TheRetroCritic

Here's the trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's final (?) film The Wind Rises , which should be out early next year:

Surprised this exists? I was too. This independent short film based on the popular manga and anime series Sailor Moon was made by DGS Studios and stars Avery Danielle in the title role. I won't review it since it's a fan film but check it out. You can find more stuff on their Youtube channel and Tumblr .

From punk supergroup Osaka Popstar (John Cafiero, Jerry Only, Marky Ramone, Dez Cadena, Ivan Julian) comes a couple of anime intro songs done in their own, unique way. You can find them all on their 2006 album Osaka Popstar And The American Legends Of Punk . Of course, Youtube being Youtube, it was pretty easy to find people who made fan videos from those songs so here's Sailor Moon , first off: Now, how about some Astro Boy ? Unfortunately the video's modelled on the CG movie rather than the original series but hey, it still works really well: Alas, Shaolin Monkeys may not be a real anime series (even though it really should be) so the song didn't get its own video but here it is regardless: Besides, the Shaolin Monkeys have their own website , and in my book that means they're real. You can also find a cute little flash animation for one of the band's songs called Wicked World : More cool stuff on the band's website: osakapopst

Made in 1997 and based on the novel of the same name, Perfect Blue is one of those rare anime features which could have easily been live-action but which works so well as what it is that it's hard to picture it as anything else. A psychological thriller, Perfect Blue follows a character called Mima, the leader of a popular girl band called CHAM! who decides to retire from her music career in order to focus on trying to be a respected actress. Unfortunately, she learns that her new career is a very different, much scarier path to take which demands various un-glamorous undertakings which, she fears, might end up ruining her life. Throughout all this she is not only plagued by a creepy fan who may or may not be messing with her through the internet but also by the ghost of her old self who constantly judges everything she does and might just be driving her insane. Eventually, strange murders start occurring around her and the film world, her hallucinations, her dreams and reali

In this 21st episode, fellow film buff Jamie and I discuss movie news, anime, review a recent release ( Gravity , this time), and rewind back to more retro cinematic topics. Guess which anime series was being referenced in this week's Big Game  "I Shat Myself"  and get a shout-out in the next episode! You can email your answer here:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #AnimeMonth retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

Based on Masamune Shirow's popular manga, Appleseed  is a sci-fi animated feature set in a post-World War III test city called Olympus, a utopia peopled with humans, cyborgs and bioroids and run by some kind of super computer. Kinda like a more cyberpunky, better version of Elysium . The film follows an ESWAT team (Enhanced SWAT) as they try to stop some cyborg known as A.J. Sebastian who seems to be responsible for more and more terrorist attacks within Olympus. As it turns out, he might not be working alone and there's even some suspicion that there might be a traitor within the police department itself. Then again, there's also the growing feeling that this utopia might not exactly be all that perfect either so the morals of this whole affair are blurred throughout. You could compare the film to something like Ghost In The Shell but it's certainly much lighter in tone and in content. The film does a good job at setting up its concept but it doesn't really

The first attempt at a Dragonball movie was always going to be a disappointment, especially in the hands of a Hollywood studio. Unless they were willing to spend an Avatar -style budget on a movie adaptation of the classic manga/anime series, the project was basically doomed to fail from the start. And so we waited years and years for... Dragonball Evolution . Taking the basic Goku-centric plot of Dragonball and taking out of it key elements and dozens of iconic characters, Dragonball Evolution was about as lazy and generic of an adaptation as you could have possibly expected. Justin Chatwin, known previously for his part as Tom Cruise's rebellious son in War Of The Worlds , plays Goku and, although he's likeable enough, he's just not given anything tangible to work with and that ends up affecting his performance quite a bit. Yes, he's strong-willed and always hungry but he's pretty skinny, his haircut's nowhere near what it should look like and he's

Based on the anime series (and the manga) also known as Samurai X , Rurouni Kenshin is the new Japanese live-action adaptation starring Takeru Sato as the titular former killer with a guilty conscience. The film follows Himura Kenshin, an ex-assassin who participated in the Bakumatsu war and has since given up his killing ways, and his name (Battosai), instead going around offering help to anyone that needs it. His sword has a reversed blade and he's not looking for a fight: he's perfectly happy just being a wanderer. Unfortunately, some guy is going around calling himself Battosai and killing policemen in his name for some weird-looking, cruel businessman with a pet rabbit. No, I'm not making that up. And thus, trouble soon finds Kenshin and, whether he wanted to deal with it or not, he finds that he kinda has to. He meets a girl called Kamiya, who owns a small dojo, and it's when that dojo gets ransacked by thugs, that he starts intervening. Kamiya's big thi

Seto No Hanayome (aka My Bride Is A Mermaid ) may not sound like the best show seeing as it's mermaid-themed and brings up all kinds of Splash flashbacks, or "Splashbacks", if you will. Splash was a fun comedy but an entire anime series like that? Hardly sounds worth it. And yet, here is a guilty pleasure I don't even feel all that guilty about enjoying! The plot sees a young dude, Nagasumi, almost drown before getting saved by a mermaid called Sun. All should be well that ends well except that humans aren't meant to know about mermaids, mermen, all that crap, so Nagasumi is brought in to meet Sun's family, who are basically mobsters, and he is given the choice to either die or marry Sun. It's a really random sitcom plot but boy do they make the most of it! We follow Nagasumi and Sun as they try to make their impromptu engagement work and Sun's father goes ape shit trying to resist the urge to destroy Nagasumi. Along the way, the couple get in

Growing up in France, I was exposed so several delicious things: croissants, the word "merde", American B-movies and Japanese anime. Every anime series was, of course, dubbed and entire new opening title sequences were designed to the sound of unique French tunes which usually had nothing to do with the original Japanese songs. Usually this was thanks to a TV show called Le Club Dorothée . Some are corny, some are hilarious, some are brilliant, some are just bad, some are combinations. Here are my personal favourites: 10 JULIETTE JE T'AIME (MAISON IKKOKU) Let's start with a guilty pleasure, shall we? Juliette Je T'Aime 's opening theme was nothing epic or particularly exciting but it was catchy and you'll find it hard to meet a French person who doesn't remember, at the very least, the chorus. Sung by French anime theme mastermind Bernard Minet, it's corny but it's cute and puts you in a good, cosy mood before the show, wha

Based on the classic manga (and the anime series) of the same name, City Hunter was a Hong Kong comedy starring Jackie Chan. Made in 1993, it tried to stay true to the spirit of the manga while being very much a Chan comedy. The result was a very, very silly flick which certainly felt like a Jackie Chan film but not so much like a City Hunter film. For one thing, Chan looks nothing like the character and, as good as he is in this, it's impossible to picture him as the young, tall, broad-shouldered hunk Ryo Saeba's meant to be so you just have to accept him as Jackie Chan. The plot also takes liberties to say the least, despite its very simplistic good guys vs bad guys storyline. Whereas the anime had very much a dark, film noir tone with its moody visuals and cool soundtrack, this City Hunter looks very 90's and goes for purely generic slapstick action comedy antics, nothing special. I mean, as a cartoonish comedy, it's a fun film, don't get me wrong. I do lik

In this special, anime-themed 20th episode, fellow film buff Jamie and I discuss movie news, answer a couple of listener emails, review a recent release ( Thor: The Dark World , this time), and rewind back to more retro cinematic topics. You can email any questions you'd like us to answer on the show here:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #AnimeMonth retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

Here's an old anime series I used to watch back in the day: Growing up in France, I knew Yume Senshi Wingman as, simply, Wingman and, just like most Japanese anime series shown in France in the 90's, it had its own France-ified opening title sequence! Brace yourselves, here it is: So good lol Review coming soon.

Here's one Studio Ghibli film which was basically completely different than what I expected. And, seeing as it's one of the only films from the studio which didn't do all that well at the Japanese box-office, I'm guessing I wasn't the only one to expect something different from it. From looking at it vaguely, I thought My Neighbors The Yamadas would follow one goofy family as they embark on some crazy adventures. In fact, this is a much more artistic and reflective creation more akin to a deadpan comic strip. The humour isn't cartoonish at all, it's actually pretty subtle and restrained. Here we have an ensemble character study about everyday Japanese family life in which everyone looks really weird, like caricatures, and which promotes an overall cosy, poetic vibe. Our focus is entirely on this one family as we pop in and out of their lives depending on what mini-theme the movie wants to tackle. It can be about something really small, like the mother

A live-action Kiki's Delivery Service movie?! For real? Yup. Apparently it's happening and it should be out next year! It'll be directed by Takashi Shimizu, known for horror film  Ju-On: The Grudge (and its lesser sequels), and will star Fuka Koshiba as the titular witch. The film will be based on the novel and will essentially re-tell the story told in Studio Ghibli's classic animated feature. There's a teaser trailer (see below) but it shows nothing so I shall keep y'all updated should anymore news about the production arise! Any thoughts on why this movie's being made? Are you looking forward to it? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @TheRetroCritic ;)

Back when I first heard about this one, I kinda just wrote it off as a lesser Studio Ghibli effort purely because it sounded a bit too silly and, not being one of Hayao Miyazaki's very own works, I didn't feel the need to actually sit through it properly. I was an idiot. The Cat Returns is actually tons of fun and way more charming than I expected. Yes, the premise is ludicrous and the first time you see a cat stand up on its back legs and talk it's... insane but the film knows it, which is why Haru, our main character, lives through this whole mad ordeal completely wide-eyed and practically in shock. Anne Hathaway, who plays Haru in the English dub, does a terrific job at capturing those reactions. The plot sees Haru save a cat's life before being introduced to some hidden Cat Kingdom and being rewarded with a place on the throne if she agrees to marry the Prince. She is advised by an unknown voice to find something called the Cat Bureau where she befriends a b

I'd never heard of Cobra , the manga or the anime series, before watching this feature so imagine my confusion when presented with all the random space madness this little goofy flick had to offer! Following the exploits of Cobra, some blond, cigar-smoking dude with a "Psycho-Gun" embedded in his arm who goes around fighting evil space Guilds or whatever, Space Adventure Cobra is a surreal action flick that's kind of a cross between some cheesy 70's cop show, Zardoz and Star Wars . Ok, maybe not Zardoz, so much. Actually, the character of Cobra was inspired by French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, who was mostly famous in the 70's for OTT action thrillers. Cobra's partner is a mouthless robot gal called Lady Armaroid, she's usually in charge of piloting the ship, secretly lusting after Cobra and exposition dialog. There's an obvious charm to Space Adventure Cobra : it's corny as hell but in a good way. You've got a tough guy who smokes cig

Based on an ongoing manga from 2006, the anime series of Nichijou followed a group of high school students as well as a robot girl, a child scientist and a talking cat as they embarked on very small but very significant (to them, anyway) random situations which they handled, more often than not, rather strangely. Early on, I wasn't sure if Nichijou even had a story or an arc to it. The first few episodes of the series really prioritising slapstick goofiness and emphasising the over-the-top reactions of the characters to certain minor events like bumping into someone or dropping a tiny sausage. It feels like a very cartoonish comic strip, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The humour is a wacky mix of observational, sarcastic and OTT slapstick with the occasional mini slice-of-life "moment" breaking up the episode. Every so often, you get a quiet, detailed but blurry shot of a street as a breeze moves a drape or something like that, before they cut to the ne