During the few months I lived in Japan, I grew really fond of a kids’ cartoon called Nintama Rantarou. It was about a bunch of kids in a ninja training school. Even though I only understood about one or two words per episode, I really fell in love with the show.
Fast-forward to Summer 2011, and it’s now a live-action film. I hope HOPE HOPE Warner Brothers Japan has the foresight to release an English-subtitled version on DVD in the US in the next few months.
The same thing has happened with the Anime series Death Note which was fan-fucking-tastic. The photos from the film definitely look very much in keeping with the series, not sure if it’ll be as good though. I’ve just bought it as a present for a friend, hopefully he’ll be able to give me the thumbs up or not.
Whew. For a second I thought that someone had fished the live action adaptation of Akira out of development Hell. It needs to stay in development Hell (at one point it had Keanu Reeves attached to play Kaneda. No, that’s not a joke.)
I don’t read Japanese, so I’m having a hard time finding a video trailer on that site, Homie. Fortunately, my google fu is awesome!
I hope you’ll let us know if you find that DVD release in a few months. This movie looks like a lot of fun!
This seems to be a trend, too. A couple of months ago I picked up Goemon and it was about a thousand times better than the anime!
I heard recently that there was a live-action movie planned of my favourite anime of all time, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor…has anyone else heard this rumour?
Ok, if no one else will say it, I will. THE NAME OF THE MOVIE IS, wait for it…
NINJA KIDS!
I Tweetered about this weeks ago because I was so delighted and confused to find out it’s a Takashi Miike movie. It’s so completely different from what he’s normally known for. I saw his most recent movie, 13 Assassins, twice in the theater, it was outstanding (here’s the trailer for that).
I don’t know that the Ninja Kids trailer is all that exciting, but I’ve heard that it’s a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to it.
Here’s a version with English subtitles:
FWIW, I e-mailed Warner Brothers DVD and asked if there were plans to release the movie in English in the US. I await a response (it’s Sunday after all).
Here’s a clip of the original Japanese cartoon. The fat kid at 0:08 is Shinbei, my favorite.