Marvel Anime?

Yesterday at San Diego Comic Con Jeph Loeb announced on G4 the arrival of Marvel anime (exclusive to G4, of course). Not sure how to feel about this. It's produced by Mad House, so there's a credible animation studio behind it. The fact they made four series at once makes me wince though because it means that in terms of quality vs. quantity quality always takes the crucial hits.

Don't believe me? Here's some trailers:

Marvel at Logan's mullet for the Wolverine trailer.

Thrill as Tony Stark controls the skies in the Iron Man trailer.

I don't remember what the the other two series were and I couldn't find trailers. Feel free to comment and tell me what they are.

Anyway, it's an idea that has taken root in my brain and forced me to like it. I'm a huge fan of the Animatrix and Gotham Knight works, so of course I'm willing to give this a chance. There is a difference between a collection of short animated features and an entire series, though. Jury is still out until more is available.

Uh-oh...

There's another anime film I knew nothing about because I don't care for the series and therefore never bothered keeping up on any information pertaining to it. It seems that Hollywood has made a Dragonball movie. I'm pretty much flabbergasted. Of all the things they could invest time and money into they chose this uninspired piece of unending drivel...*sigh*

I pretty much refuse to give information on it.

Gotham Knight was fantastic, by the way. The best segment was Production I.G.'s Working Through the Pain. Also, bish Bruce Wayne is surreal and hilarious. More on this when I have the time to type it.

Yay!

Yay! Funimation has decided to pick up some of Geneon's titles. Geneon, as we all know, was an anime distributor that went under in the middle of giving us some great titles. That means Black Lagoon season two will be released. (Spoiler alert: season two may rock but definitely ends on a downer. So I don't really know if it's for better or for worse that it's being released. We'll go with better.)

One of my favorites that I've been looking forward to for forever is the release of Ouran High School Host Club. Now, I pretty much don't like shoujo manga or anime (it's way too silly, overdramatic, cutesy, and generally insulting) or anything done by CLAMP, but Ouran is a true stand out title. It's a reverse harem anime (bunch of boys, one girl, most/all boys are attracted to girl, girl doesn't seem to notice) that pokes fun at all shoujo genre cliches. Throw in the fact that it's animated by Studio Bones and some of the best seiyuus in the business and it's a gold-star series. And it has been shamelessly delayed once more. By the time this series comes out, it shouldn't be the usual disc-by-disc release. If it is, I'm marching to Funimation's HQ and staging a protest. A protest with rotten fruit.

Honestly, what is the idea with releasing anime volume by volume? Why not realease it season by season like a normal television show? At least then it'll be worth the money, and I won't have to wait x number of months in between to know what happens next to whatever characters I'm currently invested in. And once the entire series is actually printed on separate DVDs why does it take another year for it to come out in boxset form? What the hell is going on there!?

In other news...

• Alone in the Dark's grasp apparently exceeded it's reach. Too bad. IGN didn't look too favorably on it. Silly French people. You can't make good games! Except for Rayman. And maybe Assasin's Creed. Maybe.
• Soul Calibur IV is almost out. Unless they feel like cramming more useless/anachronistic Star Wars characters in it again.
• Too Human still looks awesome. I can't wait!
• There is officially no good new anime coming out. Nothing to look forward too. With Death Note ending on Cartoon Network this last Saturday the only shows worth noting on Adult Swim are The Venture Brothers and Robot Chicken.
• The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya graphic novels are coming Stateside!
• Victorian Romance Emma boxset will soon be available.
• In case you've missed the commercial (which would be difficult because it's played every break on every channel) the release of Gotham Knight (or as I like to call it "The Batmanimatrix") is happening on Tuesday. If you liked The Animatrix you'll love this. Especially if you're a fan of the Batman animated series from 1992. Same voice cast! Mark Hamil as the Joker! What's not to love!? Bones, Madhouse, Production I.G. and other great anime studios animated the shorts, including the original studio that animated the 1992 series (as well as The Big O. Which is why Roger looked like Bruce Wayne...). *fangirl squeal*

When is season two of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya coming out!? It feels like it's taking forever....