Times:
Marvel is teaming up with Madhouse, a renowned Japanese animation studio, to develop new versions of its characters for four anime series that will premiere in spring 2010 in Japan.
Rather than simply importing American characters and concepts, said Simon Philips, president of Marvel International, the goal is to create “something that is part of the fabric of society.” This means reimagining the back stories and redesigning the look of Marvel’s stable of characters to reflect Japanese culture. “It will create an entire parallel universe for Marvel,” he said.
“Marvel today is so open-minded,” said Jungo Maruta, the president and chief executive of Madhouse, through his interpreter, Alex Yeh, the chief operating officer of the studio, during a recent meeting in New York. “Marvel gives creators freedom to fly.”
I'm going to take a wild stab and guess those four properties include Spider-man, Iron Man, the Hulk and X-Men—I know, I may be psychic. But overwhelmingly, I can't help but feel "enh" at this news. While Madhouse makes some beautiful animation, the Japanese style of storytelling is often very slow and quiet, which is why anime adaptations of things like Highlander and The Matrix can be boring as hell. Plus, it's not like Japan has ever clamored for more anime adaptations of American superheroes—they have plenty of their own shit to watch. Still, I'm sure they'll sell like hell in America, which is all Marvel needs to care about.
Comments
Part of me is OK with this. Id love to see Marvel Zombies in a anime series...or House of M. If you think about, Eff these 4 part series, take any X-men story line and do a series. Something like this calls for an epic series like Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Side note: Since George Lucas is make shitty movies with a mouthy padawan, you would think a big Japanese animation studio would license the rights to make future movies...
Posted 08/25/2008 at 09:19:58 AMDidn't they already do this with the Marvel Mangaverse?
Posted 08/25/2008 at 09:49:35 AMWell maybe not entirely the whole X-Men. I guess Wolverine (but would include probably the X-men and other Mutants). I've heard from my friend Wilson Tortosa (Battle of the Planets, Tomb Raider) that he is doing a Manga Wolverine. You can check the sampler pages in his online portfolio here.
Posted 08/25/2008 at 11:45:34 AM^Ok Wilson just deleted the pages but he is sure that the mangas are going out next year.
Posted 08/25/2008 at 11:55:10 AMI dont think it will be that bad. I mean...it cant be any worse than there U.S. animated counterparts. I mean who can forget sentai Spider man from the 70's.
Posted 08/25/2008 at 05:25:38 PM"But overwhelmingly, I can't help but feel "enh" at this news. While Madhouse makes some beautiful animation, the Japanese style of storytelling is often very slow and quiet, which is why anime adaptations of things like Highlander and The Matrix can be boring as hell."
WHOA, did I read that correctly?? Ever heard of Dragonball Z (which I hate to pieces by the way)?
Other than that we'll just have to see the outcome when it happens.
Posted 08/26/2008 at 09:34:33 AM"Ever heard of Dragonball Z"
Yeah. Fights that take over 15 episodes to finish is a text book example of fast paced story telling.
After the abysmal Mangaverse, I never wanted Marvel to sell out or touch any piece of japan again. American characters are gay-tified by japanese culture and every detail of any humans powers are over exaggerated to the point where you just stop hoping for any character to win because it's impossible odds. It's why I hated anime. There's always some completely unstoppable force where someone else must become equally as unstoppable to win or use the "power of friendship" to defeat the most uber beings alive. In the Marvel universe? Everything is done in a clever way, people actually use strategy to beat their opponents. You rarely see that in anime. it's too crowded with harems and friend power to use logical means of combat instead of "I am the strongest fighter!" "*gasp!* My punches have no effect!" "You fool, I am better" *murdered* *rinse and repeat for a thousand more episodes* *Ultimate battle* *Lame ending*
After watching PPGZ, I can safely say that anime adaptations of american media suck hard. Then again, ANY regional adaptation will suck hard.
btw, Gotham Knight was trash.
Posted 09/03/2008 at 09:49:24 PM