Pokemon.com, announced that the new Pokemon movie: “Pokemon: Genesect, XY” will premiere on Cartoon Network, October 19^th In the United States, With two episodes of the newest season to follow after its showing.

Tune in to find out the story behind Mewtwo’s new form and watch him fight what is perhaps the series most threateningly named Pokemon “Genesect” He’s like an insect, but only with more genocide.

Tune in to Cartoon Network on October 19th to watch Pokémon the Movie: Genesect and the Legend Awakened!
This fall, Ash, Pikachu, and friends go on their latest cinematic adventure in Pokémon the Movie: Genesect and the Legend Awakened! The movie centers on a group of Genesect who are running rampant in a bustling city and have attracted the attention of the Legendary Pokémon Mewtwo. But when these Pokémon turn on each other, our heroes must stop them all before they destroy the city!
Airing alongside Pokémon the Movie: Genesect and the Legend Awakened on October 19th is a sneak preview of the upcoming Pokémon TV season! Get a glimpse at Ash’s new adventures in the Kalos region and some of the amazing Pokémon he and his friends will encounter.
Keep checking Pokemon.com for details on the debut of Pokémon the Movie: Genesect and the Legend Awakened, coming to Cartoon Network on October 19th!

 

And as always you can find Gax-bot on Twitter @Gaxbot for more Anime news and updates.

Ladies and gentlemen we just got some fantastic news form Viz Media, get ready for a full re-release of Ranma 1/2, on Blu-ray and DVD, with Streaming Services available on Hulu, and Vizanime.com with dubbed episodes to hit Neon Alley this Fall. And here’s the the kicker, perhaps the best news of all Viz, will also be publishing the original Ranma 1/2, Manga in traditional right-to-left format starting early next year.

Old school Anime fans rejoice! Ranma is back baby, or dude depending on the weather.. I’ll be quiet now.

San Francisco, CA, September 11, 2013 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest distributor and licensor of manga and anime in North America, has announced the return of one of the genre’s most celebrated manga and anime properties – RANMA ½.

RANMA ½ is a renowned martial arts action-adventure manga (graphic novel) series created by Rumiko Takahashi. The manga series was a staple of the VIZ Media catalog for over 14 years and remains one of the company’s longest-running titles and one of the longest-running manga series in North America. VIZ Media plans to begin publishing the RANMA ½ manga series (rated ‘T+’ for Older Teens) in new 2-in-1 omnibus editions featuring the original right-to-left reading format for the first time ever in early 2014.

VIZ Media today also launches the smash-hit RANMA ½ (subtitled, rated TV-14) anime series on its VIZAnime.com streaming service as well as on Hulu. The series will debut on its Neon Alley anime channel this fall (dubbed), and will be available on DVD and, for the first time ever, Blu-ray box set editions next year.

To celebrate the return of RANMA ½, VIZ Media is planning a variety of booth activities and special programming scheduled for the 2013 New York Comic-Con, taking place October 10-13 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. More details will be announced shortly.

Here’s an older Trailer for the uninitiated.

And as always you can find Gax-bot on Twitter @Gaxbot for more Anime news and updates.

Namco Bandai is rocking the Anime gaming market right now, just look at this trailer for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2.

It just got released today in Europe but North Americans have to wait until September 3rd for a digital-only copy. This is an outrage because it affects me!

-k

Did you think we’re done with Ghost in the Shell? Oh no, things are just getting started! Production I.G, proclaimed a month ago that they want to make Ghost in the Shell as successful as Sunrise’s Gundam franchise, lets see if they can back that statement up.

The next OVA hits Japanese theaters November 30th, with Chapter two – “border:2”

you can find Gax-bot on Twitter @Gaxbot for more Anime news and updates.

Two new clips from the upcoming Space Pirate Captain Harlock movie were posted on Youtube today. Don’t look at me.. I’m not derailing the hype train I want to see this one just as much as you do.

you can find Gax-bot on Twitter @Gaxbot for more Anime news and updates.

J-Stars Victory VS., the Shonen Jump 45th anniversary crossover fighting game has added even more characters to its already then full roster with – Vegeta (Dragon Ball Z), Sasuke (Naruto Shippuden) and Zebra (Toriko) bring it up to 13 playable Characters with possibly more to come.

But It seems the line up is no longer limited to main characters but is now open to villains and rivals as well.

Also with this update I will now be able to punch Sasuke Uchiha in the face with Yusuke Urameshi on a daily basis! This has always been a dream of mine and I would like to personally thank the fine folks over at Namco Bandai for making it possible.

Speaking of Yusuke this new ad page gives a hint as to his play style. Look at the small green box in the left corner, The guy with the white hair does not mach any of the Characters listed below. I believe this is Yusuke in his Mazoku “demon form” from late in the series, possibly a power up or a special attack animation.

This kind of in depth Anime knowledge can only be fond here at BigShinyRobot.com, Take that other J-Stars Victory VS. articles!

Current Line Up

– Goku (Dragon Ball Z)

– Luffy (One Piece)

– Ichigo (Bleach)

– Naruto (Naruto Shippuden)

– Kenshin (Rurouni Kenshin)

– Toriko

– Gintama

– Kochikame

– Yusuke Urameshi (YuYu Hakusho) New

– Gon Freecss (Hunter x Hunter) New

– Vegita (Dragon Ball Z) New

– Sasuke (Naruto Shippuden) New

– Zebra (Toriko) New

You can find my last updates on the game with Trailers Here –August 22nd, and Here July 29th, And as always you can find Gax-bot on Twitter @Gaxbot for more Anime news and updates.

A night of action, sizzle reels, and a Q&A featuring special guests from design, production and voice acting – Sunday’s presentation of Cowboy Bebop – The Movie at the Aero Theater was not to be missed!

The Presentation

As part of their Summer movie series, the Art Directors Guild Film Society and American Cinematheque (sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter), brought Cowboy Bebop – The Movie to The Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California. It was a special occasion for a lot of reasons, among them that Cowboy Bebop had originally been only briefly shown in theaters in 2001 in the United States, and had barely made a little over $1 million in that run. As John Muto (Production Designer and moderator) mentioned during the introduction, Bebop may be an animated film, but it is practically indiscernible from a classic, live action film noir (albeit on Mars and with future tech). It really deserved more attention than it got in its original run. It’s wonderful and exciting and “really in a category of its own.”

The Aero is a special theater to me. Ever since I moved to Los Angeles I’ve had the chance to see three films with special presentations / Q&A’s attached (the Ray Harryhausen event stood out in particular) and each one has been a really fun time. Though it’s a bit on the older side, the theater itself is well-preserved and I have gotten to enjoy several of this summer’s events hosted by the Art Directors Guild Film Society and American Cinematheque (who also host events at The Egyptian, sister theater to The Aero).

If you haven’t watched Cowboy Bebop – The Movie yet, let me assure you that you should add it to your must-watch list somewhere near the top. My friend Luke reminded me how solid this movie was after it finished when he said, “You know, compared to most action films out right now, this is a whole lot better in many ways.” And he’s right – Bebop has such a well crafted narrative and pacing, and it really manages to pull off part-noir, part-spaghetti western, part-HK action film better than most of its live action counterparts!

The Q&A

The Q&A with Steve Blum (the acclaimed actor who voices “Spike Spiegel,” Bebop’s lead character, as well Wolverine, The Avengers, and Transformers, among many others) and Peter Ramsey (ADG Illustrator who advanced to feature Director on the award winning Rise of the Guardians) was a nice, intimate experience compared to most Q&As I’ve attended at conventions and other events. Since the theater is on the small side, you get a nice atmosphere with about a hundred devoted folks who have stayed till the end of the film and each get the opportunity to ask a question. Here are a few highlights I enjoyed:

“I saw it  (Bebop) in a little theater all by myself in Pasedena,” said one visitor.  To which Blum replied, “Well thank you sir. You bought me a bag of french fries.”

Blum (on voice acting for Bebop) “Most of the time I don’t get to see it (the scene) prior to the performance. There’s no real preparation for that, so, most of it’s either gut or Mary setting context for me, or whoever my director is at the time…For me that works because I started in anime. I didn’t have a classic acting background so I came in just matching lip flaps and matching characters to the best of my ability and it’s all instinct…”

Ramsey – “How many takes do you usually get to do to get the lip sync right, cause that’s hard!”

Blum – “We did probably more takes on this than we did in the series but generally if you can’t do it in three takes they’ll look for another actor because they’re on a time schedule, and for anime and tv shows particularly they want you to do about 40 lines an hour so.

Ramsey – “and you dont see the script before?”

Blum – “You don’t see the script beforehand and sometimes you don’t even get a preview of the scene beforehand. Basically you’re at 3 beeps and you’re going and you need to match and look at the page and look at the screen at the same time. It’s a juggling act. It’s a skill set you need to have when you’re doing this work.”

Guest – “What are all your favorite anime?”

Ramsey – “Akira, just about anything by, obviously, Miyazaki – and then I reach all the way back to childhood cause that’s where I was first exposed to it. You know… Kimba the White Lion, Ape Man, Gigantor…  all those that have the same hallmarks that I feel that most animated features do. So Miyazaki is kind of like refined to the Nth degree but yeah, I’m a huge fan of Akira and there’s a lot of similarities in the story with it and Bebop.”

Blum – “Uh, Bebop (joking). I actually haven’t watched that much anime. Like I said, I only watched Bebop about two years ago. Probably the only other anime that I watched end to end was Digimon because I was a writer for it.”

Blum – (on bad projects) – “Probably the only one I ever walked out on turned out to be Hentai… I was hired onto a thing called Project X” and I started recording and I’m this creature with all these tentacles and I’m like ‘wow this is a cool looking creature.’ All of a sudden, they show this little girl… it was really awful. I lasted maybe 10 minutes. I walked out and didn’t finish that session. I let them keep their money *laughs.*

Me – Bebop was one of the first shows to come over to get really solid localization. Was there ever a show you worked on where you got a hold of the script and realized that the adaptation dialogue was not that well written (localized)?

Blum – “Yes, several shows as a matter of fact. Probably the worst being a show called GTO. Basically we had the Japanese translation and it was not adapted for American voice actors so I walk into the room and I’m seeing a million flaps and four words and I basically wrote my part on the fly, and ad-libbed a lot of it. I haven’t watched it because I thought ‘This cannot possibly be any good,’ but the fans actually said it came out pretty good…” It was really a challenge.

Guest – “I’m just curious, what do you think in general of the ability for American animation and Japanese animation to cross over and meet somewhere in the middle?”

Ramsey – “I think there’s plenty. All we did really was a lot of us were really big fans of anime and wanted to bring some of that design sensibility into our characters and the way we were telling the story because it was a weird hybrid kind of movie that we were trying to make so anime seemed like the right fit for a fantasy/magical adventure. I think there’s a lot that’s kind of crept into American movies anyways. Pixar has a lot of influence from Miyazaki…. some of their better storytelling comes from anime and Japanese tradition. I think it’s one of those undercurrents that’s always going to be there… a lot of people are really resistant to it in America (you’re either in one camp or the other). It’s strange but I think the cross pollination is just gonna happen naturally.”

Fun trivia I learned from the Q&A – Blum has a tattoo on his arm that’s the recorded sound wave of the word “Bang” (in particular, the final line Spike says in the last episode of Bebop).

After leaving the event, I started thinking a bit more about how much I would have loved the chance to see Bebop in theaters when it originally aired in 2001. In general, it would be nice if we could get more opportunities to see anime like Bebop on the big screen. I’m always excited to see when anime films are getting a bit more exposure, and especially when they’re included in an art or design series along with major motion pictures hailed as classics and must-see movies.

My question to you – if there was one anime film you could see on the big screen, what would it be? For me, I’d love to get the chance to see Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind show up at one of my local theaters someday. As for Sunday’s event, it inspired me to look into finding more anime screen events.

Want to know more about Steve Blum? Check out the interview we did with him in 2011. 

Gax-bot, Monday, July 29th, 2013 at 6:23 pm –  “what a brother gotta do to get some some Yusuke Urameshi DLC!”

Thank you God and or Satan! My favorite Jump character has now been added to the mix.

But for those who haven’t been following, Shonen Jump is celebrating it’s 45th anniversary by teaming up with Bandai Namco to bring us one hell of a fighting game.

You can skip ahead to 2:30 for the new Character preview.

Current line up is

– Goku (Dragon Ball Z)

– Luffy (One Piece)

– Ichigo (Bleach)

– Naruto

– Kenshin (Rurouni Kenshin)

– Toriko

– Gintama

– Kochikame

– Yusuke Urameshi (YuYu Hakusho) New

– Gon Freecss (Hunter x Hunter) New

Ok.. Now I want Ultimo from Karakuridouji Ultimo.. I’m not getting him am I..?

You can find the first Article here, and as always you can find Gax-bot on Twitter @Gaxbot

Attack on Titan has really become one of the biggest Anime/Manga to hit in a long time. So much that little more then just a year in a half  after the Manga’s launch on December 2, 2011 we’re seeing a spin off series called “Before the Fall”

It will be penned by Satoshi SHIKI (Daphne in the Brilliant Blue, Kami-Kaze,) and drawn by Thores Shibamoto (Trinity Blood) I’m cautiously optimistic to see how this one turns out.

Our protagonist from what I can gather is Kyklop (Greek for cyclops, I see what you did there) a new newborn discovered in a mass of Titan vomit amongst the other body’s.*

Series hit’s shelf’s August 26th.

* Titan’s don’t need to eat to survive and don’t have digestive organs. They simply eat humans until their stomach is full and then vomit out the remains in a large clump, yes it is gorse..

Shawn Cogswell is the Anime journalist for Big Shiny Robot! You can find him on twitter @Gaxbot

A full scale Veritech VF-25 Valkyrie fighter will be on display in Yokohama Minatomirai station until September 2nd. This is a actually redisplay of from last years Macross 30th anniversary exhibit, but we can’t keep good toys like this locked up now can we?

Just look at the detail on that thing. You see kids this is why I can’t live in Japan, I just know that someday I’d do something stupid and as I’m running from the Cops in the subway I’d try to make my drunken escape in this replica robot exhibit. Good times.. that I should far away from.

#at=39

Shawn Cogswell is the Anime journalist for Big Shiny Robot! You can find him on twitter @Gaxbot