[TheBigN] [Spiritsnare] now I have the image of Manabi with a beard THANKS A LOT <- Pirate Manabi sounds awesome, to tell you the truth
[Spiritsnare] You can have Pirate Manabi without oodles of hair!
[TheBigN] Pirate Manabi with a beard seems epic.
[Spiritsnare] it better be one of those for-costume “removable” beards

Not that I’ve actually got around to seeing any Manabi Straight yet – it’s on my list of things to see at some point, but then there’s a bunch of shows that have been on that list for over a decade now ^^;

Dragonball Evolution opens in the UK today. The fact that it’s opening on a Wednesday is undoubtedly more than a little telling. The fact that it’s only being screened three times a day – all whilst I’m at work – at one of my local cinemas probably speaks volumes more. Whilst certainly not entirely unpopular, Dragonball didn’t really hit it anywhere near as big over here as it did in the US (or most the rest of the world, for that matter), so for all intents it’s basically being treated merely as a bad movie.

That being said, I do have every intention of dragging myself out to see the movie at some point over the weekend. I guess I have the advantage of coming from a position where much of my nostalgia for the series is derived from having killed a weekend playing one of the SNES games at a friends house back when I was in highschool, completely devoid of any context, rather than the actual show. That’s not to say I’ve not seen any of the series – I’ve seen some, and I’ve enjoyed it, but never to the degree what I’ve went out of my way to see more of it. I’m ambivalent about it, I guess.

Not that I’m really the type to consider remakes like this, no matter how painful they may end up being to watch, a childhood-raping experience. Which brings me neatly onto Full Metal Panic, and the reaction to certain recent announcements.

Of course, the thing that people should really be baring in mind is that these statements of intent to make movies based on these acquired properties rarely amount to anything actually happening. I mean, how many of you remember that the Sci-Fi Channel were developing a live action Witch Hunter Robin TV series, or that live action Sailor Moon movie that was in development for a while. There was a Patlabor movie in pre-production for a while. Then that’s that Battle Angel Alita movie James Cameron sat on for a bunch of years before discard, and god forbid we forget ADVs attempts to produce an Evangelion movie. Chances of anything materialising from this are probably 50/50 at best.

Beyond that, though, it’s not as if a US production company optioning FMP comes aloing with some kind of legal requirement for you to burn your existing DVDs/Blu-rays/Novels/Manga/HDD’s, nor does it come with any kind of obligation to actually see the movie. If you don’t like the prospect, then just ignore it.

This all kind of leave me wonder why, precisely, we always see this kind of outcry every time we see one of these announcements. Sure, I’m pretty certain that part of it is simply a natural aversion to the kind of terrible, terrible movies that a typically produced as a result, but I’m not really sure that’s the whole reason given some of the comments I’ve read on the subject.

Honestly, I don’t personally see the prospect as anything but a positive thing – the kind of attention this is likely to bring to the franchise, should this movie ever get made, would undoubtedly increase the chances of us actually seeing a forth season of the anime season, as well as increasing the chances of Tokyopop actually continuing with their publication of the novels. These are good things I can put up with the existence of a movie I don’t have to see to achieve.

This just leaves me to assume that some people simply don’t want to attract any attention to this little hobby of theirs, perhaps because they may fear some kind of embarrassment if their peers actually start to learn something about what they are actually spending their time watching. Or maybe they just don’t like the idea of the unwashed masses trampling over their own little patch of obscure nerdom, worried that it will erode at some kind of delusional sense superiority. If the latter, the attachment of the avatar of all things wrong and mainstream, one Zac Efron, must have seriously stung a few people.

Most likely, however, is that anime fans, and people in general, just like to whine on about things.

Funny thing is, I’m actually kind of optimistic about the prospects of what an FMP movie production could yield, no doubt because I have no expectation of such a thing being a carbon copy of the original – even Gonzo and KyoAni took plenty of liberties with the original material when adapting it for the screen. There’s nothing in the core concept of Full Metal Panic that couldn’t be transferred out of Japan and into another country with a significant degree of success – unlike Dragonball, where it’s origins came from classic Chinese literature, Shouji Gatou admits that the inspiration for FMP came predominantly from pulp US action B-movies. I don’t see why turning FMP into such a thing couldn’t work.

Which isn’t to say that it will – assuming the thing ever does get made, it’ll probably suck – but we may as well at least attempt to say on the optimistic side of things.

I’ve read through a couple of novels in recent days that I should really think about trying to write something up on. The problem is that one of those books was Haruhi, and at this point there seems to be very little point in discussing the actual content, and I’m struggling to see the point in writing a couple of paragraphs talking about nothing but the English releases presentation.

The problem with the other book is that it’s the third Twelve Kingdoms book – I’ve written about the previous two books before, and other than pointing out which particular arc of the anime version was adapted from it, there isn’t really much to say that I’ve not said previously. They are still fantastic books, but there’s only so many ways you can say that about the same series.

As far as Star Ocean 4 progress goes, I’m up to the final boss now. I need to level more, having gotten beaten by the bosses second form rather soundly, but it’s such a rigmarole to get back to that fight that I’m not really inclined to do so immediately – to such a degree that I ended up playing, of all things, 50Cent: Blood on the Sand over the weekend.

The curious thing is that Blood on the Sand isn’t actually that bad a game. Admittedly, much of it’s charm comes from it’s hilarity value – it’s a little difficult to fathom how much of this is intentional, but it’s frequently so silly, excessive and over-the-top. I love the fact that hitting a ramp in the driving stages results in a camera angle change, displaying your auto-mobile hurtling through the air whilst chased by a ball of flame, inexplicably appearing out of nowhere. I love the random fact that all five bosses encounters in the game see Fiddy up against a helicopter. I also love the fact that he’s constantly asking people where his skull is. It’s really just a game I ended up enjoying far more than I really should have.

I also ended up playing Strong Bad Episode three through to the games final volume, thanks to the Wiis now improved SD card support meaning I don’t have to keep all this stuff on my long over-filled internal memory in order to actually play it.

That’s about it for this week.