Original Ghost In The Shell Anime Actors Dubbing The Live-Action Movie In Japan

The original Ghost in the Shell voice actors will be once again reprising their roles in the upcoming Hollywood film’s Japanese language dub.

According to Natalie, Akio Otsuka will be voicing Batou as did in the 1995 Ghost in the Shell anime feature, its 2004 sequel Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence and Stand Alone complex. (Otsuka has also been the Japanese voice of Metal Gear’s Snake.)

Likewise, Koichi Yamadera will be returning as the voice of Togusa, while Atsuko Tanaka will voice Scarlett Johansson’s character.

Tanaka, of course, voiced Motoko Kusanagi in the 1995 anime feature as well as through Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Since Johansson’s character is apparently named “Mira,” Tanaka’s performance might cause confusion? Maybe not.

“It’s been a while since they’ve played these characters,” says Mamoru Oshii, director of the 1995 anime film. “I definitely want them to deliver performances they see fit. They’re all pros, so there’s nothing to worry about, and I can only say that this is something to look forward to.”

Movies get both dubbed and subtitled releases in Japan. But in the past few years, Japanese moviegoers have been increasingly complaining about the folks movie studios have brought in for dubs. Instead of hiring proper voice actors and actresses, distributors have brought in whichever celebrity is currently popular.

Because of this, the Japanese dub releases of some movies have suffered (The Avengers, for example), which is explains why Oshii says there is nothing to worry about and mentions how Otsuka, Yamadera, and Tanaka are all pros. That they are.

Undead Cafe Game Necrobarista Was Made Out Of Frustration With The State Of Anime

Recently, a game called Necrobarista caught my eye. It’s about a cafe the dead return to for one last cup of coffee, and it’s got an art style that screams Persona. That’s no coincidence. Necrobarista’s developers told me the game arose from their “love-hate relationship” with anime and visual novels.

“Back in the ‘90s, you had a bunch of very experimental shows,” lead developer Kevin Chen told me during an interview at GDC. “I’m not saying there aren’t any right now, but the industry at the time was still trying to find its place. That has slowed down in the past five years. Big companies have said, ‘OK, this is the best way to generate good, steady revenue.’ That’s led to a stagnation, I feel. Hayao Miyazaki commented on this. He talked about how it’s become a very circular, almost inbred kind of industry.”

“We’re big anime nerds, but we have this kind of love-hate relationship with anime,” he added. “We love stuff from the ‘90s and early ‘00s. Cowboy Bebob, FLCL, Gurren Lagann. We wanted to do something that was different—both a throwback to old stuff we love, but also with its own direction.”

Necrobarista is, at its core, a narrative game that owes a lot to anime and Japanese visual novels. Its main story takes place over the course of one night, beginning with a bit I got to play where three main characters bicker over the power in the cafe going out. Unlike many visual novels, however, the game is fully 3D, allowing for a dynamic camera, animated characters, and a general sense of style you don’t usually get from this sort of game. The scene I played was brief, but it was full of clever dialogue and intrigue.

It goes deeper than technical bells and whistles, though. The Necrobarista team wants to tell stories that are human first and foremost, with the fantastical element as more of a conduit for interesting, authentic moments.

“There are lots of series about power fantasies or fan service [in anime],” said Chen. “Those can be done well and executed well, but they’ve become over-saturated.”

“Our cast has a very diverse age range,” he continued. “Ashley’s a little girl in primary school. Mattie, our main character, is 23. We have other characters who are quite old, and others who are quite young. This is a setting that helps facilitate that. You get a lot of stuff you wouldn’t normally see in anime. We wanted to tell very human stories about real people in semi-fantastical backdrop.”

Oh, and about that setting: while Necrobarista is heavily inspired by Japanese media, it’s set in Melbourne, Australia, where the game’s development team is based. It might seem odd to set a game like this there, but Chen and co want the game to be rooted in a sense of time and place, ala Japanese games like Persona and Western games like Kentucky Route Zero.

“From the architecture to the way people dress and talk, even to the food they serve in the cafe—all of that is important,” said Chen. “When you play Kentucky Route Zero, you really feel like the creators of the game knew that region. You get narrative segments where you, like, walk into a fishing shop, and they talk about a little aquarium with a dead fish inside. There’s so much detail. That’s the kind of stuff we want to put into our game.”

The Necrobarista team is drawing on a pretty wide range of influences, but there’s no denying the promise of what they’ve put together so far. They hope that, when the game comes out later this year, it’ll strike a cord.

“I won’t be so presumptive to say that we’ll change [anime and visual novels], but as fans, we want to create content for other fans who want something different,” said Chen. “And we think there are anime fans out there with this same love-hate relationship.”

Jennifer Connelly will be the villain for Alita: Battle Angel

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Jennifer Connelly will play a villain in Alita: Battle Angel, the James Cameron-produced film based on manga “Battle Angel Alita”, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Connelly, known for her roles in films like LabyrinthRequiem for a Dream, and House of Sand and Fog won an Academy Award for her performance in A Beautiful Mind in 2001. Continue reading

Voltron Maquette by Sideshow Collectibles 27-Inch Maquette

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A couple of months ago Sideshow Collectibles unveiled their badass Voltron Maquette. As I understand, that was still a work in progress, but now Sideshow has officially announced the figure which stands at a whopping 27 inches tall with a 14.5 inch wing diameter.

They’ve also released some additional details like the fact that it’s made up of 106 individual polyresin, metal, and premium grade PVC pieces, and it has eyes that light. Continue reading

Proving That This is Actually Happening, Paramount Releases First Image Of Scarlett Johansson in ‘Ghost In The Shell’

The western adaptation of the anime awesomeness that is Ghost in the Shell has officially entered production with its first still from the film. Scarlett Johansson is not exactly busting out of her Black Widow stereotype, by still proving to be a stone-cold killer in bringing this comic book series to life!

The first released image shows us Johansson’s Major Matoko Kusanagi, the protagonist of the film and a one-of-a-kind human-cyborg hybrid. Her role in the movie is to investigate the death of an arms dealer, one year after the end of WWIV. Continue reading

CN’s Toonami will co-produce 12 new episodes of FLCL

Haruhara Haruko

The official Facebook for Adult Swim’s Toonami block announced on Thursday that it will co-produce 12 new episodes of FLCL with Production I.G. The 12 episodes will be a sequel to the 2000-2001 original video anime, and will be split into two seasons. The show is slated for late 2017 to early 2018. Series creator Kazuya Tsurumaki will also return for the new seasons, which will air on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block. Continue reading

First Photo and Poster The GHOST IN THE SHELL Theatrical Play

Did you know that there was a theatrical play in production based on the Ghost in the Shell anime and manga? Apparently the GiTS stage play recently opened up in Tokyo.

It’s called Ghost in the Shell Arise: Ghost is Alive. It’s an officially licensed play. I’m curious to see what the production value is like and how the story is told. Continue reading

New Live-Action Ghost in the Shell Details Revealed

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A new screenwriter has been brought in to do an overhaul on the live-action version of Ghost in the Shell, says the Hollywood Reporter.

The new writer is Jonathan Herman, who wrote this year’s Straight Outta Compton, the film about hip hop group N.W.A. Like for Ghost in the Shell, Herman was brought in to do a rewrite on that film after it had been tackled by several other writers.

Hollywood Reporter also dropped a few hints about the plot of Ghost in the Shell, which is set to open March 31, 2017: Continue reading

James Cameron Hires Robert Rodriguez to Direct ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL


James Cameron has been wanting to get his big screen live action adaptation of Alita: Battle Angel off the ground for a very, very long time. Then he started work on all those Avatar sequels which have him tied up over the next several years. He’s obviously not going to have the opportunity to direct Alita: Battle Angel anytime soon, so he and his producing partner Jon Landau are going to hire someone else to do it. Continue reading