Fate/Stay Night to Adapt Unlimited Blade Works – Kaze
After much anticipation from fans, it has finally been announced that the Fall 2014 reboot of the Fate/Stay Night anime will be adapting the Unlimited Blade Works route. Since the adaptation will be done by everyone’s beloved studio Ufotable, there is little doubt and much hype about the quality to be expected. While UBW is an enjoyable story when done right, it did leave many fans disappointed at the lack of Heaven’s Feel, which, if nothing else, is most relevant of the routes as a sequel to Fate/Zero. That is, until the live stream announcement ended with a Heaven’s Feel movie trailer. Although a questionable decision as HF is much longer than UBW and thus hardly suited to be contained in a single movie, there is much speculation about the prospect of a series of movies. Ufotable has proven themselves capable of doing justice to Nasuverse adaptations, so hopefully they continue to meet fan expectations.
Dub Cast Announced for The Tale of Princess Kaguya – TWWK
I’m not a dub fanatic, except when it comes to Studio Ghibli releases. The dubs for Ghibli films, even those not directed by Hayao Miyazaki, are always glorious, and The Tale of Princess Kaguya looks to be no exception. Headlined by Chloe Moretz, the release will also feature the voices of James Caan, Lucy Liu and, get this, DEAN CAIN. Very nice.
I’m frankly just looking forward to the film itself. I’m maybe as big of a fan of Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, My Neighbor the Yamadas, Only Yesterday) as I am of Hayao Miyazaki, and it’s wonderful to know he’s finally directed another Studio Ghibli work. I can’t wait for the release stateside. It’s scheduled to hit theaters in the U.S. this fall.
When Marnie Was There Has Disappointing Opening – TWWK
Let’s double dip with the Ghibli news! You’d expect any Studio Ghibli film to top the Japanese box office upon release, right? I guess the new norm is that a box office hit for Ghibli is only guaranteed when it’s directed by Hayao Miyazaki, as the company’s latest offering, When Marnie Was There, came in third place during it’s opening weekend (July 19-20). It had to settled behind the latest Pokemon movie and Maleficent (really?).
This doesn’t bode well for the historic company. Marnie was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, whose last directorial effort, Arrietty, debuted in first place in it’s opening weekend. Ghibli’s previous release, the aforementioned Kaguya, took a heavy loss in the box office, even with Takahata at the helm. With Miyazaki retired (again), it’ll be interesting to see if the company can weather the storm, financially and creatively.
Alliance for Raising Children Sings “Let it Go” – Japesland
Okay, so this is hardly anime-related. However, it is Japan-related… and it is animation-related! Merely a few weeks ago, Japanese non-profit organization, Alliance for Raising Children, created a parody music video of “Let it Go” (something that seems to be all the rage these days, not only in the United States but also in Japan). While not important in the least, the video shows how some of the bigwigs were willing to put themselves out there and poke fun at themselves in order to encourage Japanese parents to stop stressing themselves out over parenting (and to hopefully improve the declining birth rate). Check out the strangely hilarious video below.
The UBW movie was pretty bad from what I remember of it, so I guess it could use the reboot. I just hope they don’t repeat the same mistakes with the HF movie.
And there’s also the Heaven’s Feel movie too, looks like a good year for Type-Moon 🙂
Saying TM has a good year is just giving them an excuse to put off Tsukihime/Mahoyo even more 🙁