The Guys of Marvel Anime (Part One)

This is the first of a two-part series of posts featuring the guys of the Marvel Anime projects.  With Iron Man and Wolverine set to make their U.S. debut on G4 in a little over a week, I figured it would be good to start with them.

HFG featured the introductory trailers to these two shows nearly two years ago.  I like the design they settled on for Wolverine better than the early design seen below:

I'm looking forward to seeing if the dubs will be any good, especially with Adrian Pasdar as Iron Man and Milo Ventimiglia as Wolverine.  More art (as well as a couple of screencaps) is below. 

 

Iron Man Meets Wolverine English Teaser

Marvel has just released the English dubbed clip of Marvel Anime: Iron Man which features Wolverine's cameo in its 4th Episode entitled, Reunion. Both Marvel Anime titles, Iron Man and Wolverine will premiere on G4 in the US this July 29th.


Lending their voices for the English release of the anime are Adrian Pasdar and Milo Ventimiglia of Heroes fame as Tony Stark/Iron Man and Logan/Wolverine respectively. And so far, I am impressed that their voices sorta fit for each character. As for Milo, well... it fits a bit, I still prefer Steve Blum's voice though.

Iron Man and Wolverine Anime Lead Voice Actors for US Dub Revealed!

To those who didn't know, the four-part Marvel Anime Series is set to air on the United States this year with Iron Man and Wolverine airing first this July. Just recently, Marvel's Head for Television Jeph Loeb announced on its WonderCon panel the ones voicing the leads of the first two shows!

The one voicing Tony Stark aka Iron Man is Adrian Pasdar (Heroes, Castle, Profit) while the one who will voice Logan aka Wolverine is Milo Ventimiglia (Gilmore Girls, Rocky Balboa, Heroes). Interesting to note that they are brothers on a popular sci-fi show Heroes, to be exact they are the Petrelli siblings, Nathan and Peter!

"Adrian and Milo are perfect as Iron Man and Wolverine," said Loeb. "It's extremely exciting to see these talented guys take on two of the most iconic Super Hero roles of all time.”

Source: Mania via Otaku USA

Shoot to Thrill. Marvel Anime: Iron Man Review

The first part of Madhouse Studios and Marvel’s four-part joint collaboration, Iron Man is a twelve episode series based on the comic books with the same name. The series is written by Warren Ellis with Yuzo Sato directing it. Is this series good start to the Marvel Anime series? Just read the review to find out!

In this series, Tony Stark decides to create an Arc Reactor in Japan and along with, decides to plan his retirement by creating a new Iron Man armor called, Dio. But during his stay in Japan, Dio goes out of control and ends up with the sinister organization called Zodiac. Because of this, Tony decides to return to his old gold and red suit and kick Zodiac robot butt as Iron Man!

On to the review, to answer the question that I asked earlier, is it a good start with the four part Marvel Anime series? The answer is no. Iron Man fails what fans expected in the trailer. To those who remembered the trailer, Iron Man’s armor is more eye candy 2D, but the actual product is this. We have a badly CGI Iron Man suit with bad transitions between traditional and CGI! Seriously, the CGI suit reminded me of the latest Iron Man cartoon in which Tony is a teenager!

The suit was disappointing for starters but what’s more is the story. At first, it follows more of the traditional monster of the week route, a route followed by Japan in its superhero shows since the big Henshin Hero boom that gave us Kamen Rider and Goranger and other Ishinomori heroes. To begin with, I find it fun to watch but the problem is how will this formula last in the short span of time? This is when Sakurai and Yinsen came into picture.

Similar to the Yinsen we know from the other incarnations, he is the one who saved Tony’s life by creating an artificial pace maker available in the terrorist camp where Tony was held captive. The only difference with this Yinsen is that he lived and decided to take revenge on Tony because of his company who, even after Tony halted the weapons production still does under the table transactions without Tony knowing and after realizing that the Iron Man armor is also a weapon.

I love this version of Yinsen! He is the perfect rival to Tony because he was involved with the early days of the Mark 1 Iron Man suit. What makes this version of Yinsen fun to watch is that he is operating Dio and the big revelation on his introduction in this series gave a good impression of a master vs. student scene in this series plus the episode where he was over the top is too epic not to miss! He is something that this show needs; a deeper plot with Tony having a bit of conflict with the ideals his “mentor” thought him now that he is a changed man.

As for Sakurai, he is a member of the Japanese military, and later operated an armor based on the Iron Man suit called, Ramon Zero. He is the perfect opposite to Tony’s laid-back attitude. Stiff, disciplined, something that is not Tony and I love it! Sakurai is the one that gave the proper balance in this series and I would like to see him much longer in this series. Even if he is disciplined as a soldier, there is one point of the series where he stands out, the finale in which he defied orders for the sake of his friend, Tony.

To the two girls in the series, Nanami Ota and Chika Tanaka, Nanami is just your average reporter girl, strong willed and goes where the action is; in short, I have nothing to talk to about this girl since she is the classic strong female protagonist. Dr. Tanaka serves as Tony’s Pepper in Japan, both as his secretary and love interest.

Chika is one of my favorite characters in this series and I am disappointed on how she ended up here. I mean seriously, turn her into a member of Zodiac at the end of the series with no concrete explanation?! Sure, it was hinted that she is a member of Zodiac because she is having blackouts during the course of the show but with no proper explanation?! What the heck was that!

Even with that forced heel face turn so that Tony will have a tragic end in this series. Chika’s last scene in the series gave a proper conclusion to her character; she loves Tony so much that she is willing to sacrifice her own cyborg body just to save his work, the Arc Reactor, which is his Tony’s dream for Japan, free clean energy.

Minister Kuroda is surprisingly, Zodiac’s mastermind and it turned out that he became a member of Zodiac because of his love for Japan… weird. He wants to return Japan to its former glory before the Americans decided to nuke Japan back in WWII. From the very beginning, I always suspect that he is one fishy character, and I was right. As for his motivation, I find it weird. I mean, Japan is successful right now and want to turn it into a military nation and use its resources to conquer the world? For starters, I find it a weak motivation to conquer the world.

As for the animation, I find it mediocre. The 2D animation is standard Madhouse but the CGI animation felt weak. I mean, it kinda looked like a bad mix of Photoshop’s bevel effects and a bit of chrome in it! Because of it, it stands out from the 2D animation and didn’t properly gel well with the 2D animation of the series. Madhouse has this reputation of having films and some shows having a good mix between CGI and traditional but Iron Man never lived with that reputation. I started to wonder, has Madhouse gone made in budgeting the CGI? If so, they should just go all out with traditional! Also, there are some 2D frames of Iron Man that the 2D version of the suit looked a bit fat. The only time that I can say that the animation is top notched is at the final episode of the series.

As for the fights, it felt a bit bulky in my opinion. To be honest, most of the Zodiac vs. Iron Man fights felt a little slow for me even if the Iron Man armor is quite an advance piece of technology. The holograms seen in the in suit scenes looks good and adds the proper tech touch with the series, something that the Iron Man films are known for.

As for the Iron Man vs. similar Iron Man suit battles, it felt like what Toshiki Inoue, one of the screen writers of the show is known for, his Rider vs. Rider fights in which the lead cause of it is misunderstanding between two characters or fight of their own beliefs. Thank God, he never decided to use a dead girlfriend as an excuse to fight each other! As for the animation, still the same with the Zodiac robot fights except it is more intense and place more emphasis on the aerial fights, which I liked. Too bad, the CGI animation is not that good.

Overall, Iron Man was a mediocre start for the Marvel Anime franchise. What makes it mediocre is the animation and that there are problems in terms of the story, which includes some unexplained events and the sudden transition from episodic to series with a running plot which felt weak for me, in my honest opinion. As for the characters, they tried as much as possible that the characters found in the comic book as close as their counterpart and the original characters as close as the spirit of the comics with Japan’s own personal touch.

Asides from those problems, the series tried to be flashy with the CGI… and it failed horribly. Seriously, they should just stick with traditional if their budget can’t sustain CGI for a couple of episodes! At the end of the day, I started to wonder, why Iron Man? To be honest, I prefer other Marvel titles to kick off the series.

Was it because the popularity of the movies? Maybe but I prefer if they decided to go with the more popular characters such as Captain America or Spider-Man. Oh, Spider-Man already has a series with Toei… and it’s live-action and its quite popular which caused them to do a collaboration with Marvel for three more years which gave Sentai its trademark robot per each series! Never mind the last Marvel character that I said.

Marvel Anime: Iron Man 09 – Yinsen, Dio and Suitcase Armor

This episode focuses more on Yinsen and how did he survived and why he developed a certain grudge on Tony, to be exact on the Stark Industries along the way. Plus, we see some love for Tony’s infamous suitcase armor!

Anyways, asides from the fact that I noticed how mediocre the animation Madhouse did for this episode, which is, from crappy CGI, they will then switch the animation of the suits in traditional format, which kinda looks like how those old Iron Man cartoons animated looked like in a certain angle.

Even with the mediocrity of the animation, Yinsen’s backstory is what keeps me watching this episode. Yinsen was able to survived by some random passerby picking him up (Not surprised knowing that some Kamen Rider writer might have wrote it) and now lives with her as her ward.

After her marriage with some guy, for some unknown reason, helicopters coming from the Stark Industries attacked the church were the wedding was held. Yinsen, of course survived and was offered by some guy which is considered “unknown” for now offers him a offer he can’t refuse. After seeing crappy 2D pictures of Iron Man that looked like those old Iron Man cartoons, Yinsen officially joins Zodiac.

To be honest, even if his backstory is a traditional one (revenge to those who killed his family, etc…) there isn’t much meat in it. I mean, why did Stark Industries attack some random church? Are they targeting Yinsen? Or maybe Zodiac was behind it all? If I am right with the last part, it makes perfect sense.

About the mass produced types, Iron Man Sigma, I was at first surprised on the choice for them to be remote controlled robots, but later it made much sense. Zodiac is an organization that barely uses humans, so it makes sense that Yinsen will create Sigma as machines. I was hoping I could do a Kamen Rider 555 reference with it…

One of the biggest surprises in this episode is the appearance of Tony’s suitcase armor. No wonder he can transform into Iron Man in some random areas without his car nor him going into his house.

Points at Dio...

One of the best things in this episode is the fact that Yinsen pointed out that the Iron Man suit is a weapon! Come on, even an average guy can say that it is a weapon considering that it is an armor that shoot lasers and the like! So what will be Tony's excuse on this one? Prosthesis?

About the Iron Man vs. Dio fight, it has the same quality from the first one except it is a little longer and the thrill of seeing two Iron Men fight is lost considering that it felt more like Toshiki Inoue’s classic Rider vs. Rider fights. Sure, they used things only found in Iron Man but if you remove the aerial fights, the Iron Man suits and replace it with bug armors, it is still the same.

Overall, the only good thing about this episode is Yinsen’s backstory, robotic Riottroope… I mean, Iron Men Sigma and the fact that Tony’s suitcase armor is here. The Iron Man fights looked more like Rider vs. Rider fights, in which after the introduction of the second Rider, his next fights with the protagonist will go downhill in terms of quality. It is quite rare if the quality will increase.

Even if the title is VS Iron Man, which I expect the fights will look good (Maybe they are reserving it for the final episode…), it is one of the most disappointing episodes I have seen, along with the one that involves a kid and the Virgo mecha.

First Five Episodes – Fall 2010 Set

Fall 2010 titles... a good mix between mediocre and awesome.

I have been watching six new anime titles this Fall anime season, and one of those titles I decided to drop on its fifth episode and I am planning to drop another one once I am not that satisfied with it. Here is my quick review on the six titles that I watched this Fall… in alphabetical order. Why this is called, First Five? Because the best way to know if you will drop the title or not in my opinion is by watching the first five episodes.

Bakuman

The title is about two boys, Moritaka and Akito who dreams in creating a manga… well, it was Akito first who want to become a manga artist but because of the stroke of fate, Moritaka ended up becoming one of those gamblers that his uncle described.

The first five episodes of the anime are strong and at the same time, inspiring. Surprisingly, the one who created the original manga were the ones responsible for the classic supernatural title, Death Note! Like I mentioned in my review on the first episode, I was skeptical at first about this title because Death Note left a strong impression on most fans and I am not sure if Bakuman can succeed to its success that its predecessor left. But the Ohba-Obata tandem never failed to impress me on this one!

Sure, it was vastly different from Death Note but this title has a certain charm in it that I want to continue watching it. Maybe its charm is in its comedy, or maybe is the genetics aspect of it, or maybe it is just about two vastly different persons dreaming on becoming a famous manga-ka someday.

Aside from that, it gives us viewers a guide on how to create a manga. If my memory serves me correctly, no one attempted to do a title entirely based on it, but if someone attempted it was quite underrated or no one knows about it.

Will I continue watching it? Yep. Since the source is still on-going, if they don’t want this title to end up like Naruto or Bleach with an army of fillers, I smell that this series might stop at a certain arc of the manga… or maybe to an original ending depending on the whims of the writers.

Iron Man

The title is about Tony Stark being in Japan for his arc reactor project with Lab #23 and a secret organization called Zodiac wants his head. That simple. The first episode kinda hints that this would be an episodic series with Tony fighting every member of Zodiac… I was wrong on that part. In the third episode, he fought a mad scientist, and the following eps, some various problems caused by Zodiac.

The series is more concentrated on Tony and his arc reactor project and Zodiac doesn’t want it to succeed. The CGI Iron Man suit is one of the few factors that I hated in this title, and for the first time, I have watched a mediocre Madhouse title. From the first five episodes, the next three episodes are the ones that stood up. In ep 3, we see Tony’s human side, ep 4, is a flashback episode with a Wolverine cameo and ep 5 is an episode in which everyone is a victim of a strong radiation coming from space!

One thing that I noticed this title is the fact that it felt like a regular tokusatsu episode… which is a good thing in way, heck; I can say that I can consider Iron Man a Metal Hero since he is in Japan right now. What’s keep me glued on Iron Man right now is the plot twist on the 4th episode regarding Yinsen, the person that you might call Tony’s indirect mentor as a superhero. But on the next episode, the fact that he learned that Yinsen is still alive didn’t affect him still bothers me right now. Plot hole?

Will I continue watching it? Yes since this series will last for 12-16 episodes and the Yinsen twist is really good.

Ore no Imouto

The title is about Kyosuke who learns that his perfect sister, Kirino is not that perfect at all. She loves magical girls and eroge, to exact, those titles that involve brother-sister incest relationships! She is an otaku and she doesn’t want her perfect life to be ruined by his hobby. Therefore, Kyosuke ends up helping her.

Few words. This. Is. Heaven. As an otaku, moe is one of the factors that keep us glued in our screens. Add the fact that she is an otaku, plus points! The series is filled with female otaku culture, which is quite interesting considering that I barely knew their culture! Aside from that, the amount of references to eroge keeps me glued in this title. Add the fact that it is comedy!

In the later parts of the series, it seems that Kiririn is slowly felling in love (?) with his elder brother, kinda like those eroge with the younger sister squealing onii-chan or aniki. Animation wise, the colors looks good, the animation kinda reminded me of Seto no Hanoyame (My Bride is a Mermaid) oh, no surprise, AIC are the ones behind both titles!

Will I continue watching it? Yep. Accordingly, it will last for 13 episodes; I expect more development with the relationship of the siblings!

Shiryaku! Ika Musume

Also known as Squid Girl, it is about Ika Musume who came from beneath the ocean and decides to conquer humanity because of their actions against the ocean! First, she must invade the beach house as the family owning it is slaving her because of her damages she made in her first appearance!

Okay, this smells like Sgt. Keroro except that we have a girl with squid qualities. That’s it. Aside from that, a single episode composes of three parts, kinda like a standard western cartoon. Animation wise, no problem with it… plus the moe factor of this series kinda kept me glued for a while.

Since I mentioned Keroro at the first place, like Keroro’s Platoon, Ika-chan keeps on being distracted in the middle of her invasion, but unlike Keroro who was able to step in the first base, Ika-chan never, I repeat, NEVER, reached the first base! Heck, she is scared in the eldest sister!

Will I continue watching it? As of now, nope, I will drop it once I am not satisfied in the consecutive episodes, or if I am sure that Ika-chan will not succeed, which is obvious! If there is a plot twist in the story to keep me glued, I might continue with it.

Star Driver

Takuto came in an island to enjoy his youth in which he learns about a secret group working underground to unseal the maidens of the islands… err, seals. Using his mecha, Tauburn, he stops the members of the Glittering Crux with their plans of destroying the seals and use the Cybodies (the mecha of the series) outside Zero Time for their own personal gain.

Probably one of the flashiest titles that I have seen, the first five episodes were interesting but none of them are worth that talking about less the first episode is worth talking because of its flashiness… and that’s it. That is why I never reviewed the first one.

The character designs felt like is was fit for a shojo title. The male characters are too slender and too beautiful that would cause yaoi fanfiction writers to spur various situations with it! Heck, Wako has been thinking of it in an episode! The female characters are okay, only a few female characters stand out in my own opinion.

As for the concept, it was igneous to begin with. Fighting in Zero Time was fun and this sort of Shaider nostalgia in me while watching it. Why Shaider? In Shaider, there are some instances that Shaider must fight in a different time space thanks to Poe’s (Or Ida if you watched the Filipino dub) time space warp.

The mecha designs here are in its extremes. Its either the body is too slender or the joints are too large. The proportions of the mecha suck in my own opinion, from the mechas seen in this series, only Tauburn stood out. None of the episodic mechas left a good impression on me. The only one that left a good mark was on that mecha that Tauburn first dueled with swords.

Will I continue watching it? Probably. The latest arc of the series which is about Sugata having the strongest Cybody and now, he is on a coma because he used it to protect Wako (Gee, that Mary Sue).

What is the title that I dropped before reaching episode 5? Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. Why? Because the series screams western animation in it, sure it was a fun story with Panty addicted to sex and Stocking addicted to sweets to make matters worst, they need to collect coins for them to return to heaven. Wait. What?!

The series was a fun series but I am not sure will it end. Because of its art style, I am quite sure that it might last for a long time. If I am sure of the length of this title, I might continue watching this one.

Will I do the same treatment next Winter 2011 anime season? Yes because of the upcoming titles that are interesting... for me.

 Sidenote: This is the 100th review of this blog! Sweet!

Marvel Origins: Iron Man (Iron Man Ep 4)

You dare to dent the suit?!

In this episode, we learned that the Marvel Anime Universe is a mix between the Marvel Movie Universe and its comic book materials... aaaand, we saw how Tony became Iron Man. Oh, with Wolvie appearing in later parts of the episode!

For starters, the episode was a flashback episode, taking place five years before the events of the anime. If you have watched the movie… there are many differences with this one. To make this long explanation short, no previous Iron Man knowledge needed… same case for Wolverine.

The only thing similar from its original sources is the fact that terrorist abducted Tony, forced to work with them, and escaped them with a bunch of scrap metals fashioned into a suit powered by Tony’s miniaturized arc reactor.

One thing that I liked about this episode is the reintroduction of Yinsen. I love how they gave Yinsen a very different persona. In this series, he is not friendly to Tony and hates him because he is a merchant of death. I love the fact that he is playing hard on Tony with his science project that they must do a toss coin so that if Tony wins, Yinsen cooperates. Sure Yinsen is kinda like a jerk to Tony, but this jerk changed Tony into a man that eh is today.

Since this is a flashback episode, this episode also has a plot for the present. There is racer who can’t race anymore but because of an offer by Zodiac, he was turned into a cyborg but for one condition, kill Tony Stark. Is it me, or it screams like Kamen Rider THE FIRST?

One of the bits that I want to talk about once his anime will be released but since he made an early bird cameo, I will say my thoughts on Bishieverine/Gayverine/whatever you will like to call anime Wolverine. When I first saw the trailer of Marvel Anime: Wolverine, I was stunned, literally for a few good reasons. HE IS NOT A GRUFF LOOKING CANADIAN FOR PETE’S SAKE! HE IS NOT THIN! HE IS MASCULAR! HE IS A BISHIE! A BISHIE! AND IT IS SOOOO NOT LOGAN! There.

But when he made his appearance on this episode, he made quite an entrance… ripping off that F1 with his claws. Aside from that, one thing I noticed with this Wolvie is that they made some changes with his appearance. In the original trailer, he has this white streak in his hair, in this episode, it is gone; in here, his hair is shorter and his trademark sideburns and his trademark hairdo is given quite a good anime spike. Still, he is still slim. What could be the reason? My theory for those changes? Much like Tony before in which when his first promo picture was seen without a beard, fans complained, might be the case for Wolverine. Is it me, or this better (I repeat, better. I am still not into Wolvie being a bishie) looking Wolvie was inspired by Hugh Jackman? Since accordingly this series will air in the US next year, just let the guy who does most of Wolvie’s voice acting do the job… and let’s hope and pray that they will place Wolvie’s infamous “bubs.”

Iron Man vs. Dio, finally, a decent Iron Man vs. Iron Man fight! One of the things that I am anticipating in Iron Man 2 was the fight between Mark IV suit in the Mark II suit… and I was disappointed with it. Sure, we saw Rhodey fight a drunk Tony, but their fight scenes felt like a bar fight except that they are wearing Iron Man suits. Too bad, it is short but hey, I love the plot twist at the near end of the episode. One thing that bothers me is how he survived back then…

Overall, from the four episodes of Iron Man that I watched, this one stands out. Aside that this is an Iron Man origin story; we are proven that Wolverine being a bishie is not that bad and the questions left in the first episode was given a rather decent explanation. Why decent? Because never got a proper resolution with the one wearing the Dio suit on how the hell he survived. A spare lucky coin I guess?

Note: I already left clues on who is the wearer of the Dio suit.

To end this up, here's an indirect reference to Iron Man 2.

 Suitcase armor anyone?