#Kazuki Nakashima

[anamon-book]

阿修羅城の瞳　中島かずき K. Nakashima Selection Vol. 2 論創社 装幀＝鳥井和昌

[mikyapixie]

❤️❤️❤️

New Kill la Kill illustration to celebrate the series' 10th anniversary!!!!!

An anniversary pop up shop will be held in Tower Records from March 15th - March 24th!!!!

Lineup of merch at the pop-up shop included badges, acrylic stands, desk mats, T-shirt, etc!!!

❤️❤️❤️

[geekcavepodcast]

Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League Trailer

It's raining men!

Truthfully, I have no idea what is happening in this trailer for the sequel to 2018's Batman Ninja. Just hold on, 'cause this looks to be a wild ride.

Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League is directed by Jumpei Mizusaki and Shinji Takagi from a screenplay by Kazuki Nakashima. The character design is by Takashi Okazaki and music is by Yugo Kanno. Kamikaze Douga is the animation producer.

Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League will release in 2025 on digital and Blu-ray.

[transistoradio]

Kill la Kill, vols. 1 to 3, along with one interior page, illustrated by Ryō Akizuki.

[makiruz]

Wait, the guy who made Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill and BNA also made Fourze?

Why didn't anyone told me about this?

(makes perfect sense though)

[coredrill]

i’m sure i’ve said something to this effect before (if not this verbatim lmao) and tbh it’s probably gonna sound even more unhinged than usual but like. something i really love about ttgl is the way it’s structured? like. obviously it’s got 4 main arcs, as signified by the characters who get the title cards for each (kamina, nia, rossiu, and simon). and a hugely defining factor of each is simon’s relationship with (and love for, since love is a huge theme in the show) whoever the “focus” character is. and i also like to think of it as it representing 4 different types of love? like kamina obviously being brotherly/familial love, and nia being romantic love, and rossiu being platonic love, and simon being self-love, as well as his general love for the people around him and humanity as a whole - also served in part by the 3 characters from the previous arcs being largely absent in his. but what REALLY gets me is that. platonic love is the penultimate arc; it’s right before self-love!! his relationship with rossiu is the one that challenges simon before he’s capable of achieving his final form; it’s essential to who he is and it’s necessary for their victory and it’s just. so damn important. and i don’t think it was intentionally made this way or whatever, it’s just something that makes it easy for me to connect with the show personally. so i think it’s neat!!

[demifiendrsa]

“Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League” 1st teaser trailer (with English captions)

Poster

Cast

Koichi Yamadera as Batman

Staff

Director: Jumpei Mizusaki, Shinji Takagi

Screenplay: Kazuki Nakashima

Character Design: Takashi Okazaki

Music: Yugo Kanno

Animation Production: Kamikaze Douga

[silvadour]

"Gurren Lagann! Spin! Who the hell do you think I am?" Gurren Lagann Ep. 01 - "Bust Through the Heavens with Your Drill!" Key Animator: Yoh Yoshinari (吉成 曜) Storyboards: Hiroyuki Imaishi (今石 洋之) Episode Director: Masahiko Otsuka (大塚 雅彦) Screenplay: Kazuki Nakashima (中島 かずき)

[trashexplorer]

BLCD Review: Ikigami & Donor

Title: Ikigami to Donor (イキガミとドナー)

Author/Artist: Yamanaka Hiko

Shop: CD + Manga

Release Date: 2021/12/03

Cast: 

Nakajima Yoshiki x Saitou Souma

Yamashita Seiichirou + Kawanishi Kengo

Kobayashi Chiaki

Yashiro Taku

Komada Wataru

Hayashi Miho

Shiozaki Tomohiro

Higa Ryosuke

Abe Ryouma

Torashima Takaaki

Oota Kensuke

Nakashima Takuya

Fujita Mami

Miyama Mari

Souya Kazuki

Synopsis: 

"Your blood and flesh, all of it is mine." An ikigami and a healer, together their souls support each other, blooming into love...

In the distant future, ordinary teacher Yoshino learns that he is a "donor" for the strongest species, the "ikigami." These warriors are tasked with protecting the country. "The unique ability of a donor is to use their bodily fluids to heal ikigami." Yoshino learns this fact and is shocked. Thus, Yoshino is forced to live with Kidou... At first, he is like a beast, demanding Yoshino's bodily fluids, but slowly, the underlying loneliness begins to show...

"Someday, if I met a donor, could they come to love me? That thought is the only reason I survived..."

Review Proper

I can’t believe Yamanaka Hiko’s been terrorizing me for over twelve years now. OH MY GOD I’M SO OLD. And true to the Yamanaka Hiko brand, this turned out to be another fantasy masterpiece (read His 500 Years of Suffering Romance). This was definitely the type of thing that would do great even without the BL aspect of it. Now, I did have an issue with Kidou being an asshole (he's almost killed Yoshino more than once), so I’m not excusing it. But I do get how and why he turned out to be like that and I'm aware that it's important for his character development. The world-building was great, don't get me wrong, but it's definitely dubcon 2015. I would strongly advise you not to get into it if that's a deal breaker for you.

Anyway, onto the voice work.

Souma used a tone so close to Gucci's that I kept imagining Gucci being Yoshino. Yes, I didn't read the manga while listening to the BLCD. It was like after graduating Karasuno, Gucci went on to become a teacher, then a donor lmao. His Yoshino panics more like Honda-san, however, so my final verdict is that his Yoshino is half-Gucci, half-Honda-san.

This isn't Nakajiki and Souma's first rodeo, but I'm glad to say that their performance/dynamic here is different from Mikeneko and XL Size. I expected Kidou to be a mix of Amano and Anaconbayashi-kun 'cause the former was cocky and the latter was stoic, but Kidou was only 50% of that mix and 50% brooding, suffering, I'll-protect-you top. Am I even making any sense? Again, I listened to the BLCD first, but the sound direction they gave Nakajiki was very different from what I thought he'd sound like after I read the manga. It’s almost like what happened with OnoD’s expressive Hasebe-kun in the Kotonoha BLCD vs the more stoic Hasebe-kun in the manga. 

The voice work of our two leads was 👌. This might just be my fave out of their pairings 'cause the sex isn't over-the-top like XL Size and Mikeneko. I will say that I wasn't completely sold on Yamashita Seiichirou as Shibata-san 'cause I feel like he speaks too slowly, but I'm sure it'll grow on me by the time I listen to their spin-off. KawaKen was fine. My heart broke for him every time Shibata-san rejected him, so it's safe to say he's got Taki-kun down already.

Oh. I did have a slight issue with the sfx too. Why was it so watery??? Lmao. Even r18 otome cds aren't that wet. But it's not so glaring that it'll turn you off.

The BLCD was almost perfectly accurate to the manga. I highly recommend this to those learning mid to higher levels of Japanese. Futekiya has licensed volumes 1 & 2, so please try to support the official release if you can. I'd be lying if I said that I agree with how they translated it so... literally?, but I think it's also important to see how things are translated that way if you're aiming to dip your toes into translation aside from studying the language. For example, they used "Living God" throughout the manga instead of "Ikigami." It's correctly translated, but I personally prefer retaining the original title. You know, like how Viz uses "Kaiju no. 8" instead of "Monster no. 8?"

God knows if I'll ever survive the spinoff that I wanted to work on. I avoided talking about it for a reason lmao. Anyway, if y'all liked this, then please give 500 Years (Ono Yuuki x Suzuki Tatsuhisa) and Shortcake no Ichigo Sawaranaide (Nojima Hirofumi x Takeuchi Ken). These two are android bls and Ikigami to Donor is more guide bl, but they both share a futuristic vibe.

[marshmallowgoop]

whats i am afraid i was made to be able to fall apart? it reminds me of senketsu,, my son

[WIP Game!]

Ooh, it does have Senketsu vibes!

It's actually a planned HeiShin (Heiji and Shinichi from Detective Conan) AMV, though 😅

Wow I used to be so organized... actually noting how many clips I'd use and pasting them in my planning document before going to the video editor... though I think now I would try to be more match-cutty than this... and probably wouldn't use that many clips...

But y'know, if I can be a little brain-rotty for a sec, I've actually been thinking lately about how the relationships between Heiji and Shinichi and Ryuko and Senketsu are, to me, one of the biggest draws of their respective series.

And I'm a sap, so it probably makes sense that they're similar in some ways. Both pairs are composed of "battle" partners who trust and respect each other, who get each other in ways that few others can, who can communicate wordlessly. The protagonists in both are emotionally closed off—Ryuko covering up most of her feelings with anger and Shinichi acting cool and aloof—but they both let their "masks" fall in the presence of the other person.

(They both also have "fanservice" beach spreads at least kinda about them that make me silly emotional. ("Conan’s Dream Vacation" and "Senketsu’s Date with Ryuko"))

But narratively speaking, the two are so massively different. Ryuko and Senketsu are the heart of Kill la Kill. The pair hugging makes up the final volume cover art, as if to say that's what you should take away from the series, above all else. Scriptwriter Kazuki Nakashima even describes the story as "a lonely young woman meeting and losing an irreplaceable partner."

Heiji and Shinichi? Not so much. I'd argue Shinichi and Ran to be the most central relationship in the series (and I love them, too, don't get me wrong!) While I'll always argue for Heiji's significance, he's also only in maybe 10% of the story.

But I feel like his relationship with Shinichi gets so much more attention from fans? If their partnership was the heart of Detective Conan, I don't think anyone would forget it. But I do think it's forgotten a lot with Kill la Kill and Ryuko and Senketsu. (Or maybe the series is just unclear with what it wants to do. Yeah, I have an essay about that, too.)

I don't really know where I was going with this, except maybe I should have planned a Ryuketsu vid to this song because Senketsu gets far too neglected in discussions of Kill la Kill.

[yurisorcerer]

Trying to decide if this is one of the worst episodes of Metallic Rouge or the best.

Here's the thing, okay? On the one hand; it still sucks that this show has a beautiful silver-haired butch who's a revolutionary and they made her both straight and the bad guy. (Said butch, Jill / Silvia, would probably be my favorite character if she had more screentime. I wish she was developed beyond being Metallic Rouge's version of Magneto.) It sucks that The Joker, Baybey has continued to be an important character and that they're now having him nominally switch sides because he's such a little heehoo rascal.

In general this show's writing is just really bad, and it seems like what we're building up to is a Nakashima Kazuki-style endgame twist where the last episode or so turns into the various rival factions uniting against an outside threat, which seems to be the Usurpers in this case. Now, most of the shows Nakashima has written scripts for can get away with this because they're so heavily vibes-based. No one but the extremely deluded think of Kill la Kill or Promare as sophisticated theses on important issues. For Metallic Rouge...I don't know. To draw a comparison to yet another Nakashima show I feel like I'm reacting to this a way not wholly dissimilar to how people reacted to Brand New Animal in terms of its writing just absolutely not working in the slightest.

On the other hand; this episode was gay as shit and I really loved the fight scenes. I don't want to just wave every criticism I just wrote off with "so who can say if it's bad or not?" but Metallic Rouge really does work better when it's focusing on character writing as opposed to trying to make all these la-di-da sociopolitical statements where it clearly has no fucking idea where it's talking about. So yeah, the bit where Naomi quite literally rips her own heart out to give it to the dying Rouge to keep her alive did work on me, I'm gonna give them that, it was a pretty great scene. Do that and the several other scenes I liked, most notably Silvia's confrontation with Rouge, make up for the show's broader writing deficiencies? I wouldn't go that far, but I think if this does end Nakashima style with everyone setting aside their differences to fight the ooh scary aliens (IDEALLY WITH THE NEANS BEING LIBERATED AS A SIDE EFFECT? JUST A THOUGHT) that wouldn't be the worst thing, it might be the *best* possible way for the show to end at this point.

I guess we'll find out next week, given that that the final confrontation is right on the horizon.

[dorothydalmati1]

Obscure Animation Subject #54: Gurren Lagann

Originally posted on Twitter on April 14, 2023.

Produced by Gainax, written by Kazuki Nakashima and directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi, it takes place in a fictional future where Earth is ruled by the Spiral King, Lordgenome, who forces mankind to live in isolated subterranean villages.

It focuses on two teenagers, Simon and Kamina, who live in a subterranean village and wish to go to the surface. Using a mecha Lagann, Simon and Kamina reach the surface and start fighting alongside other humans against Lordgenome's forces, before fighting their true enemy.

It ran for 27 episodes on TV Tokyo between April and September 2007, with films released in 2008 and 2009. It received acclaim from critics, sitting at at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 17 reviews. The critic consensus calls it, "a humorous spectacle appreciate by anime fans."

It’s not as well-known now as it was then, but it was a pop culture staple. It led to the foundation of Studio Trigger, with Gurren Lagann's visual humor and style inserted into their work. Shigeto Koyama, who designed worked this show, designed worked on Big Hero 6.

It definitely defined anime in the late 2000s, and while it only last one season, its legacy still made a lot of importance. Definitely an important piece of mecha anime and Gainax history. It is one of several science fiction anime to receive a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

[universomovie]

Batman Ninja vs Yakuza League ganha trailer

Continuação do longa de Jumpei Mizusaki segue sem data para ser lançadoMATHEUS FIORE Batman Ninja vs Yakuza League O filme animado Batman Ninja vs Yakuza League ganhou seu primeiro trailer oficial. Confira abaixo. O longa original foi dirigido por Jumpei Mizusaki, com Kazuki Nakashima assinando o roteiro. A trama segue Batman depois que ele é enviado para o Japão feudal após um desentendimento…

[doamarierose-honoka]

THE BIG PICTURE

🟩Exciting news for Batman Ninja fans: a surprise sequel, Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League is in progress.

🟩Directed by Junpei Mizusaki, the new movie will feature Koichi Yamadera reprising his role as Batman.

🟩With no plot details yet, fans can expect another mind-blowing adventure following the success of the first film.

It’s been six long years since the release of everyone’s favorite Batman anime movie, Batman Ninja, with little to no hopes of ever getting more. However, Crunchyroll has amazing news for fans just in time for summer. Warner Bros.' Batman Ninja is getting a surprise sequel titled Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League, and although no release date has been confirmed yet, fans will certainly be thrilled to bits to hear that production is in progress.

Directed by Junpei Mizusaki and written by Kazuki Nakashima, the 2018 prequel, Batman Ninja, stars Koichi Yamadera as Batman, Wataru Takagi as The Joker, Ai Kakuma as Catwoman, and Rie Kugimiya as Harley Quinn. The film was animated by Kamikaze Douga and YamatoWorks with the first poster revealed on October 5, 2017, followed by trailers later in December of the same year.

Meanwhile, the new Batman Ninja movie will see Yamadera reprising his role as Batman while Mizusaki is returning to direct. Shinji Takagi will join as co-director with Nakashima set to write the screenplay. At the same time, Takashi Okazaki, the creator of Afro Samurai and the character designer for the first Batman Ninja film, will return as a character designer.

THE CHRONICLES OF ‘BATMAN NINJA’

Given the considerable gap between Batman Ninja’s release date and the upcoming sequel, a lot is expected from the creators, who are yet to unveil plot details. But, it is safe to agree that Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League will be just as mind-blowing as the prequel or even more so, given that its domestic home video earnings summed up to a whopping $3,643,037. Furthermore, it was released digitally in the U.S. and theatrically in Japan, with each release having two different scripts, thereby bringing about two "very different versions" of the same movie.

The first movie, Batman Ninja "takes a journey across the ages as Gorilla Grodd's time displacement machine transports many of Batman's worst enemies to feudal Japan - along with The Dark Knight and a few of his allies." An English trailer was released months after its original trailer, with the voice cast including Tony Hale as The Joker, Roger Craig Smith (Batman: Arkham Origins) as Batman, Grey Griffin (Scooby-Doo) as Catwoman, Tara Strong (Batman: The Killing Joke) as Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, and Fred Tatasciore (Family Guy) as Gorilla Grodd and Deathstroke.

Not many details have been released yet regarding the upcoming Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League’s cast besides Yamadera’s return, and neither does it have a release date yet. Regardless, stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

[coredrill]

headsup warning to you guys. i think ep18 of back arrow made me insane

[demifiendrsa]

“Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League” New English subbed PV

Additional Japanese cast

Wataru Takagi as The Joker

Rie Kugimiya as Harley Quinn

Ayane Sakura as Green Lantern

Akio Otsuka as Aquaman

Nobuyuki Hiyama as The Flash

Romi Park as Wonder Woman

Kazuhiro Yamaji as Ra's al Ghul

Previously announced Japanese cast members

Koichi Yamadera as Bruce Wayne/Batman

Yūki Kaji as Robin

Kengo Kawanishi as Red Robin

Daisuke Ono as Nightwing

Akira Ishida as Red Hood

Hōchū Ohtsuka as Alfred Pennyworth

Masaki Terasoma as James Gordon

Staff

Director: Jumpei Mizusaki, Shinji Takagi

Screenplay: Kazuki Nakashima

Character Design: Takashi Okazaki

Music: Yugo Kanno

Animation Production: Kamikaze Douga