Posts Tagged ‘appleseed’

So my rule lately has been that if I can’t write about it when it happens, it’s put into the catch up posts. This news though is something that I felt was important enough to get its own post. Early this morning, Sentai/Section 23 released a press release announcing their May schedule and it includes quite a few things to get excited about including the planned releases of Asu no Yoichi (being released as Samurai Harem), Hell Girl: Two Mirrors (Season 2), Eyeshield 21 and You’re Under Arrest Full Throttle Collection 2 (hitting store shelves 5/4). Capping off that list of announcements, Sentai closed the press release by announcing Appleseed on Blu ray.

Highlighting some of the cooler announcements (well, in my opinion at least), Asu no Yoichi originally premiered in winter of 2009 and is a fairly average harem series. What I mean by this is that it doesn’t break a lot of new ground but still has its clever moments and could pull in a new audience. In the dub vs. sub debate I’ve largely remained neutral. If I’m ever watching a series purely for my own enjoyment, I usually stick with the dub track but if a series is lacking in a dub track I’ll still enjoy it regardless. In this case, I do wish that Asu no Yoichi could get a dub track simply because I think there would be a ready and willing audience for it more so than with other harem titles. Yes, it’s not really deep comedy but it’s also not quite as brash with its sex jokes as a lot of series have been in the last couple of years (To Love Ru, Sora no Otoshimono, etc).. The series will be released in one complete set on 5/11.

Season 1 of Hell Girl (Jikogu Shoujo) was originally released here by Funimation in 2007. Obviously though it never got the response that they were hoping for leaving seasons 2 and beyond out of the reach of those of us who really wanted to see more released here. I admit, I will miss Brina Palencia doing Ai Enma but Mamiko Noto is a pretty awesome consolation prize. The first set will be released 5/25 and if you want to see season 3 released here as well someday go support this one right away!

With the license of Eyeshield 21 Sentai seems to be further pushing themselves towards the strategy of getting attached to long term series. Airing from 2005 to 2008, there are 145 freaking episodes to this football series. Yes, that means that not only is Sentai attaching themselves to a long term series, they are attaching themselves to a long term sports series in a country that has already made it pretty clear that they don’t care about sports anime much. In this series, a high school student named Sena is always being picked on and forced to run errands, so many in fact that he’s become incredibly fast. When the American football club needs a new running back, Sena gets the call. The first set will hit shelves 5/18.

Finally, Appleseed will be hitting shelves on Blu ray 5/18. I admit that I wasn’t floored by the overall product when I first saw this feature directed by Shinji Arameki. I was really impressed with the overall look and design of Appleseed. I don’t own a Blu ray player but I can’t help but be curious to see what this one is going to look like after it’s been through the Blu ray process.

So what are we excited about in the month of May? I’ve already got my eye on Hell Girl: Two Mirrors but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to talk myself into getting into Eyeshield 21. Anyone else planning to jump into a 140+ episode football series?

Full press release below the cut

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In news concerning recent ADV license rescues ‘World of Narue‘, ‘Now and Then, Here and There’, ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ and ‘MD Geist’ Chris Oarr recently answered some questions via email. When asked about the upcoming releases and if they will be re-dubbed by ADV, Oarr said “We are not redubbing any of that material.” He also stated that he is unsure on if the ‘Now and Then, Here and There’ bonus disc that contained behind the scenes footage originally released by CPM will be included with the ADV re-release. All four titles will be shipping at various dates in July.

Meanwhile, ADV Nation put up a post earlier today regarding statements from ADV representative Janice Williams on the upcoming re-release of the Geneon title ‘Appleseed‘ later this year. In the post, Williams states that ADV will be correcting the audio issues that plagued the original release. In the original release, a number of sound issues were detected by users which included bad audio mixes among other things. The ADV release will street on June 30th.

A new blog post just went up over at The Anime Network revealing their summer premieres and there are some noteworthy titles involved. We already knew about Appleseed making it’s premiere next month but new license rescues in the list will also include El Hazard: The Wanderers (originally released in 2001-2002 by Pioneer) premiering on June 4th and Soul Hunter and Gun Frontier (originally released in 2002 by Media Blasters) on July 2nd. El Hazard is a classic series from anime history so I encourage anyone who hasn’t seen it to check it out. Also revealed in the post however are more recent series such Alice Academy (Gakuen Academy, licensed by Right Stuf) premiering July 2nd.

In Part II of my interview with Karen Strassman, the conversation moved further away from her past and got more into her present and future. In this final section of the interview, Karen talked with me about some of her favorite roles, Buso Renkin, Lucky Star, When They Cry, being irritating in the voice booth and much more.

~ But alright, so I want to go ahead and start talking about some of the more specific series that you’ve been in. Last year in particular you were in two series that were never really given their chance: Fate/Stay Night and When They Cry. So, the first one I’d like to ask you about is When They Cry where you play one of the supporting roles Miyo Takano.

Karen: Uh yeah. Creepy, that whole series was so creepy.

~ When you started to get further into the series and you started to see more of the character and what kind of role she really had in everything that was going on. How does that change your performance when the character shifts like that and you have to deal with these new nuances?

K: Um, I think you just have more information to play with. Like, and in a way it’s good that I didn’t know everything. In the beginning because then my performance is real ambiguous, because I wasn’t sure either. So in a way I didn’t have to risk giving anything away because it was more ambiguous because even I didn’t know. And as I got more and more information and everything, I just had more specifics to play with. And I had more information behind me and more kind of subtext. But still my character you never really knew that clearly what her story was. And I have some questions like you know, I was like well… is she a bad guy? Did she do it? Or is she just obsessed with this? Or does she just love freaking people out? Or is she just sick? laughs

~ Alright, with May coming to a close 2008 has been a fairly good year for you so far anime wise. Last month it was Buso Renkin, Code Geass, this month it was Lucky Star. With Buso Renkin, Mahiro Muto is so sweet that she could send someone into diabetic shock. I’m mentioning this to highlight to how many different types of characters that you play. And so, with that many varieties of characters, do you have a different characterization process you go through for your different characters or is it pretty much the same process no matter what you’ve playing?

K: Well, at the beginning of the series when you’re kind of creating the character. Usually for anime, it usually is a combination of what was done in Japanese and there some are series where they us to come as close to the Japanese as possible and there are some series where is some leeway and we kind of work to create the character that works the best in English that doesn’t have to completely match the Japanese.

And that’s just depends on the series, what the client wants. And then it’s just depends on what they look like, depends on the Japanese and we just kind of with the director we just kind of work, usually it takes just the first session and we develop the character together. And then as you move on through the series, I just kind of sink into the character and get to know them better and better and get more and more comfortable with them.

I’ll say something else, for each character there is often kind of a theme to them. Like the scenes for Mahiro, Rene (Veilleux, ADR Director) and I would always joke that when she was just really annoyingly cute then we knew it was right on. When we would play it back and sort of cringe and laugh at the same time, then we’d be like “That’s it! Alright, next loop.”

For example, a character that I’m doing for Lucky Star (Miyuki Takara) right now is so cute but she’s so cute in such a different way. She’s not like annoyingly cute, she’s like, you know, Ooh you just wanna hug her cute. She’s just so sweet and innocent. And you know with her glasses and her pink hair, and that’s just a really different kind of cute. We looked for the most sweetest, endearing kind of cute for her. She would never ever in a million years be annoying. So that’s just a whole different country of cute.

~ Do you have a favorite type of character to play? And is there anything that you’d really like to be able to play but just haven’t had a chance to try it?

K: Sexy and evil characters are really fun. I enjoy those a lot. I had a lot of fun as Shinanora in Gun Frontier.

Have you seen Gun Frontier?

~ Um… no, not yet.

K: Aww, you’re no fun. She was just this sexy dripping character. All the men were just falling all over her. And that’s the show with Tahiro.

~ So there hasn’t been any thing that you haven’t been able to really just challenge yourself with or is it one of those roles that you’ll know when you see it?

K: I guess when I see it I’ll know it. But I will say that one of the things that I love about anime too is that I get the opportunity to do stuff that’s more realistic. Like I just got cast in Monster! And it’s just a really realistic show and I love that. I really love realistic drama. And I love that. I also really loved this show that I did a really long time ago, Habane Renmei.

~ Oh yeah, that’s a classic.

K: And I loved that show. There was just something very surreal and real about it at that same time. You know, it wasn’t cartoony and it was kind of dark. I really enjoyed that. I start to look back on the work that I’ve done and I just have so much affection for so many things. So many things that I’ve done. And there’s one show that I can’t remember the name of, and I was a drunk mother. And she took absolutely terrible care of her kid and was just drunk all the time. And she was a drama queen. And I just loved that role. And one of the fans will probably be able to identify the role if you write about this in your interview and will write it up.

~ I really want to ask you about Hitomi in Appleseed. If you look up on my website, my reviews of Appleseed aren’t great but despite that Hitomi was a really interesting character. When it comes to something like this where it’s very futuristic and your character is a bioroid, what kind of thought do you put into your characterization?

K: Hitomi was really moving to me. She was really endearing. She’s one of those characters who wanted to be human. And you know underneath it all, whether or not she talked about it, all she wanted to know was what it would be like to feel. That’s how I played her anyway. I played her as a machine and she is but she’s not supposed to have a soul or be human but she does. And she wants to be human underneath it. And one of the tricks for me playing a character is that I fall in love with them. For who they are.

~ Appleseed was a fairly big project and the sequel was pretty huge. Lucky Star this month has a pretty huge following behind it. Are you still at the point now where being in a project that has a bit more of a following behind it makes it a bit more fun or exciting? Or is every job just a job no matter how big it is?

K: It’s fun when there’s hype around it. Of course it is. And it’s fun when I walk into the studio for Lucky Star and Alex (Von David, ADR Director/Writer) is reporting on what all the fans are saying, it’s added fun. It is fun. But I think what makes me like a show or love a show is more about loving the show, loving my character and loving the people I work with. And I’m so lucky; Alex for Lucky Star is an awesome director. And a lot of the time I’m looking forward to getting to the studio and working with the people I get to work with. But of course! When it’s getting a lot of hype, its fun!

~ So at this point what I’d like to do is ask you about a few of my favorite roles that you’ve done. What I’d like for you to do is tell me not only what you liked most and least about the character but also most and least about performing them in the booth.

~ Miyo Takano from When They Cry:

K: What I liked best about the character was how creepy she was. What I liked least I guess wanted her to have a bigger role. And what I liked best about working with her was working with Kristy (Reed). Kristy an awesome director and awesome human being and it is always a pleasure to work with her.

~ Mahiro Muto from Buso Renkin:

K: What I loved about recording Mahiro Muto was making her as irritatingly cute as possible. And what I disliked the most about Mahiro Muto was how irritiating she was. And what I loved best about working on her in the booth was getting to work Rene Veilleux. Rene is an awesome director. He’s so much fun to work with. And we just had so much fun on that series together. So I was got a call and I got to go yay, I get to play with Rene. And I get to be cute and obnoxious.

~ 1^st Lt. Su-Ming from Flag:

K: What I loved about that character and that show was how realistic it was. And whenever Tony (Oliver, ADR Director) was directing me he’d constantly say ‘Play it down, make it more real, make it flatter,’ we were just going for really simple. Makin it real, ya know? And I love that, as I mentioned before I just love the realistic stuff too. It just harkens to features and cinema and I like that a lot. And she was just very very smart. Very smart, very controlled, very… you know she had a mission, she was on target. There was nothing else, she was very single focused my character. I enjoyed the challenge of doing that, ya know?

I think what I like least about it is again I would have liked for her to have been a bigger character. And I would’ve liked to have spent more time recording her. And I know that this might sound redundant but what I liked best about recording her was getting to work with Tony. Tony is just another director that has years and years of experience. And knows his stuff and is a fabulous human being too.

~ Petit Charat from Di Gi Charat:

K: Aww, I think what I liked best about that was… *laughs* it was just so cute and weird. And what I think was sometimes the most challenging for me was that there was a lot that was just surreal and out there. And a lot of it I just really didn’t understand so I guess I just had to really let go of understanding it. You know because I like to understand things and sometimes it was just so out there and abstract and weird. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I’d ask and try to figure it out. And the director, Fusako Shiotani, was someone that I don’t get to work with often. But she is great.

I’ve worked with her on a couple of projects but she loved the show and really got the show. Like in ways that I couldn’t even begin to get it. She was really able to translate to me what she wanted. So that was just super fun.

~ Miyuki Takara from Lucky Star:

K: I love Miyuki. One of the things I love about Miyuki, she is so sweet. And so caring and so… she doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. And she is very unpretentious and unassuming and she just wants to help people. And there’s one episode there’s something wrong and she’s lost her glasses and she couldn’t see the board and she had to ask somebody for their homework. And I forget but she asks one of the girls who lent her their homework or notes or something. But their notes were so bad that she couldn’t read them and they weren’t useful. But she pretended that they were useful and she gave them back because she didn’t want to hurt her feelings and then she went and got the notes from somebody else but made that girl promise not to tell anyone that she was using her notes.

She just wants to help people and she doesn’t want to hurt anybody. And she’s just very very sweet. And she never yells. And being an anime voice over actor where we come into the booth a lot and we spend a lot of time yelling or being hysterical. There’s something very relaxing about coming into a session and knowing ‘I probably don’t have to yell’ *laughs*

Um, what I don’t like about Miyuki? It’s really hard not to like Miyuki. I can’t think of anything right now that I don’t like about her. She’s just so likeable and sweet, you can’t not like her. And I gotta go back to answering the same way I’ve answered before; I love working with Alex. Alex is awesome and he’s really knowledgeable about the shows and he really loves the show. And we just have so much fun together, we just laugh and laugh. I just really look forward to working with him.

~ I’d like to jump back just a bit because I forgot to ask this when we talked about it. You mentioned that one of the things you liked least about recording Mahiro is that she’s so irritating.

K: But it’s also the thing I like best about her.

~ This is true. Have you ever had a character that was so irritating to you that recording them was a chore?

K: I’ve never had that. And for Mahiro, recording her was never a chore. You love to be irritating; it’s fun to be irritating. It’s wonderful to be that bratty little sister. But when he would play it back and I’d hear it I’d go ‘Oooh, that’s irritating. I didn’t know I could be that irritating. That’s scary.’ But I loved doing it.

~ If you were stranded on a deserted island with all your basic needs met. What three luxury items would you take with you?

K: I don’t know if this is cheating but I would want to take my computer. I’d want to have the luxury of having wi-fi. To write letters with all my friends since those are the people that fill my life. My most important things to me are my computer and my phone. *laughs* I think that’s all I need and maybe some music.

~ What are you looking forward to most this year that’s anime related?

K: I’m looking forward to continuing to do Lucky Star and just continuing that. I’m looking forward to Monster, I just think that it’s going to be a really interesting series.

~ Speaking of, are there any other projects that you can reveal at the moment?

K: Yes, I’ve just started a new show with Tony Oliver. You’ll have to look it up. It’s with Bang-Zoom. It’s under the name Karen Strassman. But I can’t reveal the title.

~ And finally, the question that I ask in every interview… do you have any parting words that you’d like to leave with your fans?

K: Yeah, first of all I just want to thank them for all of their support. And I guess this is kind of cliché but I just want to put the message out there to everybody to do what you love and to do it with care for all the people you’re working with and integrity and enjoy.

~ Good message to part on.

K: It’s a little cliché but to me it’s true and to me. And if I can add onto those as an addendum, so much of my success has been because of the wonderful human relationships I’ve had with people. And it’s because people have helped me and I’ve helped them. And we really enjoy working together. I mean I know I have a certain amount of talent but I think talent mixed with putting things in perspective. Anime is great but it’s not brain surgery, we’re not saving lives here. It’s just we just want to throw some good energy out at people so that people can take a break and be entertained.

	Appleseed Released By: Warner Bros Home Entertainment Appleseed Appleseed Ex Machina

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Appleseed Released By: Geneon Released: 5/10/05 Reviewed: Related Reviews Rated: 17+

 

Intro
 
        Another mech story told with Greek mythology as a parallel and very pretty animation.
 
The Story                
 
        Another global war has been launched by humans and in the year 2131 one of the elite soldiers fighting this war is a woman named Deunan Knute. The war being fought is between humans and androids though and soon Deunan is taken out of a war that she never knew ended and into a vast city named Olympus which serves as a utopia for humans so that she can lead the special government run special forces known as ES.W.A.T. In this city, the humans coexist with a race of artificial humans called bioroids. The city lives in peace under the control of Prime Minister Athena and the ultimate computer program known as Gaia (noticing a theme yet?) but a true utopia doesn’t and conflict is brewing as the head of the human military, General Uranus is hatching an evil plan to destroy the bioroids and make humans into the chief species of the city once again.
 
The Good And The Bad
 
        The animation in this feature is going to be the first thing that grabs you as the entire feature is done in CG animation. While the animation is certainly not up to the quality of say Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (how could it be when it was released much earlier?), the animation is still absolutely striking to watch. You are always well aware that you are watching animation but the backgrounds are so stunningly beautiful it is sometimes hard to remember that you are looking at animated backgrounds instead of the real thing. If you’re looking for specific examples of where this is the most troublesome, watch some of the water effects late in the movie. The effects are absolutely flawless.
 
        I only really saw a couple of things wrong with the animation and to say that they are “wrong” is a very poor choice of word. The first thing that annoyed me at first is the stark contrast between the bright and dark animations. The use of lighting is appropriate in all places but I did feel that the brightness was turned up much too high on character faces, especially when inside the city of Olympus. It was difficult to even be able to distinguish main facial characteristics in many scenes because of the lighting on the character’s faces made the contours so difficult to see.
 
        The other big thing that hit me right away was the use of computer effects that have sadly become old news within the last decade or so. Within the very first fight scene we are treated, repeatedly, to shots of slow motion fight scenes which immediately make you think of The Matrix. Unfortunately this isn’t even limited to the first fight scene as we will see the same effect again in later battle sequences. The mech design also didn’t strike me as terribly original as right away I was reminded of the video game Front Mission with how the mechs moved and even battled.
 
        In my personal life, I am very interested in Greek mythology and find that it comes up in my everyday life quite frequently and so as soon as I heard that the name of the city was Olympus, I was intrigued to see how it would be used throughout the feature and what kinds of parallels the direction would choose to draw between the mythology and what he had created. Unfortunately what I saw were many of the same basic stories that I’ve read throughout my life and not hidden very well at that. The entire thing was very clichéd and by the end I felt that while the Greek mythology fit, the mythology from a different region or culture probably could’ve been used just as effectively without damaging anyone’s artistic integrity. 
 
        Most of the writing really ended up becoming a convoluted mess. At the beginning I was really quite intrigued by what I saw. The concepts and ideas that were being presented to me were very interesting but there was still so little that I knew about the world that I was watching and I really wanted more of it to be explained to me so that I could really emphasize with the characters and what struggles they were going through. Sadly hardly any of the main plot is laid out for the audience leading to confusion, at least on my part.
 
        What started for me as general interest in what would happen next began to wane towards a partial mood of indifference near the middle and by the time the end credits began rolling I found myself in complete indifference and barely even able to keep my attention on the feature in front of me. By the end I just didn’t care about the characters nor did I care about their survival.
 
Music
 
        The soundtrack to this movie is very strong which I enjoyed. The opening theme right away caught my attention and the music continued to be a strong lure for me to keep me at least partially fixated on what was going on during the scene. I didn’t notice any drops or distortion throughout the feature.
 
Dub vs. Sub
 
        When I am this disinterested in the story, it makes it hard to really choose a favorite over dub and sub but in this case I am going to choose the sub cast. The dub cast did a great job with what they were given and really put a lot into their roles and it really shows in the performances (most especially the performances of Mia Bradly as Hitomi) but I just found the sub cast to be a bit more believable in their roles and never felt pulled out of the moment when I was listening to the original Japanese cast. 
 
Extras
 
        This feature is packed full of extras though which is a great added bonus. On the first disc you are treated to a full length commentary with the producer and director of the movie which is always worth checking out. Also included are music cues with the scenes that they are placed. Also included with this extra are full profiles of the artists and bands that created these tracks which provides some great info about not only the them but how they came to be involved in the project. Then there are staff profiles and the original commercial for the soundtrack.
 
        If you happen to buy the special limited edition version, you are treated to a second DVD of extras though which include a special ‘making of’ documentary, design archives for the art buffs which include some of the conceptual art, an image gallery, terms used in the movie (which I think should’ve been an extra on the first DVD so that fans who only bought the single edition and weren’t fans of the manga wouldn’t be so confused), character profiles and info about the mechs.
 
Overall
 
        As I mentioned above, when I started this feature I was quite intrigued by what I saw but by the end there just wasn’t enough to keep me entertained and I found myself growing bored with it very quickly. The break neck action and interesting concepts were fun at first but by the end, I really felt like I needed more and this feature wasn’t going to provide it. If you were a fan of the manga, you’ll probably be a fan of this feature as well but otherwise this is really just a release for people who are looking for some decent mech action without much story to bog you down.
 
Final Grade: 79% – C