Posts Tagged ‘romeo x juliet’

The Story

Picking up shortly after the climax of the first half, Juliet is taken prisoner by Montague and sentenced to a public execution. Narrowly escaping, the two lovers will be forced apart with Juliet going into hiding and Romeo being sentenced to exile by being forced to take over the labor mines. Now leading separate paths, the two spend their time working towards creating a new world that they can live in together. 

After learning their own harsh lessons about life and loss, the two will be brought together again in Neo Verona. Now ready to lead the people to a new future, Juliet returns to give the city a new birth while Romeo and Tybalt have revenge on their minds. In the middle of all of this, Juliet will finally learn the truth about the mysterious Escalus and the one who keeps watch over it. Always remember though, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy and this is no exception.

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An amazingly above average adaptation of the William Shakespeare classic!   

The Story

This isn’t the Shakespeare that you read growing up. Taking place on the floating city of Neo Verona, fourteen years ago the Capulet family ruled the city in peaceful times. Seeking power, the Lord Montague murdered the entire family and everyone associated with them to take power. Ruling the city with an iron fist, the Capulet family was smeared and forced from the minds of citizens. In the uprising, the only daughter of the Capulets managed to escape with a small handful of her servants going into hiding within the city where she lives as boy named Odin while Montague sends out squad after squad, kidnapping girls that they suspect might be Juliet. 

Hiding in the theater of an eccentric playwright (William Shakespeare, perhaps you’ve heard of him?), Juliet comes to her sixteenth birthday never knowing about her true past. On this birthday, Juliet finally learns the truth about her history and the birthright that is hers to claim. Thrust into the position of reclaiming power from the evil house of Montague and restoring her family name, life becomes even harder when Juliet meets and falls in love with Romeo the son of Montague.

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Voice Actor J. Michael Tatum

So, as promised, here is the interview that I conducted with Funimation voice actor J. Michael Tatum at SakuraCon. In the interview, Michael talked to me about the premieres of both ‘Heroic Age‘ and ‘Romeo x Juliet‘, some of his previous roles and the challenges he faced as a writer, actor and director in both series.

~ So I’m sitting here with voice actor J. Michael Tatum at SakuraCon 2009, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with me. So have you been enjoying yourself so far? This is your first SakuraCon isn’t it?

J. Michael Tatum (JMT): This is my first SakuraCon. It’s actually my first time in Seattle and I am having a great time! I came to this con with Joel McDonald, who’s done a lot of great stuff, and this is his first con. And it’s so much fun to be with him while he’s taking it all in because he’s just so impressed with everything. This is a party; this doesn’t feel like work at all.

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Another weekend has come to a close and it’s time for another con wrap-up. SakuraCon 2009 set new attendance records with all early estimates from staff members falling north of 20K. Navigating the con this year was vastly easier meaning that I have a vast amount of panel updates for everyone…

Day 1 of SakuraCon was all about the dub premiere of Heroic Age from Funimation. Hosted by J. Michael Tatum and Joel McDonald, the premiere seemed largely well received from the audience in attendance. A space opera that pits a young boy who has raised himself on a desert planet against the universe, the story seemed almost hard to follow at most points however. One of the more humorous moments of the premiere was during the start of episode three when a collective ‘oh!’ of understanding came from the audience as the story was finally explained in more detail.

If there was something important to see at SakuraCon, Saturday was the day to see it starting with the yearly ‘State of the Industry’ panel. Moderated by Roland Kelts, the panel also featured Adam Sheehan (Funimation), Carl Horn (Dark Horse) and Philip Simon (Dark Horse). A lot of optimism came out of this panel with Sheehan noting how Funimation is releasing 17% more titles this year than they did last year. Naturally fansubs and scanlations were brought up multiple times as well as Crunchyroll.

For the most part though, the comments towards these niches were largely benign in nature. The point that seemed to be hit on the most from the panel is that it isn’t so much the downloading that hurts the industry. What really hurts the industry is when those people who download do not in turn buy legitimate copies once they become available.

Philip Simon, Carl Horn, Roland Kelts, Adam Sheehan (from L to R)

For those of you who stuck around for my Funimation live blog on Saturday afternoon, you saw that not much of anything came out of the panel. Lots of release dates are now available but in terms of announcements, fans can begin looking for Funimation titles on AnimeNewsNetwork.com starting later this spring.

Funimation Rep Adam Sheehan Riding the Speaker

A second premiere took place Saturday night with con attendees getting to hear the dub for Romeo x Juliet for the first time. This time the reaction from the audience came largely mixed with some fans enjoying the constant switches in dialogue styles while others just wanted to see more action. The one thing that many audience members seemed to agree on however is that ‘You Raise Me Up’ translated into Japanese is one of the worst anime themes in recent memory. The first box set will be released 6/24 by Funimation.

And that was basically it for SakuraCon this year. I did manage to snag an interview with voice actor J. Michael Tatum which will be posted later this week along with photos on the official MySpace page so keep checking back for those!

BUT… it’s not over yet; let’s break this down…

Attendance Estimates: over 20,000
Most Popular Cosplay: Vampire Knight, Gurren Lagann
Most Surprisingly Underrepresented Cosplays: Death Note, Trigun
Word of the Weekend: Girugamesh!
Lamest Panel: Oddities of the Internet
Best Panel: Anime That Scarred Me for Life
Overheard at a Con: “If it’s going in my pants, it’s going on vibrate.” – My friend Jesse