Archives for category: Kenji Kawai

Eden of the East trailer, Oasis to provide music

March 19, 09 //
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Well, I never thought I’d find myself talking about aging, over-rated pub-rockers Oasis on this site, but here we go – powerhouse studio Production IG announced today that their highly anticipated anime show Eden of the East will feature music from the band. To be precise Falling Down, a track off their Dig Out Your Soul recent album, will be used over the opening credits. Far more interesting to me than the music itself is the business wranglings that must have taken place behind the scenes to secure this sort of deal. Are Production IG so recession proof that they can splash out the cash for this kind of deal? Or are Oasis’ record company really desperate to drum up some interest in the Asian markets? I don’t, for a second, believe that the Gallagher brothers are anime fans, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.
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The Sky Crawlers (2008): Review

March 13, 09 //
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If you’ve read this site before, or even just glanced over it’s archives, then my appreciation and admiration of director Mamoru Oshii is clearly laid out. As such it would seem not only redundant but also somewhat self indulgent to elaborate further on my love of his tense political sci-fi dramas Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor, or his low budget, live action masterpiece Avalon. Ever since his latest feature film The Sky Crawlers was first announced I have been gripped with excitement and anticipation – although, as always, resigned to the long wait us western fans must endure before we are granted an audience. This week that wait finally ended, and putting aside my deep rooted fanboy allegiances for just under two hours, I was able to sit down and see if anime’s most esteemed auteur could still deliver the goods.
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Takashi Iwai – Manga Headphones Catalogue & Guidebook (新・萌えるヘッドホン読本) (2008)

January 6, 09 //
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I know a lot of people really dug the Anime Guide to Headphones image I posted up a few months ago, myself included, so I couldn’t resist picking up the book it was meant to promote when I stumbled across it in Mandarake.

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Yet again – as with all these Japanese artbooks – it’s beautifully printed. Each double page spread features a page of Japanese text and diagrams about a particular brand and model of headphones opposite a large, full colour illustration of a girl modeling them.
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Ghost in the Shell 2.0 (2008): Review

January 1, 09 //
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Some of you might remember my concern back in June when I first reported on Production IG’s planned visual update to Oshii’s 1995 classic Ghost in the Shell. Well, the Blu-ray of GiTS 2.0 (not to be confused with GiTS 2: Innocence, which will also be referred to a lot in this piece) hit Japanese stores a few weeks ago, and via sources that I’m not at liberty to identify I have managed to get my hands on a preview copy – months before the (still yet to be confirmed) UK release. So it was that I found myself, on the first morning of 2009, sitting down to watch one of my favourite movies of all time again, but instead of being filled with the usual satisfying feeling of anticipation, I was gripped with something nearer to dread.
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