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Old 2007-09-08, 17:27   Link #61
MrProphet
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The Skull Man was great, if only for that 70's-kamen-rider-kaiju feel thing. I don't really understand how one can be disappointed with the animation, since they've never really promised anything too awesome (and then underdelivered). It was a nice little retro thing, a bit similar to what Izubuchi has been doing with To Terra.

As for Mukoh Hadan, all I can say for now is that I really liked how during that fight scene, the animators used those little splotches of white noise to illustrate water droplets (or whatever).

I like that style. It sort of brings a wackier Studio-4C-esque sensibility into what seems like a rather run-of-the-mill Jubei-like story.

The first time I heard about Mukoh Hadan was, I think, sometimes around the time Kurau came out. This production now rivals GONZO's "Spirit" for the duration spent in development hell. I only hope it wouldn't be as much of a disappointment as "Spirit" was. Because, amazing animators aside... you really do need to tell an interesting, original story before you spice it up with crazy samurai fighting.
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Old 2007-09-08, 20:56   Link #62
Haohmaru
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Thanks a lot for the upload!! Movie looks awesome!
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Old 2007-09-08, 23:19   Link #63
wao
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrProphet View Post
As for Mukoh Hadan, all I can say for now is that I really liked how during that fight scene, the animators used those little splotches of white noise to illustrate water droplets (or whatever).

I like that style. It sort of brings a wackier Studio-4C-esque sensibility into what seems like a rather run-of-the-mill Jubei-like story.
You mean by drawing white dots to indicate water droplets when there's a splash or something, right? I thought this was frequently done with water even outside of Studio 4C, like for example I clearly remember something like that happening in episode 133 of Naruto, the Norio Matsumoto ep. And even in the water ep of Dennou Coil, the "line" used for water is not coloured black but a light colour when it splashes out. I think.

Quote:
I only hope it wouldn't be as much of a disappointment as "Spirit" was. Because, amazing animators aside... you really do need to tell an interesting, original story before you spice it up with crazy samurai fighting.
Oh yeah. If it's an OVA and it's meant to be pure unadulterated animated goodness then I can live without a story if it's REALLY eye candy, but the animation in this isn't going in that direction and on its own I don't know how much I'd enjoy the film if the story sucked (I'd still watch it though.)
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Old 2007-09-09, 02:09   Link #64
Huw M
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Thank you so much Duckroll for uploading that.

I'm actually getting a Samurai Champloo vibe from the way the characters are drawn, with really varied line-width for the faces. And 6 main Key Animators? Maybe they are referring to the action parts? I am not sure if the story will pan out to be any good, but the vast majority of kick-ass martial arts movies have pretty average stories anyways...I think I read some time ago that the staff wanted to surpass all previous sword battles in animation, or something, so for all I care the movie could be about a bunch of animators wanting to surpass all previous sword battles. As long as I get to see awesome sword battles, my simple and immature mind is sated

In any case I was surprised at how full and rich the animation is. Everything moves so well. I was browsing through a FullMetal Alchemist TV artbook the other day at Border's (full of promotional pics for posters and magazines) and it had lots of stuff from Yoshiyuki Ito (Stranger's AD) and a bit from Masahiro Ando (The director). A nice find in light of the movie. Ando's stuff was the most energetic, and action-packed but all of Ito's stuff was really well drawn, especially the airbrushed game and DVD covers. They'll make a good team.

Was that Skullman clip really by Nakamura? It looked a fair bit like his style. I suppose the movie finished production some time ago then.
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Old 2007-09-30, 18:51   Link #65
animelord21
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Sword of the Stranger - Mukoh Hadan (2007) Preview


Premiere date: 2007-09-29 (Japan)

Previw Download LInk
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ECPE4GHB

Im stunned I cant wait for this to come on
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Old 2007-10-01, 14:47   Link #66
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http://www.style.fm/as/13_special/mini_071001a.shtml

Holy shit, for anyone that can read Japanese this is a sakuga fan's dream come true. This interview with the director disects each part of the process of the film, down to how various parts were created and which animators are responsible for keyframing and storyboarding the various scenes. It also covers the production of the movie and explains why the pilot version was shown 4 years ago while the movie is only complete now. A really, really great read.
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Old 2007-10-01, 20:14   Link #67
Haohmaru
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Is jealous. Anyway somebody wants to translate all of that? Btw, is there anyway to watch the older video clips on the official site? There are a couple of clips I haven't seen yet.
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Old 2007-10-08, 02:32   Link #68
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okay....so it's October and the premier date has passed....How was the movie? Will it be licensed soon? If it's not licensed, then when should we be expecting subs....and if it is licensed then IGNORE my question....
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Old 2007-10-08, 05:20   Link #69
wao
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Yeah, that was a good read. Web Anime Style is like a goldmine for anyone interested in sakuga... who can read Japanese. I really love how the interviews there have got substance and don't feel like everyone is trying to be too polite and hide things. You know what you want to know.

My brain is too fried to translate very much though. I guess it's pointless saying who did what because it's not like any of us can watch the film until the DVD comes out, but the director, Masahiro Andou, did say he ran out of time to do the D-part after doing the first 3 parts of the film so another guy, Satou (佐藤秀次 Satou Shuuji?) actually did it (it involves a halberd?) He's really very honest about it though. There's some part where Yutaka Nakamura ( ) storyboarded about 50 cuts worth of stuff. Andou said he was fine letting him expand it as much as he liked as long as the main action points were there. Except that for both, he said they can do it only if they do it themselves (meaning don't drag the director in, I think). Heh.

The cuts in Nakamura's section are all quite short apparently (that's what I understand when they say もの凄く細かいカット割り - each cut is very "finely cut"), and that's actually the way he does it. I find it interesting that apparently, instead of drawing a traditional storyboard straight away, he scanned in little drawings he drew on paper 1/4 the size of animation layout paper (I don't know the exact size of that to be honest), and strung the drawings together as a movie so he could give the director an idea of the timing. In case anyone here didn't know, Nakamura is an animator god. Go look on youtube for AMVs of his animation before you say anything.


According to the interview, the movie itself actually took 1 year to be completed (the first animation meeting was in February 2006, and the finishing and stuff was done around May 2007. By February 06 about half of the storyboard was done and as the animation was being drawn so was the rest of the storyboard, such that the latter was completed by around May 06. Although as duckroll said the pilot film (which was key-animated solely by Andou and Nakamura who was called in to help) was aired so long ago, and some sponsors actually showed their interest, everyone went back to doing other work first. THe director himself was involved heavily in FMA so during that whole period Stranger wasn't touched at all.

He said he found the hardest part of doing the pilot film was creating the character design sheets - it confirmed his opinion that a. he didn't like his own drawing style that much after all, and b. he preferred drawing with other people's characters. So in the actual film the character designs are completely untouched by the director himself - he told the character designer not to even refer to the original designs he did for the pilot film Andou says he preferred to leave it entirely to the designer rather than what, as he says, many directors with animation-drawing background do: draw a rather detailed sketch of the characters they have in mind, pass it to the designer and say "Hey, why don't you just trace this".

Oh what the hell now I'm ending up reading the other parts of the interview although I really need to sleep. Damn you duckroll.

EDIT: Dude, the director already started key animation by the time he turned 18 ;_; What's up with all these infuriatingly talented people?! Damn, I don't think I could animate anything properly until I turn 25 or something.
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Last edited by wao; 2007-10-08 at 05:31.
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Old 2007-10-10, 06:23   Link #70
Huw M
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Courtesy of Manuloz from Manganimation.net BBS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lASsybC-JN4

That bit with the two guys clashing swords looks like pure Nakamura. I am so hyped for this movie.

Thanks as always for translating that info, Wao. Interesting to hear that Nakamura made what is basically an animatic. In this day and age I don't know why more people don't use them in Japan (maybe they do?). Especially with tools like flash, you can easily throw down some sketches and make them move without even bringing paper into the equation.

I hope we get to see the pilot film at some point, as a DVD extra or whatever. I remember Tetsuya Nishio did an awesome 40 second pilot/advert for Seirei no Moribito which I can't find anywhere but youtube.
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Old 2007-10-10, 07:10   Link #71
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There's another short clip to be seen on this TV report :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rIki2Dvyek

(i was to lazy to post it yesterday...)

*Those little drawing Nakamura made looks like the similar approach of Wakabayashi on his Naruto episode.
He had drawn little scketches before working on the storyboard just to give an idea of what he wanted to do with the fighting sequence.
You can see some of them on this article from an old Newtype :

http://manuloz.free.fr/Images/forum/...8-2005-098.jpg
http://manuloz.free.fr/Images/forum/...8-2005-099.jpg
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Old 2007-10-10, 23:37   Link #72
Huw M
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http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/japan/

Stranja debuted at #14 and stays there to date. I don't know much about the Japanese box office, but it looks like a bit of a flop. Gainax on the other hand blew the dust off some old eva cels and have raked in 13 Million USD thus far. I know it isn't fair to compare this sort of niche-targeted film to the juggernaut that is Eva, but it still seems like total failure. I imagine it will do well on DVD though. Does anyone know how the reviews have been?
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Old 2007-10-12, 07:03   Link #73
orion
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If you compare that to US sales, then they are doing better than Cowboy Bebop movie. Considering who the competition and the audience is, it's probably doing well imo.

It's not being fueled by nostalgia or extreme otakuism like EVA , Pokemon, Doreamon. Not a kid's title like One Piece, Pokemon, Detective Conan and Doreamon.
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Old 2007-10-15, 12:41   Link #74
JerseyDevil
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Does anyone know when the DVD is coming out?
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Old 2007-10-17, 15:41   Link #75
duckroll
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Actually, Stranger didn't do well in Japan at all. A comparison with Gin-iro no kami no Agito from Gonzo last year shows that Agito made more in 2 days than Stranger did in 10 days. It's kinda sad because that was a pretty generic movie and was really nothing special.
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Old 2007-10-17, 21:20   Link #76
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But Agito had GONZO behind it and nice shiny mecha. Stranger is a period piece without GONZO.
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Old 2007-10-18, 03:24   Link #77
MrProphet
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What? Agito had mecha? By that reasoning, samurai action should definitely have been in favour of Mukoh Hadan.

Personally, I think it was the lack of a big marketing campaign that made the film fail.

Lack of exposure + very few screens = big bust.
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Old 2007-10-18, 03:51   Link #78
duckroll
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Yeah, the lack of a strong push resulted in a limited release for Stranger. It was shown on almost half the number of screens Agito was.
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Old 2007-10-18, 21:02   Link #79
orion
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Well maybe since it wasn't probably geared to general audience or otaku then it wasn't fated to be popular like EVA, One Piece, etc. Limited releases are done when it's not anticipated to be popular imo.

If you're surrounded by the culture on a daily basis, you're probably not going to want to see it again in a movie theater. This is sounding a little like Seirei no Moribito which prob won't help it too much either. "See it on TV, why pay for it in a movie theater?" as the thinking goes.
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Old 2007-10-19, 01:41   Link #80
MrProphet
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Here's the deal.

You make TV-series to get noticed.
You make OVA to get money.
You make feature films to get respect.

The revenue from making a successful OVA series roughly equal those of making a successful feature film, yet the costs of making a feature are double or triple the amount.

The reason why these studios sometimes make movies is that it makes them look important, it makes them the heavy-weights, for prestige. They are not out to make insane cash from it, so a loss if fine too sometimes. 8)
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