The inaugural Anime Festival Asia (AFA) will be held at Singapore’s Suntec International Convention and Exhibition Centre on November 22-23, 2008.
The festival will feature directors, producers, manga artists and creative individuals from Japan’s entertainment industries. The organisers are expecting turnout in excess of 80,000 visitors.
More information about the event available at AFA’s website; also check out some thoughts from bloggers CI, DM and IyB.
Anime and otaku culture is huge in South East Asia; there are a few notable anime events in the region, but mostly limited to cosplay fest because of the lack in contents from commercial exhibitors.
The announcement of AFA08 is certainly going to excite the anime fans; will keep an eye on this… might consider flying to Singapore if it’s creating enough hype by November, and I hope it does.
According to iF Magazine, Hollywood producer Erwin Stoff is working with 20th Century Fox to develop a live-action film adapted from popular Japanese anime “Cowboy Bebop”. [via Shrine]
Seems like Hollywood are really into making live action movies adapted from Japanese anime recently… first there was “Speed Racer”, then the “Dragon Ball” and now “Cowboy Bebop”. I wonder if the Hollywood film makers are really short of ideas or whatever… hmmm, writers’ strike perhaps.
I don’t really like the idea of adapting Japanese anime to live action movies… but if it’s becoming a trend, Cowboy Bebop is probably one of those few anime that should look great in live because of the real-to-life characters.
There are rumours that Keanu Reeves will be involved, but the speculations are probably based on the fact that Stoff is Reeves’ agent. Not many details are available yet… the production is still in early stage obviously.
Was checking some info on Dragonball (the movie)… as it was originally scheduled to release this summer; didn’t realise that it was postponed to April 2009.
Scanned image of Shōnen Jump, the Japanese magazine that published the original manga… featuring some introduction about the cast and characters (via Dbthemovie)
Dragonball movie is starring Justin Chatwin, James Marsters, Jamie Chung, Emmy Rossum, Chow Yun Fat, Joon Park and Eriko Tamura etc.
The movie created some hype when it was announced last year that Hong Kong star Stephen Chow, a renowned DB fan, would be working with Twentieth Century Fox to produce a live movie adapted from the popular Japanese anime and manga.
The initial buzz was not all positive though, as lots of the Dragon Ball fans are worried that the movie would spoil the original work. Judging from some recent developments, it seems that their worry are not entirely baseless.
I won’t say that I am a huge fan of Dragon Ball, but it was one of the first Japanese manga that I read… and I do like it. Hope that the movie will at least be watchable.
Yuko Ogura has won the 1st Japan Gravure Idol Award organised by gravure idol site ZAKZAK. The result was based on the sales of DVDs and photobooks, as well as exposure to media and appearances at public events. [via Tokyograph]
Gravure idols are Japanese models who posed primarily in bikinis and other provocative clothings for photo spreads in magazines, photobooks and DVDs. Some gravure idols would cross over into acting and singing… a few of the famous gravure idols could actually match the popularity of some A-list stars.
Below is the music video of “Onna no Ko ♥ Otoko no Ko” (オンナのコ ♥ オトコのコ; Girls ♥ Boys), a song from Yuko Ogura which was used as the ending theme for Japanese anime “School Rumble”…
Cosplay, or costume play, is a popular trend where people dressing up mimicking fictional characters from anime, manga (comics), video games and movies etc.
Japan is generally credited as the origin of cosplay, but there are no actual facts of when the cosplay culture started. The credit for coining the word ‘cosplay’ seems more apparent though… although there are a few versions on how it was created, the credit goes to Nobuyuki Takahashi when he first used the word in some Japanese magazines in 1983/1984.
Akibanana has some scanned image of the My Anime magazine released in June 1983, which is said to be where the word first appeared, written in Japanese - コスプレ (kosupure)…
“Mach Go! Go! Go!” is a 1960s Japanese anime, which is aired in US as well under the title “Speed Racer”. The live action film adaptation of Speed Racer, directed by the Wachowski brothers of “Matrix” fame, is set to premiere in May 2008.
Three videos below… the intro of the original Japanese anime, opening of the US anime, and one of the official trailers of the 2008 movie…
