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.
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.”
Our time with Chris Evans’ Captain America may very well be coming to an end. It seems like not too long ago Evans was mulling an offer to play the Marvel character in the still-very-young Marvel Studios lineup. Evans famously turned the part down a couple of times, partly because he had already done the superhero thing in Fantastic Four, and partly because the prospect of signing a then-unheard of nine-movie contract was kind of crazy—what if the movies sucked? In the end, Evans relented and starred in Captain America: The First Avenger, and he’s now cemented himself as one of the cornerstones of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—although that reign may be ending sooner than you think.
As part of a wide-ranging cover story in Esquire, Evans discusses his future with Marvel and seems to reveal that after his contract is fulfilled following Avengers: Infinity War and its untitled sequel, he’s hanging up the shield:
Settling in on the couch, he groans. Evans explains that he’s hurting all over because he just started his workout routine the day before to get in shape for the next two Captain America films. The movies will be shot back to back beginning in April. After that, no more red- white-and-blue costume for the thirty-five-year-old. He will have fulfilled his contract.
Image via Marvel
Evans didn’t sign a nine-film contract when he agreed to lead Captain America: The First Avenger, and instead negotiated it down to six films in total. With these two Avengers movies now shooting, that fulfills his contractual duties—he’s free to go (this actually makes seven Marvel movies for Evans in total, but these final two Avengers films may count as one since they’re shooting at the same time). Obviously Marvel may try to renegotiate and sign him up for more appearances in the MCU, but according to this Esquire profile he’s thinking he’s done.
Evans explains that the time consumption of the MCU prevents him from exploring as many other opportunities as he’d like, like directing and starring in very different kinds of films. After a five-month production process, month-plus promotional tour, reshoots, etc., the experience of banking just one Marvel movie eats up over a year of Evans’ time. And going at that rate since 2011 has got to be taxing.
So what happens if Evans is done? How does Marvel proceed? Well the “Captain America” mantle shifted a number of times in the comics, so it’s not like getting rid of Steve Rogers is unprecedented. We could see a rehabilitated Bucky (Sebastian Stan) take over for the MCU going forward, or maybe Anthony Mackie’s Falcon. Truth is, we have very little idea of what the MCU looks like after Infinity War and its sequel beyond the fact that Kevin Feige describes these films as a culmination of everything that’s come before. Meaning we could be in for a soft reboot of the MCU, especially since the contracts of a lot of these actors are running out.
Image via Marvel Studios
Indeed, when Robert Downey Jr.’s contract was up after Iron Man 3, he renegotiated a deal to co-star in future films that weren’t straight-up Iron Man movies. So it’s also possible that Evans re-ups for a minor or less time-consuming role in the MCU, or it’s possible he’s done for good.
Captain America: The Winter Soldierand Captain America: Civil War directors Joe and Anthony Russo are helming Infinity War and the untitled Avengers 4, which are shooting simultaneously down in Atlanta right now. The shoot is absolutely massive as they’re bringing together basically every Marvel character ever into these two films, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of story trajectory Steve Rogers takes if Evans has informed Marvel that he doesn’t intend to continue on with the character.
What do you think, folks? How should Steve Rogers exit the MCU, and who should pick up the Captain America mantle? Sound off in the comments below.
Shocking few, director James Gunn has confirmed in a new interview that Marvel Studios will (at an undisclosed point) make a Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
“There will be a Guardians 3, that’s for sure,” Gunn tells Complex, echoing comments from last year. “We’re trying to figure it out. I’m trying to figure out what I want to do really, that’s all it is. I got to figure out where I want to be, what I want to spend the next three years of my life doing. You know, I’m going to make another big movie; is it the Guardians or something else? I’m just going to figure it out over the next couple of weeks.
In addition, Gunn spoke about the addition of the Guardians to the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War, saying:
“You know listen, I don’t think we should overstate things that it is an Avengers movie, but the Guardians are a part of the cosmic universe, they’re a part of Thanos’ stories, so, they are in there, and they have, not the biggest, but, an integral part to that.”
Gunn will bring the Guardians back to the big screen with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on May 5. The film sees the return of Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax, Vin Diese as the voice of Groot, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket, Michael Rooker as Yondu, Karen Gillan as Nebula, and Sean Gunn as Kraglin. New cast members include Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Elizabeth Debicki as Ayesha, Chris Sullivan as Taserface, and Kurt Russell as Ego, the Living Planet.
Shortly after director Matt Reeves signed on to helm The Batman, a report surfaced explaining that the only way he was going to take the gig was if he got to make the movie his way. He wanted full creative control. We’ve already speculated that he would re-build the film from the ground-up and now it looks like that’s what’s actually happening. According to /Film, ‘the screenplay for The Batman is being rewritten from the ground up.”
There was already a completed screenplay in place and ready to go if Ben Affleck stayed on to direct, but it seems like that script is being thrown out the window. So, any of those rumors we’ve previously heard regarding the story of the film are no longer a part of the film.
The original script was written by Affleck, Chris Terrio, and Geoff Johns. The studio and everyone involved was said to be happy with the script and the one thing we knew about it for sure was that Batman would be facing off with Deathstroke in it.
I personally think it’s great that Reeves is starting from scratch with fresh eyes. Reeves has proven himself to be a great director and I believe he’ll actually get this production in order and make sure to give fans the badass Batman film we are all hoping for. This is good news, people! This means whatever trainwreck was in play before is now getting a fresh new start with Reeves at the helm. If there was any worry about The Batman, it’s gone now.
The movie is also being delayed because of Reeves’ commitment to finish up Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which he’ll be working on through June.
Some conservatives and Donald Trump supporters are freaking out online because there’s a new pirate station called Resistance Radio, dedicated to fighting fascism and Nazi propaganda. Only one problem: It’s fake.
Amazon announced this week that it was launching Resistance Radio as a companion program for “The Man in the High Castle”, an alt-history drama loosely adapted from the Philip K. Dick novel. The pre-recorded radio program is basically a bunch of people talking about how the Third Reich is bad and does bad things. For some, they thought that applied to America’s current president (and/or they didn’t bother actually listening to it). In response, several irate opposers flocked to Amazon’s sponsored #ResistanceRadio hashtag to complain about the station’s “liberal agenda.” Continue reading →
The Tick series, which is coming to Amazon Prime Video, has a new costume for its titular superhero. The new duds were revealed on the official Twitter page for the show with a picture of star Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians of the Galaxy, Shaun of the Dead). The pilot, which is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime, has Serafinowicz wearing an earlier version of the costume. This post marks Serafinowicz’s first week on the set of the show. Continue reading →
After many weeks of mystery, series executive producer Lauren Shuler Donner has taken to Twitter to reveal the title of FOX’s upcoming X-Men TV series, “Gifted”. Donner posted a photo of the cast at a table read for the pilot episode as well, revealing that Joseph Morgan (“The Vampire Diaries, The Originals”) has joined the cast.
The series stars Stephen Moyer, Amy Acker, Natalie Alyn Lind, Percy Hynes White, Sean Teale, Blair Redford, with Jamie Chung as the mutant Blink, and Natalie Alyn Lind as the mutant Polaris. Continue reading →
In “Marvel’s Daredevil”, a Netflix Original Series, war hero Frank Castle’s life was changed forever when his family was brutally murdered before his eyes. Taking matters into his own hands, Frank decides to avenge his family’s death by eliminating all those responsible. Lethal with his methods, Frank becomes a notorious vigilante in the criminal underworld earning the moniker, The Punisher.
Sideshow and Hot Toys are extremely excited to bring a new addition to the Hot Toys Marvel’s Daredevil collectible series and officially introduce the sixth scale Punisher collectible figure!
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