It suddenly occurred to me that prior to today I have never once written about an anime title on this site. Well, where better to start than from the beginning; and Vampire Hunter D was the first anime I ever watched. I’m guessing I was in junior high when I heard about some weird foreign vampire cartoon with a mix of gore and gratuitous nudity. Obviously I was fascinated, as any respectable 12-year-old would be, so I managed to get my hands on a VHS copy. Because I watched this at such an impressionable age it’s nearly impossible for me to step back and develop a new opinion from the perspective of an adult who’s seen a few hundred Japanese movies and animes. So instead of trying, I’m just going stick with my original wide-eyed, non-jaded perspective: this movie is totally badass.

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A man named Kenji and his group of friends try to save the world from destruction by a mysterious conspiracy. The story spans parts of 6 decades, and the live-action version will be filmed as a trilogy with hundreds of actors involved. For the second trailer, see this link. For the teaser, see this link.

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A man named Kenji and his group of friends try to save the world from destruction by a mysterious conspiracy. The story spans parts of 6 decades, and the live-action version will be filmed as a trilogy with hundreds of actors involved. For the first trailer, see this link. For the second trailer, see this link.

watch »

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The official website for Yukihiko Tsutsumi‘s 20th Century Boys (20-seiki Shonen) was updated today and features the newest trailer minus the annoying TV baubles and fonting from the one everyone was watching on YouTube last month. News of the film has been slowly trickling out for the better part of a year now, but if you don’t have the patience for blurb-tracking here’s the lowdown:

Back in February Tokyograph reported that the popular Naoki Urasawa manga “20th Century Boys” would be adapted to not just one, but a trilogy of live-action films with a combined budget of about 6 billion yen (almost 60 million USD). It was later announced that the cast would include over 300 people, with 200 of those appearing in the first installment of the trilogy. Some notables include Toshiaki Karasawa as Kenji, Etsushi Toyokawa as Otcho, Takako Tokiwa as Yukiji, Teruyuki Kagawa as Yoshitsune, and Kuranosuke Sasaki as Fukubei (among many, many others).

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A new trailer for Minoru Kawasaki’s daikaiju comedy Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit, which I first wrote about here, was released yesterday—and unlike the first teaser it includes some actual footage! There was some confusion over whether this movie would be a full-blown comedy or a serious attempt at an old school monster flick. Judging from this new trailer, Kawasaki seems to have struck a nice balance between his trademark wacked-out sense of humor and his love of the genre, but we’ll have to wait a while to know for sure. “Monster X” opens July 26, 2008 in Japan. Below you’ll find the teaser followed by the new trailer.

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