Re: Re: New Area 88 Anime
Dash no Chris said:
I've seen the first 2 eps so far. I thought the CG animation for the planes in ep 2 was much better than in ep 1 (takeoffs and landings in the first ep looked simply awful, IMO). I realize that, being a TV series, it's not going to have the same budget for CG aircraft that you'd find in Macross Zero or Sentou Yousei Yukikaze, but some of the stuff in ep 1 was just... eeyew. Much improved in ep 2.
This could be argued to a point, though I have yet to see the new AREA 88 anime, the bar has been raised on TV-Series using animation with C.G. *If it doesn't look as "Smooth" as
Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex does... often making the movie look like a POS, then that's not excusable on behalf of the animators but rather them just being lazy to sell a product off it's name. Kind of reminds me of what happened to the whole
Bubblegum Crisis 2040 thing. *2040's character's were a lot "darker" and more edgy, and the music a lot more gritty, but the animation quality just had that Post-Evangelion "rushed" bi-shojo look to it, and I still prefer the original late 80's-early 90's
BGC.
If you really want to support the series -- and you don't want to support organized crime in Hong Kong -- I'd urge you to steer clear of the VCDs and HK DVDs. Either pick it up on R-2 DVD or wait for the inevitable R-1 license. In the meantime, there's at least one fanclub doing fansubs of the series, and the translation's pretty good from what I've seen so far.
I hear you on this, but are we to assume that AREA 88 is ever going to get the push it deserves? John over at CPM/U.S. Manga Corps is a really cool guy, but the company is just now about to (after sub licensing VOTOMS to Nu Tec Digtial for DVD) re-release
Armored Trooper VOTOMS on a "Perfect DVD" set, and they've had that license since '96, and we still haven't seen the other OAVs of:
Roots of Ambition
Unknown Red Shoulder
Battle of Heterogeneous Species
The Heretic Saint / Shinning Heresey
...within the VOTOMS world. *Now CPM/USMC has had the rights to
AREA 88 forever and only released ONE legit DVD of it, which was the first episode and never bothered to release the other two on DVD. Why I'll never know. *But I think it has more to do with the fact that other than Shin Kazama originally himself being somewhat Bi-Shojo, the demographics buying Japanimation/Anime overall are a lot more fickle and low brow than most people care to admit. Today Anime isn't something you have to fight to watch, you don't spend literally months tracking down some enigmatic NERD who's got that 4th Generation copy of something or another, or seeking Anime Fan Group Meetings. Now it's as simple as downloading off of BIT TORRENT or going to SunCoast or BEST BUY. *Thus unless
Shin AREA 88 is blowin' up the screen (hopefully sticking to the Manga if it's that long), then I doubt seriously either CPM/USMC or anyone else will pick it up for release over here. We're still wating on
MACROSS ZERO and many many other titles. *Maybe the Bi-shojo movement will get the anime released here there though, since things are more and more femminized today and people like that shit. *Personally I still want my anime thought provoking and with characters (save Shin) that are raw and gritty.
MERCENARY X99
).