Surpassing expectations and now playing and slowly opening in different countries across the globe, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed: Freedom has become a stellar hit - and has crossed the 4 Billion Yen mark at the Japanese Box Office to become the highest-grossing Gundam film in the franchise yet!
To commemorate the success of the film and showing off some new visuals to fans, a brand new key art poster featuring the Mighty Strike Freedom Gundam, Infinite Justice Gundam Type-II, Destiny Gundam Spec II, and more has been released.
Gundam Seed Freedom is now playing in theaters in Japan and will make its way to different regions who have yet to receive it soon. It arrives in Philippine theaters c/o ODEX Philippines and SM Cinema on April 13!
One of the most beloved manga and anime series from the 1990’s finally gets its long awaited first look, as Netflix’s “Geeked Week” event just premiered the eagerly anticipated live-action adaptation of Yu Yu Hakusho! This beloved 30 year old series sees the journey and rise Yusuke Urameshi as a Spirit Detective - as he joins forces with his friend Kuwabara and other allies in Hiei and Kurama as they fight the forces of evil and eventually participate in the Dark Tournament against Toguro and his team!
Check out the trailer below!
Yu Yu Hakusho starts streaming on Netflix this December 14!
One of the most iconic martial artists and actors who ever lived is being honored with his very first anime series! In celebration of the 50th anniversary of “Enter The Dragon”, the legendary Bruce Lee will be immortalized in “House of Lee” - a Japanese Anime that will feature the Dragon and founder of the martial arts style “Jeet Kune Do” as he assembles a group of Dragon Warriors before the world falls into darkness and shadow.
As reported by Deadline, the project spearheaded by the late martial artist’s own daughter Shannon as well as the Bruce Lee Entertainment group - the series is expected to hit some time in 2024. It’s a fitting testament and tribute to Lee - as his fighting style, philosophy, and character have inspired several anime like Fist of the North Star and Cowboy Bebop - and now the man himself gets his own. A teaser trailer has been released (which you can view above) and will also be debuting in select theaters playing “Enter The Dragon” to honor that film’s 50th anniversary since its release in 1973.
Get ready to get wild through the lens of Japanese animation with Harley Quinn, The Joker, and the rest of the Suicide Squad as DC, Warner Bros. Japan, and WIT Studio have premiered the first teaser trailer for SUICIDE SQUAD ISEKAI - an all-new anime series that’s coming soon and looks pretty dynamic and awesome to boot!
No release date has been announced for the new series, but check back from time to time at the official website for the anime for updates!
Set exactly twelve years after the events of Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, the Universal Century will finally get another continuation installment that was previously told in Novel form, as Bandai and Sunrise gear up for "Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash" - which centers on Bright Noa's estranged and rebellious son Hathaway as he leads a terrorist group called "Mafty" as it seeks to stop the Earth Federation from privatizing the planet for the privileged.
Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway [Full Trailer]
Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash will be the first of a planned "trilogy" of films, with the first installment getting released in Japan on July 23.
Something retro and nostalgic getting a modernized Filipino adaptation welcomes in 2020 in style!
Teased in December as a project that would bring back one of the most iconic Japanese Super Robots Philippine audiences fell in love with since the late 70's, GMA 7/ GMA Network finally pulled the curtain in New Year's Day to reveal that they are making a live-action adaptation of Toei Animation's 1977 classic anime series "Chodenji Machine Voltes V", or simply known as "Voltes V" to fans.
The Live-Action series, called "Voltes V Legacy", debuted with an Ultra-Magnetic one minute teaser - showcasing the familiar clash between Earth and the Bozanian forces, as well as a CGI makeover for Voltes V as he takes on a Bozanian Beast Fighter.
Voltes V Legacy Teaser
No release date has been given yet for "Voltes V Legacy", but expect it to be soon as details follow from GMA-7 as the year progresses. Happy New Year indeed!
After bringing their "King of Monsters" to anime movie form last year with "Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters" (aka "Godzilla: Monster Planet" and is streaming in Netflix), Toho has released the very first trailer for the follow up in the Godzilla anime trilogy called "Godzilla: The City Mechanized For Final Battle". Following the events of the first film, the human survivors who returned to Earth to reclaim the planet from Godzilla see themselves allying with natives who have lived on the planet... With the key to defeating the Big G lying with Mechagodzilla!
Godzilla: The City Mechanized For Final Battle Trailer
Godzilla: The City Mechanized For Final Battle will be released in Japan on May 18, before making its way to Netflix eventually!
It's hard to imagine that it's been exactly 20 YEARS to this day that acclaimed Anime director Shinichiro Watanabe and production studio Sunrise unleashed one of the most iconic Japanese Anime series ever produced. On April 3, 1998, Cowboy Bebop first aired on TV Tokyo - with the episode "Asteroid Blues" and introducing us to a Space Western series infused with film noir, jazz, action, and drama like no other. We got to meet the crew of the Bebop - headlined by the laid back, Jeet Kune Do practicing Spike Spiegel - a bounty hunter with a mysterious past that was slowly revealed over the 26 episodes that aired in this classic show. He was joined by his partner and best friend Jet Black, a former cop who captains the ship they use to travel around the cosmos, as well as the beautiful and seductive Faye Valentine, the tech wiz crazy kid Ed, and Ein the data dog.
Cowboy Bebop - Opening credits HD
If anything, I could say A LOT about this series as well as its spectacular soundtrack done in the vein of Jazz, Hip-Hop, and Funk as presented by Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts - but if you haven't watched an Anime and are aiming to start or find a classic - THIS IS THE ONE FOR YOU. 20 years and it still stands the test of time - the intro "Tank!" says it all.
It's not every day you get to celebrate two decades of an Japanese Anime series that influenced a generation of viewers - let alone one that was based off a popular manga and didn't quite follow the plot of that as it was still ongoing yet turned into its own spin and became a classic nevertheless. Of course, we're talking about the anime adaptation of Yasuhiro Nightow's "Trigun" - an action packed space western show that ran for 26 episodes and was animated by Madhouse. Like its source material, the series told the story of a mysterious gunslinger known as "Vash the Stampede" - who wanders around the colonized and desert like planet of Gunsmoke with a $$60 Billion Double Dollar bounty on his head. Why would some guy like that be the target of every scum and mercenary out there? That's what the series chronicles - including revealing bits and pieces of who Vash really is as well as meeting his companions in insurance girls Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, as well as the priest gunfighter Nicholas D. Wolfwood.
Now what makes this anime so badass? Why let's see and listen to the opening first before anything else:
Trigun Opening - "H.T"
That was the intro using the song "H.T", and it presents Vash as a badass. However, the anime shows more than just guns blazing. The first few episodes in fact show a "different side" to our main character than one would expect.
There's tons of life lessons and things to appreciate about Trigun - from Vash's naive and seemingly impossible mission as a pacifist to save everyone without killing, to the hopeless circumstances and grim choices those around him have to make to survive. The planet they live in is also devoid of most natural resources - with humanity relying on alien "Plants" to provide them with all the necessary water and energy they need to survive. It gets better over time - and it's turned into one of the anime classics of its time (alongside fellow 20 year celebrant Cowboy Bebop) that you can watch at your leisure and name your favorite moments from each episode. While the English dub is pretty good (with Johnny Yong Bosch of Power Rangers fame providing the voice of Vash), stick to the original Japanese dub for quality viewing and the jokes - Masaya Onasaka being THE definite voice of Vash.
With that, I celebrate 20 years of the Trigun anime with this picture of my small collection. LOVE AND PEACE BABY!!!
Holy Rising Sun, Batfans! Looks like the Caped Crusader is getting the Japanese Anime treatment for home video next year, as Warner Bros. Japan and DC Entertainment have revealed that a new Japanese produced Batman anime film called "Batman Ninja" will be coming in 2018 - with Jumpei Mizusaki of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fame directing and Afro Samurai's Takashi Okazaki handling character design. If Bleeding Cool's report gives us a glimpse of anything - it's The Dark Knight and his fellow heroes and villains travelling through time and doing battle from the present to the past in the middle ages of Japan. These are not Japanese versions of the characters - it's Batman with western and eastern sensibilities all rolled into one action packed anime package. That sounds EXCITING.
Set for release sometime this year and coinciding with the 45th Anniversary of the "granddaddy of all Super Robots", Go Nagai's Mazinger Z is getting a new 2017 animated film - and here's a short teaser (Via Newsarama) showing what fans can expect from this major comeback of the iconic Chougokin Super Robot!
Mazinger Z 2017 Teaser
The Mazinger Z animated film will hit Japanese theaters sometime this year.
Considering the immense popularity of western comics, it comes as no surprise that characters from the rich history of DC Comics would some form or way get considered for a Japanese styled anime/ tokusatsu treatment. Back in the 70's, Marvel's own webslinging hero Spider-Man got turned into a Tokusatsu TV series, and the House of Ideas even released some miniseries some years back using Manga styled drawings. DC almost gave the greenlight to that approach, but sadly it did not come to pass. Thankfully, io9 has put up some concept art of the proposals viaProject Rooftop, as illustrated by one Cliff Chiang. You can take a look at them via i09, and check out how heroes like Batman, Superman, Aquaman, and The Flash are drawn very much similar to Gatchaman, Mazinger Z, Ultraman, and Racer X!
