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It’s great news about Geneon hooking up with Funimation, but my first thought? Gankutsuou isn’t on their list. I hope this deal isn’t limited to just Geneon’s current and future releases.

I hope you’re looking forward to The Sky Crawlers, the latest movie from Mamoru Oshii.

An extended trailer for the film has been released online (video above) and I have to say, the more teasing glimpses I get, the more I’m desperate to get a hold of the whole thing. Also, Kenji Kawai’s soundtrack is shaping up beautifully well.

In addition to this, Japanese blogger bangin recently posted an explanation of the film’s keyword ‘kirudore’. Essentially, it’s defined as “children who stopped growing up at the puberty and have an (almost) eternal life”. This isn’t Peter Pan though, The Sky Crawlers is a movie about forever-young aircraft pilots fighting an eternal war for entertainment. Comparisons to Battle Royale seem apt, though I’m sure director Oshii won’t shy away from his trademark use of philosophy, even if I hope it’s not quite as dense as Innocence. Anyway, I don’t think it will be, as it seems Oshii is trying to capture a more romantic direction this time around. He said the following at a press conference for The Sky Crawlers in 2007:

“All I want to say is that simply living life has worth to it. In reality, I think we get few choices as to how we live our lives. Life is tough, but if we prepare for the unhappy moments, that preparation becomes our reason for living. I think experiencing hardships is one of the points of life and living.“

The film is out in Japan in August. It’s the anime I’m most anticipating in 2008.

Dattebayo recently started fansubbing Denno Coil. The same 26-episode Denno Coil from 2007 that has already been completely subtitled to a high-standard by Ureshii. Don’t get me wrong, with their massive popularity amongst the shonen lovers, anything Dattebayo decide to subtitle will benefit from a higher profile than usual, and the thoroughly excellent Denno Coil certainly deserves that attention, but even still, I find their decision to work on it a bit puzzling. Aren’t they just seriously wasting effort, especially when there is still so much anime out there that remains completely untouched? As for myself, I wouldn’t mind seeing something like Genius Party fansubbed at some point.

So, I dropped GaoGaiGar. Though I’d been warned that the first half of the series falls into mecha-of-the-week territory, I wanted to try to tough it out. Clearly, that didn’t work. Near the end, certain things were really irritating me, not least of all the same damn 2-minute transformation sequence that was being pasted into every singe episode. Eventually, I took to literally closing my eyes every time this scene appeared. It nearly broke my brain. Anyway, I know it’s supposed to get a lot better in its second half, and I really tried to persevere, but ultimately, I’d rather use my time to finish up with Legend of the Galactic Heroes instead.

I’ve been kicked back into action by the recent news of Tytania’s (or is it Titania? Sources are conflicting) impending debut. In short, it’s looking fantastic. My only worry is the animation budget, with this being the enigmatic studio Artland and all. Will we get the award-winning animation of Mushishi, or the visual catastrophe that was Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-? Then again, it’s a good sign that Artland founder and anime legend Noboru Ishiguro seems to be directing; considering he’ll be 70 years-old by the time Tytania premieres, it might well be the swan song of his illustrious career. We can only hope, as it looks promising, to say the least.