I’ll just get the “business” part over before hitting on today’s topic, if you don’t mind.
Yay!!! My comments finally work! I freakin reuploaded everything only to find out I did some disastrous boo-boo in setting up my page links, causing my comment dilemma. I’m over it. Moving on…
Congratulations to Lakisha for being the ebook winner at my “Grand Opening”! If you all are interested, I wrote everyone’s name down on a folded peice of paper and then had my younger son pick from a hat. Yep, that’s how it’s done.
Now on to the topic of the day:
Are anime stories better than Hollywood?
I just purchased and watched Avatar for the second time and I’m telling you, if there weren’t some MAJOR anime themes in that movie, well, slap me silly if you can find me.
I think to start off this discussion, we need to look at what anime stories have made it to Hollywood (and I may not list them all, I’m a bit delirious from figuring out my comment problem, LOL)
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Astro Boy
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Speed Racer
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Transformers
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DragonBall Z
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Avatar – The Last Airbender (due out this summer, I believe)
Ooo, who slipped that Dragon Ball Z Yaoi pic in there???
There are talks of bringing more over here for live action film every day (take a look at some of my recent tweets…). I can think of “Ghost in the Shell” and I’ve recently heard something about “Bleach”! Yeah, that’s right.
Though I’d really like to see them try and do Full Metal Alchemist – who’d play Edward Elric? Hmmm, maybe that dude who played Jasper in Twilight? Oh, Oh, kinky thoughts…Roy could be Gackt with his new black hair;)
So why are all these big Hollywood film makers turning to anime? Is it that they’ve run our of murder mystery with cops, alien invasion, cutesy romantic comedy ideas? I think so. And I also think the story lines in anime are quite well developed and out of the box, so to speak. Maybe it’s the Japanese culture and the exotic background that makes for such great story fodder. Now if we could only avoid some of the Hollywood gone anime disasters, like Dragon Ball Z… If only Hollywood would find a way to keep what’s so special in our anime special and not glam up the characters or reduce the intensity of the plot and let us in America see the drama, the heartache, the loyalty exhibited by our anime characters and not water them down for our namby-pamby American audience. Let’s show them what real anime is about and take it out of the “comic book geek” realm into the real worlds the anime depict. I do have a lot of hope for Avatar – The Last Airbender. But so help me God if they make that movie in any way cartoonish – and you know what I mean (*cough*, Speed Racer), I’ll shave my head. Okay, maybe I won’t, but I’ll do something rash, like write yet another blog about how Hollywood sucks. So there. Make it like Avatar, the movie, please…
I’m leaving a comment – BECAUSE I CAN!
*happy dance*
I see anime influence in a quite a few movies. The Coen brothers have said The Matrix was very heavily influenced by anime. If Western filmmakers are smart, they will tap into the coming-of-age otaku generation and look to Japan for ideas. Not to mention that age group will come to dominate the movie market on both the production and consumer end in the next ten years. Hey, I can’t wait! (Especially if we see some yaoi in there somewhere! LOL)
As a fan of Anime I have to say that I prefer anime to hollywood movies. I’m not saying that I don’t like hollywood movies it just that I feel that anime offers more in the way of depth to their plot, characters, and storyline. Normally I don’t cry during movies, but I found a lot of anime were i’m crying my eyes out at the end because the story is so emotional. But I’ve never once cried at a hollywood movie. I also think the length helps as well because anime is longer so you get to really know the characters and find out about their back story and may I dear say get attached to them, so if say a character you love dies you feel heartbroken, or at least that how i feel. Hollywood on the other I’m getting tired of the same type of stuff I see. In a year I might find two or three movies that I actually want to see. I just feel bored with the same old same old. One final note before I wrap up Avatar the last airbender sucked ball. I was horrible and a wast of my time. Anime you keep rocking and Hollywood maybe you should take some notes.
P.S Hollywood when you do make movies off of anime DO YOUR RESEARCH FIRST AND KNOW THE ANIME YOUR TRYING TO MAKE.
Ok I’ll get off my soap box now.