What Is Techno Again?

VIZ Launches a Bustling Anime Hub

Put on your favorite weird anime face, grab a friend, and pop a squat before VIZ Media’s new VIZAnime.com—the latest in wretched hives of inappropriate prep school scum and sweat-drop villainy. Before you scamper away and leave a huge, dramatic dust cloud in your wake, remember that this anime goodness will happily hog your internet without costing you a cent.

Feast your eyes on over 400 episodes of several popular confirmed shows, which have snuggled into their new home: Bleach, Buso Renkin (new), Death Note (complete series), Hikaru No Go (new), Honey and Clover, Inuyasha (complete series) and Inuyasha: The Final Act, Nana, Naruto (complete series), Naruto Shippuden, and The Prince of Tennis (new). With new episodes set to appear fresh each week, and additional content and features scheduled, VIZ is clearly trying to bump furry-eared heads with fellow stream-ready communities such as Hulu.

Additionally, users can “follow” shows and click to be notified about upcoming episodes, rate videos, share their own profile page, and even message other fans.

“We’re committed to developing VIZ Anime as a premiere online destination, and hope to offer a real community for VIZ Media fans to interact with each other and share their love of anime,” announced Ken Sasaki, Senior Vice President and General Manager of VIZ Media. “We will also utilize the site as a means of two-way communication to better understand what our fans enjoy most and want, and how they engage with anime and manga online. With a lot of content to select from, VIZ Anime will become a favorite site to visit again and again!”

Once you contract Shin Chan, it might do just that, Ken.

Will you pour hours of your time into VIZAnime?

Tags: Anime, Ken Sasaki, Viz Media, VIZAnime
Posted in Movies/TV | 2 Comments »

Halo Gets 2D Animation Magic

Countless Halo fans have been salivating over the notion of a movie adaptation for the series, and while they haven’t been “graced” with a live-action filmmaker just yet, they have been thrown an anime-styled bone.

To those who aren’t in the first-person shooter loop (raise your hand), Halo offers a sci-fi experience centered on the story of Master Chief, a super-soldier armed with cybernetic enhancements, and his AI companion, Cortana. Its success has made it one of Xbox’s hottest sells, expanding beyond the console to the pages of graphic novels and even a handful of novels.

To deepen the strength of the trilogy, Halo Legends recently landed a Japanese release date for February 16, 2010. The movie features seven shorts from a variety of companies, such as Casio Entertainment and Studio4 C. Production I.G., also involved, employed Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) to serve as creative director, and Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed) will be directing the company’s episodes.

According to today’s press release, North America will receive the anthology on the same date as it is distributed by Warner Home Video on DVD, blu-ray, and digital formats. In addition, Casio Entertainment announced that their third episode, “The Package,” will preview exclusively on Halo Waypoint and Xbox Live tomorrow only. The episode, directed by Shinji Aramaki, follows Master Chief and four select Spartans as they infiltrate a massive Covenant fleet in order to recover a key intelligence asset. The mission will demonstrate the Spartan’s zero-gravity fighting and piloting dexterity—equal in measure to the performance of their on-ground operations.

“The Package” is scheduled to run as two parts, with the second airing Saturday, December 13. A behind-the-scenes look courtesy of Aramaki and his team will be available Saturday, December 19, and more 24-hour exclusives are planned: “Origins” Part 1 is set for January 2; the Making of “Origins” on January 9; as well as trailers of upcoming episodes.

Do you think an anime collection is a good first step? Would they be able to break the vicious video game-movie cycle with a successful Hollywood film? Seeing how movies are available to everyone, whereas the Halo video games are marketed as Xbox-exclusive, an anime seems like a good way to both interest potential new fans and test the waters for a bigger project.

For more information on Halo Legends, you can check out the movie’s official website, track updates at HaloLegends.com, and follow the franchise on Twitter at @HaloWaypoint and Facebook.

Additional screens here.

Tags: Anime, Casio Entertainment, Halo Legends, Halo Waypoint, Shinji Aramaki
Posted in Movies/TV, Video Games | 3 Comments »