#yoshida masaki

[knightscanfeeltoo]

I’ll stop making Watamote Memes now...

[cute-girls-from-vns-anime-manga]

[tomokikuroki]

[incorrectwatamote]

God I love Yoshida

[watapanels]

88

[joyce-stick]

[white-cat-of-doom]

A few additional photos from closing night in Shizuoka yesterday.

Featured are Junpei Wakebe as Munkustrap, Kazuki Morita as Gilbert, Masatoshi Futamura as Chorus Macavity, and Masaru Kitamura as Rum Tum Tugger.

23 September 2024.

Toma Masaki as Asparagus, Haruka Yamazaki as Bombalurina, Shuichi Kawazu as Carbucketty, Eiko Kataoka as Cassandra, Yujin Haga as Coricopat, Marina Tada as Demeter, Kazuki Morita as Gilbert, Miki Kanehara as Grizabella, Ayaka Yoshida as Jellylorum, Mayumi Fujita as Jemima, Namiko Hanada as Jennyanydots, Masatoshi Futamura as Chorus Macavity, Shun Kuwahara as Mistoffelees, Ryudo Tsutaki as Mungojerrie, Junpei Wakebe as Munkustrap, Seiji Hashimoto as Old Deuteronomy, Masaru Kitamura as Rum Tum Tugger, Ayu Shimizu as Rumpleteazer, Shoyo Kamitani as Rumpus Cat, Fumina Yamanashi as Sillabub, Neo Oi as Skimbleshanks, Naomi Takada as Tantomile, TaeSun Kang as Tumblebrutus, and Erii Kojima as Victoria.

[alpaca-clouds]

You totally should watch the Masaki Yuasa movies!

A couple of months ago, I did this thing where I watched a couple of anime movies, that had gone under my radar. Because let's face it: Outside of franchise related anime movies, we will mostly be aware of Studio Ghibli, Makoto Shinkai and Mamoru Hosoda. Other anime movies will often not be talked about in western anime spaces.

So, I consulted AniChart and just went through all sorts of anime movies, that were barely talked about.

The first of those was Ride Your Wave. And as @udaberriwrites, who got my life reaction, can tell you: This movie went places. It was one of the rare examples where there was a straight romance in an anime movie that I totally could get behind. A romance I found romantic. (Maybe not that much of a surprise, given the screenplay was bei Reiko Yoshida, who... just was a big influence on me. I loved so much of her stuff as a kid.) And then I looked at the timestamp of the movie. 25 minutes out of 96. And I went like: "One of them is gonna die, right?" And yes, I was right. So, I thought it was going to be a movie about moving on after loosing a loved person. Maybe about finding new love. But... Let me tell you, that was not were this movie went. Instead it just went on to be off the walls bonkers.

I am not going to spoil the movie for you. Just believe me: It is bonkers. And it is amazing. Really, really amazing.

Now, the next movie on my watchlist was Inu-Oh. A movie in a really weird animation style that originally turned me off. But that had such compelling characters and in the end really alive animation, that it kinda just captured me.

Again, I do not want to spoil the movie to you. But it was certainly something.

Well, and then I realized that those two movies, that I just happened to watch one after the other had been made by the same director: Masaaki Yuasa.

Now I was intrigued and just put in the other movies by him over the next few days. One of them I had seen before: The Night is Short, Walk On Girl.

And watching all those movies back, I could make out several things that tied them together. Mostly in terms of animation.

The characters are often very simplified, but the animation is very alive - actually following those old methods of animation, that would allow for characters to be off-model to show action. There is little in terms of shadows.

The characters are so lively. And it is just... nice to watch.

So, really. Watch the man's movies and anime. He also had done Devilman Crybaby, by the way. It is most certainly something else. Especially his movies.

The movies are:

The Night is Short, Walk on Girl Lu Over the Wall Ride your Wave Japan Sinks: 2020 Inu-Oh

Have fun!

[landofanimes]

Akatsuki no Yona: Houka no Inori-hen (2019)

Yona of the Dawn: Prayer of the Signal Fire Arc Stage Play

Main cast character portraits:

Rina Ikoma as Yona (returning) Masaki Yabe as Son Hak (returning)

Kaito Kumagai as Yun Taichi Shiozaki as Kija Shunta Sono as Shin-Ah Jyutaro Yamanaka as Jae-Ha Kaito Hori as Zeno

Kenji Takechi as Kan Sujin Takeshi James Yamada as Kan Kyo-Ga Minami Tsurimoto as Kan Tae-Jun (returning)

Yusuke Seto as Lee Geun-Tae Sakiho Motonishi as Yun-Ho

Juri as Li Hazara

Shou Jinnai as Suwon (returning)

Ensemble: Kotaro Yoshida, Kenichi Sato, Yoshio Sato, Mikami Shinji, Jotaro Matsumoto, Yuhei Hayakawa, Hisato Kojima, Shunki Shimoda, Kazuki Igidani, Mana Minamihisamatsu, Rei Ando, Kaede Kato

[retrosofa]

To commemorate Cutie Honey's 50th anniversary, I wanted to post trivia for all 25 episodes. We'll start this week with the first episode: "The Black Claw Grips The Heart."

Screenwriter: Masaki Tsuji

Art Director: Mataharu Urata

Animation Director: Shingo Araki

Director: Tomoharu Katsumata

In the early drafts Honey Kisaragi was originally Honey Tachibana. Honey’s finalized surname name, “Kisaragi” (如月) is a traditional name for February in the Japanese calendar. It refers to the seasonal “changing of clothes.” The name "Honey" comes from the American TV series Honey West.

Honey was voiced by Eiko Masuyama, who would reprise this role a few times over the years, notably in the Re: Cutie Honey audio drama and the Playstation game, Little Witching Mischiefs. She also had a guest spot in Cutey Honey Flash as Dr. Kisaragi’s old friend, Dr. Mitsuko Kanzaki.

St. Chapel Academy is located in Okutama, a mountainous area that’s about an hour and a half away from central Tokyo. St. Chapel itself was most likely inspired or at least named after the real life royal chapel, Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, France. The hymn the students sing during Mass in these early episodes is “Come, Thou Almighty King.”

The freckle-faced girl who stands next to Honey during Mass is her best friend and roommate, Natsuko Aki. Although she’s almost never referred to by her full name but rather “Nat-chan.” Her first name is in reference to natsu or “summer” while aki means “autumn.” In the original manga she is depicted as having pigtails rather than a bob cut and doesn’t have freckles. Natsuko’s anime design was modeled after an unnamed girl who appeared briefly in the Devilman manga.

Natsuko was voiced by Rihoko Yoshida, who’s best known for voicing the titular character in Little Witch Megu, Maria Grace Fried in UFO Robo Grendizer, and Michiru Saotome in Getter Robo. Yoshida would also voice Panther Zora in the 1995 PC-FX video game, Cutey Honey FX. Noriko Watanabe (Sister Jill, Mami) also voiced Natsuko occasionally for whenever Rihoko Yoshida was unavailable.

Honey’s goofy teacher Ms. Alphonne Louis Steinbeck III is based on a male character from Go Nagai’s Kikkai-kun manga. That same Alphonne also served as the basis for Akira Fudo’s teacher in the Devilman TV series. 

Ms. Alphonne was voiced by the late Noriko Tsukase, who had previously voiced Mr. Alphonne’s wife and son in Devilman. Although Ms. Alphonne appears in every other animated Honey series, this is the only version where she is voiced by a woman.

During the early production stages Seiji Hayami was known as Shun Kazami and was described as "falling in love with Honey, despite knowing she’s an android." He would also have a goofy little sister named Zuuko, who would question if she was really related to her handsome older brother. When the series details were finalized, Seiji became more of a comic relief character and his romantic chemistry with Honey was downplayed. 

Seiji was voiced by Katsuji Mori, who would go on to voice Dr. Kisaragi in Cutie Honey Universe.

Katsuji Mori revealed he had ad-libbed Seiji's lines during Honey's first transformation. Originally, Seiji had no dialogue in that scene.

Honey's motorcyclist form is called "Hurricane Honey" which is possibly an homage to Shotaro Ishinomori's Cyborg 009. The lead character, Joe Shimamura, is sometimes a professional car racer who goes by the nickname "Hurricane Joe."

Seiji refers to Hurricane Honey as kaminari musume (カミナリ娘) which translates to something like “thunder girl.” He’s actually referring to the kaminari zoku (カミナリ族) or “thunder tribes”, Japanese motorcycle gangs who were known for their loud and rowdy modified motorcycles.

Sister Jill is the manager of Panther Claw's Japanese branch and Panther Zora's younger sister. The "Sister" part of her name is likely a reference to a religious sister, circling back to Honey attending a Catholic school. In the original series pitch, she was known as Sister Zora.

Jill is voiced by the late Noriko Watanabe, who also voiced Junpei's girlfriend, Mami.

Black Claw’s name comes from the original series proposal, which described Panther Claw’s soldiers as being color coded. Potential opponents for Honey would’ve included Black Claw, Scarlet Claw, Cobalt Claw and Gold Claw. Each would have possessed a specific skill or element, for example, “Scarlet Claw” would’ve possessed fire powers. For whatever reason the whole color coded aspect was dropped but “Black Claw” was still used as the name for Honey’s first real adversary.

According to Cutey Honey Roman Album published by Tokuma Shoten in 1981, Honey's childhood memories are artificial. They were produced by Dr. Kisaragi because he wanted Honey to have childhood memories like any other human girl.

Dr. Takeshi Kisaragi was originally known as Dr. Seiji Tachibana in the original series proposal. In the original manga Dr. Kisaragi looks noticeably younger, has black hair, no glasses and a goatee instead of a mustache.

Originally, Honey was only going to transform once or twice during the first episode. Tomoharu Katsumata (director for episode one) requested that Honey use all of her main seven forms.

Some of the choreography from Honey and Black Claw’s fight is based on sequences from the Abashiri Family manga, specifically when the lead character Kikunosuke battles against teachers from Paradise Academy.

Junpei is based on Kichiza Abashiri from Go Nagai's The Abashiri Family manga. Kichiza is the youngest son of the Abashiri family and is a master of explosives. Junpei was voiced by Kazuko Sawada.

It’s probably worth noting Honey and Junpei are the only two characters to appear in every episode of Cutie Honey.

We'll take a look at episode two next week!

[the-monkey-ruler]

Monkey Typhoon (2001) アソボット戦記五九

Director: Mamoru Hamazu / Osamu Sekida / Ittoku Tanahashi / Kyousuke Mihara / Takenori Mihara / Yoshiaki Okumura / Shunji Yoshida / Kazuo Nogami / Yoshito Qin / Hiroshi Haraguchi / Akihiko Nishiyama / Yuki Kinoshita Screenwriter: Shinobu Shinobu / Hashimoto Yushi / Nakaze Rika / Urasawa Yoshio / Kobe Kazuhiko / Shizuya Isao Starring: Kappei Yamaguchi / Tomoichi Seki / Masaki Iizuka / Takeharu Kunimoto / Nozomi Sasaki / Minami Takayama / Atsuko Enomoto / Shinichiro Miki Genre: Comedy / Science Fiction / Animation / Adventure Official website: http://mv.avex.jp/asobot/asobot.html Country/Region of Production: Japan Language: Japanese Date: 2002-10-01 Number of seasons: 1 Number of episodes: 52 Single episode length: 23 minutes Also known as: Association Robot Goku / Asobotto Senki Goku / Five-Nine Wars / Aboto Senki Five-Nine / Monkey King Five-Nine / Journey to the West / Assobot战记五九 / 五九战记 / 阿波特战记五九 / 猴王五九 / 西游战记 IMDb: tt5916944 Type: Reimanging

Summary:

On December 31, 2052, in order to prevent the scientist Ryutaro from destroying the world, Xuanzang Jiuzou asked his son Xuanzang Sanzang to select some robots from 99 robots numbered 1-99. Sanzang finally selected five robots: Gokyuu, Tongoh, Jou, Suuji, and Mioto. On January 1, 2053, Ryutaro modified the program of supercomputer Eve and began to destroy the world. In order to protect Sanzang, Zero, the first generation robot manufactured by Jiuzao, was destroyed along with the robots Soichi Fujimura and Souka Fujimura created by Ryutaro. Robot Tai is Wujiu's opponent on the surface, but in fact he is protecting Wujiu and his group. In order to restore the supercomputer Eve's program to its original appearance and return to December 31, 2052 to stop Ryutaro, they must find 49 parts to save the world. Head east! For Abbot (a life form of opportunity) to coexist with humans...

One thousand years in the future, the world has lost its balance. All the giant trees up to 10,000 meters high have been cut down by humans as obstacles. The entire world has turned into a desert. Only humans and Abbot are left in this world that is heading for destruction. As if guided by fate, Sanzang and Gokyuu meet. Traveling together, Sanzou - a young man shrouded in mystery, Gokyuu - the strongest and worst Anbot around, Tongoh - an Anbot fond of drinking, Jou - someone who is great with machines, Suuji - a female Anbot thief, and last but not least, Mioto. And so, their journey begins to the boundless East, to the land where the sun was born!

Source: https://myanimelist.net/anime/3193/Asobot_Senki_Gokuu

Link: https://gogoanime.be/anime/monkey-typhoon-xDRN/

[brokehorrorfan]

Bloody Disgusting presents The Outwaters, Cube, and Creepypasta on DVD together on October 10 via Cineverse. All three films are streaming on SCREAMBOX.

2022's The Outwaters is a found footage cosmic horror movie written and directed by Robbie Banfitch. Banfitch also stars with Angela Basolis, Michelle May, Scott Schamell, and Leslie Ann Banfitch.

2021's Cube is a Japanese remake of the 1997 sci-fi horror cult classic. Yasuhiko Shimizu directs from a script by Kôji Tokuo. Masaki Suda, Anne Watanabe, Masaki Okada, Takumi Saitoh, Kôtarô Yoshida, and Hikaru Tashiro star. Cube creator Vincenzo Natali serves as executive producer.

2023's Creepypasta is an anthology inspired by the viral horror stories. It features segments directed by Mikel Cravatta, Carlos Cobos Aroca, Daniel Garcia, Tony Morales, Buz Wallick, Paul Stamper, Berkley Brady, and Carlos Omar De León.

No special features are included, but you can find extras on The Outwaters' Blu-ray via ETR Media and Cube's Blu-ray via Terror Vision. Read on for the trailers.

In The Outwaters, four travelers experience a mind-bending trip through terror while camping in a remote stretch of the Mojave desert.

In Cube, a group of strangers must work together to escape from mysterious rooms riddled with legal traps.

In Creepypasta, a young man desperately searches for clues to escape an abandoned house.

Pre-order the Bloody Disgusting 3-Movie Collection.

[cute-girls-from-vns-anime-manga]

[tomokikuroki]

[incorrectwatamote]

Tomoko: What are you listening to?

Tomoko: *grabs earbud*

Yoshida: No wai-

Tomoko:

Yoshida:

Audiobook: It was at this time that Christopher Robin told his friends that the honey had run out. "Oh bother!" Exclaimed Pooh.

[444lpblue]

Stardust Telepath #3 - Explosive Mechanic

Screenplay: RinRin Storyboard/Episode Direction: Shinichirou Ueda Animation Direction: Megumi Nagayama, Ryoutarou Takamura, Yuuta Masaki, Ken Mukaigawara Key Animation: Hiroyuki Shimizu, Megumi Nagayama, Maya Yoshida, Tatsuya Urano, Yuuta Masaki, Hiroshi Tanabe, Yousuke Sotoyama, Haruka Sakai, Manabu Kushibuchi, Takanori Suzuki, Satoshi Horisawa, Michitaka Yamamoto, Takahiro Ninagawa, Lilin Zhao, Haruki Ebisu, Yoshiko Nakamura, Kanoko Sakurai, Ryoutarou Takamura, Tetsuya Sunaga, Ken Mukaigawara, Junichi Hashimoto, Yuuichirou Kamura (Eyecatch: 街早智子)

I've wanted to talk about this show since I watched the first episode, but I couldn't find the time. Now we're at episode 3, and guess what? It's pretty great still. Kaori has been at the helm of the whole series at Studio Gokumi, showcasing the studio's in-house staff in a very strong way. Kaori's approach to adapting this series is fantastic; the show is very colorful, especially in its character designs. There are so many fun reactions and expressions that I just can't help but love. It's been a lot of fun so far, and Kaori's expressive and colorful direction is a great match for the series' character designer, Takahiro Sakai. You might have already seen his designs in Yuki Yuna is a Hero, or perhaps you've watched the recent Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon (I know I didn't). The designs are very flexible and simple, which works great with the more expressive moments. I mean, it's just so cute, and when combined with the color design, they really stand out to me as a big selling point of this anime.

The story itself is somewhat comparable to the recent Bocchi the Rock, if I had to mention something to compare, if you're a fan of shows dealing with social anxiety and featuring fun visuals, I would definitely recommend giving this a try.

Since the title does say this is a write-up on episode 3, I should probably start talking about episode 3. This is actually the first episode so far that Kaori didn't have a hand in from a boarding perspective, but the expressiveness and reactions were still present in this episode. While the usage of them and the colors weren't as bold as Kaori's usual style, I believe Shinichirou Ueda did a really good job, especially for the more serious or emotional moments of the episode.

Kaori relies on a lot of contrast or bright and simple elements over detailed backgrounds to make things pop. Every time they're a bit quirky or making a funny face, you'll notice it. Ueda's approach is a bit more cohesive, and I couldn't really find a word for it until I talked to my friend this morning, who mentioned that he noticed it, and he's absolutely right. Ueda takes a more environmental approach compared to Kaori, incorporating more variety in distance and layout size. For instance, he uses long empty halls to emphasize the distance Umika must cross to connect with Raimon. When Umika runs during the night, it's subtly matched by the soft stars in the sky. In contrast, Kaori might have been a bit more heavy-handed in how brightly the stars shine or how much they pop out. I think Ueda's approach is different in that he likes to make the entire scene a bit more unified in its look rather than having one element stand out more than the others. I like both Kaori and Ueda's styles very much, and I don't have a strong preference between the two. I just wanted to mention the differences I see in their approaches.

Returning to the production as a whole for a moment, I completely forgot to mention that, aside from the aesthetic direction and character designs, the show animates quite well. It's a very pleasing-looking show, at least to me. The production is very solid, and I think credit should be given to the talented in-house animators at Gokumi and the animation producer, Kenta Washikazi. He has only held this role for two shows prior to this one (Yuki Yuna is a Hero: The Great Mankai Chapter and Seton Academy), both of which also had solid production, so it's clear he knows what he's doing. He has brought on people like Kouta Sera, who appears to be fairly heavily involved in this show as a key animator so far, and he's extremely talented. For instance, he did the cut of Umiko floating up in the opening. It's a perfect mix of in-house staff and the talent Washikazi decided to bring on.