A while back, I reviewed a movie called “Big Dreams Little Tokyo.” The director just released another film, “White on Rice,” and sent me a review copy.

White on Rice is another story about Asians in America, though this one is not centered on an Anglo protagonist. Jimmy is a man-child who lives with his sister and her husband and child. He was recently divorced, and apparently is planning on moving out once he gets remarried. The problem is that Jimmy isn’t exactly marriage-material. He goes on a ton of dates, focusing on women in the office he works. First observation: Jimmy – you’re doing it wrong! Never go for the office romance! Things get more complicated when his sister’s friend(?) Ramona moves in for college. Jimmy decides to go after her, causing scene after scene of awkwardness.

There are also a few subplots involving Jimmy’s sister and her much older husband and their nerdy little kid. The kid, Bob, does not speak Japanese like the rest of the family. As a first (or second, depending on how you classify it) generation Asian American, I totally see this kid in most of my cousins who were also born in America. Bob is studious at school, has numerous part time jobs and pretty much fades into the background when his parents are around. He’s probably the most entertaining character since he’s so dead-on stereotype but also very real.

Jimmy, on the other hand, is sort of less believable. How did he get married in the first place? What led up to his divorce? He’s about one step away from being Pee-Wee Herman in his man-child behavior. I can’t decide whether to like him or whether to think he’s extremely creepy. He’s kinda mean to his super tall date, and he also totally ignores a girl in a banana costume who really likes him. He also stalks Ramona while she’s dating someone else. Granted, the guy she’s dating is a douchebag Asian (note to women, this is the wrong kind of Asian man to date), but still. I think Hiroshi Watanabe really shows his skill in acting, since he can play this socially inappropriate dude and get away with it simply because he looks so innocent when he flashes that smile.

Some of the acting is a big rough. I can’t tell if Hiroshi Watanabe is speaking broken English on purpose for his character, or because he’s really not that good at English. It’s kind of like how it seems like Jackie Chan doesn’t really know any English at all in his movies and basically speaks the syllables he needs to in order to fake it. I had to rewind a few times to understand what people were saying. This is bad, because I should technically be pretty good at deciphering Asian accents (my parents have strong accents). Besides the language barrier, I thought the movie was really funny most of the time. The thing is that the actors all seemed sincere in what they were doing, even if what they were doing seemed just plain wrong.

I also had a few issues with the pacing of the movie, especially towards the end. Some random character appears out of nowhere and saves the day with his car. I don’t recall seeing him earlier in the movie. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention? There were also random plot holes here and there, but that’s to be expected when you have a bunch of overarching plotlines and a short amount of time to tie them all in. A fun easter egg that I noticed was in a funeral home scene. Bob goes to play the piano by a dead guy. The dead guy looks like Boyd from Big Dreams Little Tokyo. In the credits, the young corpse is listed as being played by “Boyd Wilson,” who is the character that Dave Boyle played. So he got a small cameo in his movie. It’s kind of sad to see that Boyd died so young. Hopefully the sumo guy realized his dreams.

One detail that I appreciated was that the native speakers spoke to each other in Japanese. It always confuses me when two people who can communicate with each other in their native language, when it’s just the two of them, decide to speak in broken English. Tim (the douchebag Asian guy) even makes a note that Bob doesn’t speak to his parents in Japanese, though he can understand them when they speak to him. It’s a small touch, but makes a difference when it’s something that is culturally obvious.

I don’t think that anyone would argue that there are too many movies on Asian American culture. Any addition to the genre is quite welcome, and when it turns out to be funny and genuine, that’s a major bonus. I originally thought the storyline was going to be about an Asian guy going after a white woman because of the title. “White on Rice?” I think it would’ve been a more interesting story that could’ve highlighted culture clashes and brought up more about Asian American self-identity. Jimmy could’ve totally used this book. While I think it plays it a bit too safe, White on Rice still serves as a voice for the underrepresented minority of Asian Americans. I think it’s an important step in showing that Asians can star in movies that don’t have the word “ninja” or “kung-fu” in them. Overall it’s a solid Asian American indie movie that’s fun, uplifting, quirky and charming in its little imperfections.

White on Rice hasn’t had a wide theatrical release yet, but it has shown up in some film festivals. Apparently you can buy the movie already for a “sneak peek.” Hopefully it gets a wider release at some point. You can get more info at the official website.

I really do sort of miss the Anime Nano Podcast. And the panel had 2/3 of the original AN Podcast cast. jpmeyer and Hinano!

The panel itself was about anime blogging, and they went through the noob stuff like which blogging platform to use and how to get hits (Anime Nano!). It’s funny that they mentioned how Animeblogger.net is still (always?) in need of donations and how Dreamhost sucks (though it is very, very cheap).

My only complaint is that they avoided talking about BLOG DORAMA which is probably the most enjoyable part of the anime blog-o-sphere. They just skimmed over the elitism of ABC and the mud-slinging that was the female blogger round-robin thing. I guess it might’ve gone over the heads of the actual people at the panel, but anime bloggers would’ve enjoyed hearing about it! I’m sure there’s all sorts of cool stuff that I miss these days from being less active, myself.

In general the talk was pretty clean as well. And by that I mean no one really dissed anyone else. I mean, no one even mentioned that most team blogs are usually run by one dude and a bunch of others who don’t contribute, or how it takes less time to get a PhD than it does to get accepted into Anime Nano! Ah well, thanks for keeping the gloves on, guys.

I’m kind of surprised that so many questions were asked. Too bad most of them were noob questions like “should I delete comments” or “how do I SEO optimize my blog?”

I guess I kind of wanted to see “Anime Nano Podcast Live” except without me in it. Which is not what the panel was at all. It’s okay though because jpmeyer was entertaining as always and Hinano was bitchy as usual (I mean that in a good way!). That other dude (DS?) didn’t talk much, and when he did he was kinda quiet. I think the job of the other person is really to get jpmeyer and Hinano to argue. That’s what I tried to do in the podcast, anyway.

Overall, the panel was pretty cool, and I wish I coulda gone to ask the hard-hitting questions. Thanks to DS, jpmeyer and Hinano for doing the panel, and AnimeDiet for recording/distributing it.

So like Kabitzin, I was offered some free movie tickets to Death Note II for my faithful readers. Just go here and see if the movie is playing in your town. There are tickets for October 15 & 16 showings. Then um… Hmm… I guess I have to make this into a contest. Okay.

Leave a comment with a haiku about Death Note and I’ll pick two winners from random. Or maybe I’ll just pick the most entertaining haiku. Either way, I’ll contact the winners via email on 9/29/09.

Holding a special place in my heart for stuff that’s natsukashii, Honey and Clover is one of my favorite series. It’s the timeless story of a group of college kids figuring out how life works. Basically, Honey and Clover makes me want to stay in college forever.

DVD Blurb:
Based on the popular manga by Chica Umino which has sold over 10 million copies in Japan, HONEY AND CLOVER is a romantic comedy about a group of art school students who try to find their way. But when an innocent and talented 19-year-old girl enters their lives, things get a lot more complicated as love triangles result.

Review:
I really liked Honey and Clover as an anime because it covered a range of emotions. It was funny, wacky, serious, emo and reflective all in one series. The main characters were all great friends in addition to being in some complicated love triangles.

Takemoto is the new kid on the block, Hagu is the cute genius that everyone likes, Morita is weird and likable in his strange behaviors, Yamada is strong and loved by all guys except the object of her affection and Mayama is the “adult” of the group, taking care of Takemoto and basically acting like the glue of the group.

The movie does some interesting things with the characters both in terms of casting and in characterizations. The biggest difference I noticed was that Morita was incredibly unlikable. He retains none of the wackiness that makes him fun and just does whatever he wants (usually maliciously) to Hagu. While the Morita character grows during the film, he still kind of rubs me the wrong way. The casting for Morita seemed a little off. It’s like they picked a bike gang guy to play him.

There’s some other weirdness in casting, too. I can understand that there probably weren’t any dwarf blond girls to cast for the role of Hagu. But still, it really messes with my head to have a Japanese-looking Hagu. Japanese Hagu is still cute enough though, I guess. The actress for Yamada seems beautiful enough, but she ends up looking really scary shooting the evil eye, especially when she’s stalking Mayama.

Mayama is changed from being a fairly confident guy with some stalker issues to being a full fledged neurotic shut-in. This sucks since Mayama is probably my favorite character from the anime. In the anime he’s cool; in the movie he’s just kind of pitiful. Takemoto is probably the best actor to play his part. Actually, Hanamoto was my favorite character. It’s sad since he played a pretty small role.

Aside from casting issues, the movie also suffers from its running time. Everything feels really condensed. This might be one of the reasons that the group of friends don’t seem very friendly with each other. Given the number of scenes available, it’s uncommon to see them all together. I’m not sure if Morita and Mayama are even seen hanging out together until the art show scene halfway through the movie.

A lot of other things from the story are cut short as well. Instead of biking to Hokkaido, Takemoto just gets to a beach that the gang had visited before. It just takes him a night to get back. I can’t really remember everything that happened in the actual story, but the movie just feels so condensed that important relationships don’t feel significant at all. For example, the famous scene when Mayama is carrying Yamada and she confesses to him doesn’t seem as powerful. The movie makes it seem like Yamada has a crush when she’s really painfully in love with him.

So what’s good about the movie? It’s interesting seeing actual art being produced by people as opposed to characters in a manga or anime do it. The whole wood sculpting stuff by Morita and Hagu’s painting were really interesting to watch in action. That’s probably the only edge the movie has versus anime and manga iterations of Honey and Clover. It’s easier to portray the artistic process on film versus doing it in drawings.

As far as DVD stuff and extras go, there’s just the original audio track and subtitles. The DVD also has a few extras like a “Hanamoto Study Group” which is just the actors having a chat about filming the movie and some info about the director and cast fo the movie. Pretty barebones but that’s okay.

Conclusion:
Overall, I’d say this film adaptation of Honey and Clover was a failure. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to condense the story into a two hour movie and keep the plot intact. The movie glosses over important details about the characters’ relationships and actually changes their behavior as well. Honey and Clover should be funny, nostalgic and heart wrenching all at once. The live action version just doesn’t stay true to the heart of the series.

Many thanks to Viz for sending me a review copy of Honey and Clover!

I got this Blu-ray disc a while ago from Funimation but I was never able to watch it since I didn’t have a player. Recently I bought a Playstation 3, so I test drove its high definition video skills with this movie. Unfortunately, I forgot to set the display to 1080i! orz

Movie Blurb:
The year is 1614. Japan has been united under the Tokugawa Shoguns and the land is beginning to feel at peace. Two remote ninja clans, the Koga and the Iga, are ancient enemies but have long been bound by a peace agreement forbidding them to fight. The heirs to the leadership of both clans have fallen in love – but a tragic fate awaits them.

A cruel plot is set by the Shogun to wipe these two clans from existence by breaking the peace agreement and forcing the two clans to battle. Five ninjas of each the Koga and Iga clans will battle against each other to the death. As a great war begins it brings the two young heirs together again. But this time as enemies.

Review:
Shinobi – Heart Under Blade is based on a novel from 1958 called “Koga Ninpocho” which spawned the more recent anime and manga versions, which went by the name “Basilisk.” I haven’t touched the manga and I only got through a few discs of the anime, so I don’t know how either ends. The movie is the only version that I’ve actually gotten all the way through.

I bet most of the people reading this will be at least somewhat familiar with the Basilisk series, so I’ll be comparing the two quite a bit. For starters, the movie has a lot less characters. I think the anime had 10 ninja for each side that were battling each other. The movie condenses the number to 5 each. This means some cool ninja from the anime were left out, like the hair ninja and the fat inflatable ninja. Fat ninja, we hardly knew ye!

In order to fit into a movie, the ninja skills are hardly ever explained. Like Hotarubi’s skills are really ambiguous until another ninja is randomly attacked by a billion butterflies. Also, I think some of the ninja skills were switched around (I don’t think Oboro had random bone-breaking stare skills). I guess in the context of a Japanese film, these shortcomings make sense since the intended audience is probably fully aware of story already. It’s like expecting everything in the Harry Potter movies to be explained. There’s an expectation that the audience knows a bit about the story from the get-go. But when you watch it as a non-Japanese person, stuff seems confusing.

Another huge difference in anime vs. movie plot is that Gennosuke and Oboro both know about the contest much earlier, and they actually talk to each other about it in a scene. This removes a lot of the tension in the anime of both parties being unaware of the impending crisis while their peers try and keep it a secret while killing the guys on the other side. I guess it had to be done for the sake of time, but I thought that tension was one of the more interesting plot devices of the anime.

Despite the differences, the story manages to be pretty interesting. The movie turns into a cat and mouse chase and battle movie. There’s a lot of CG that’s used for the ninja skills. A lot is kind of ridiculous, but also necessary, I suppose. There is some neat bullet-time-ish stuff later in the movie that is visually awesome. In the end, the movie should probably be judged by its fight scenes. Luckily, there isn’t a disproportionate amount of emo crying by Gennosuke (though his actor does seem kind of moody and yelly most of the time). The fighting makes up for this, though.

I also have a minor gripe that Hotarubi is totally more cute than Oboro. In the anime, Oboro was really moe, and Hotarubi was tougher. It seems they made a role reversal in the movie version. I can’t imagine why Gennosuke wouldn’t just dump Oboro for the cuter Hotarubi. Except that Hotarubi’s teeth are really kind of gross. The teeth will always get you!

Conclusion:
I wonder if I would’ve liked this movie better if I had never seen the anime version of Basilisk. The anime did such a good job of telling the story that I might have become spoiled. If you only have two hours, go for the movie. Otherwise, I’d suggest investing time in the anime version.

Thanks to Funimation for sending me a review copy of Shinobi – Heart Under Blade! (also on DVD)

A while back, I reviewed a movie called “Big Dreams Little Tokyo.” I liked it a lot, and I’m happy to announce that the film is actually on its way to a DVD release. I used to be a film (media arts) student, so I’m pretty psyched whenever an indie film gets some support behind it. This film is about a likeable weeaboo, so that’s gotta be double-support from me.

Anyway, the movie is available for pre-order on Amazon, so check out my review and if you want, pre-order it!

P.S. I wouldn’t really endorse this movie unless I liked it. Sure, there are some flaws in the acting and writing, but from what I recall, the movie was pretty entertaining to me from the perspective of an American who has an interest in Japanese culture.

TallRisa is Tall!!!

DVD Blurb:
Based on the bestselling comic by Aya Nakahara Love☆Com The Movie is a high-school romantic comedy centering on two students. Risa Koizumi is the tallest girl in class, and the last thing she wants is the humiliation of standing next to Atsushi Ôtani, the shortest guy. Fate and the whole school have other ideas, and the two find themselves cast as the unwilling stars of a bizarre romantic comedy duo. But as their friendship develops, so do Risa’s feelings toward Ôtani.

Review:
Love*Com is the timeless story about two star-crossed lovers. It’s like Romeo and Juliet, except Juliet is really tall and without the genocide at the end!

This is my first stab at a shoujo story gone live action, so I may be a bit biased when I say the acting seemed really horrible. Of course, a live action is supposed to mimic the wackiness of a manga, right? The manganess was also portrayed in other ways like how everything looked like it went through a crazy saturation filter in Photoshop and the crazy mise-en-scene of the classrooms. I guess in retrospect, the “bad” acting sort of contributed to the light fluffy nature of the story.

While I was watching, I thought to myself: “Risa is kind of cute, but I bet she’s in high school! Bad thoughts!!! But Otani looks like he’s 30 or something!” It turns out the actress who plays Risa, Fujisawa Ema, was born in 1982, making her about 6 months OLDER than me, and the Otani guy, Koike Teppei, was born in 1985. Oops. So yeah, I can safely think that Risa is kind of cute.

Also, I’ve mentioned this before, but the heights aren’t even that wacked out. Like Risa is supposed to be 170cm, which works out to about 5’7. That’s like, my height. I guess we’re going via average Japanese heights, though. Not ABC heights.

I know how the Love*Com story goes in the non-movie media, so it’s interesting to see what the movie does to compress the storyline. For example, in the beginning, Chiharu and Suzuki are already an item. Also, Chiharu is waayy too cute in the movie, detracting from Risa. Whoever had the idea to make Chiharu a meganekko, I SALUTE YOU! Getting back on track, a lot of things are left out and entire characters are gone (like the epic trap!).

There were, however, some completely awesome things thrown in. The karaoke with Umibozu was totally awesome. The scene with the random rickshaw ride was awesome. Maity-sensei saying “Yoroshi QUEEENNN” was also awesome. The director definitely had a fun time with the movie, and it shows. Risa does her fair share of crying as well, which kinda makes you feel bad for her. Because of the speed of the movie, Risa comes off as less of an indecisive idiot and more like a real human. I guess I should also mention that Kansai-ben is awesome, too.

Conclusion:
One of my main gripes about the Lovely Complex manga is that it tries too hard to extend the storyline by adding random characters and delaying the payoff. The Love*Com movie pretty successfully escapes this by lasting about 100 minutes. What you get is a happy ending in a fraction of the time you’d spend reading! Overall it’s a fun movie.

Many thanks to Viz for sending me a review copy of Love*Com The Movie! It’s out on Feb. 19th, just in time for a really, really late Valentine’s day!

Big Dreams Little Tokyo is not an anime, manga, or live action dorama. It’s an American indie film with a huge dash of Japanese culture references. Basically, fair game for review on this blog. Or so I declare.

Also, this review is based on an advance screener copy of the film. Apparently it’s going to be released in theaters and on DVD in early ’08. So you can’t watch this yet. Gomen.

Story:
Boyd (just Boyd) is a man on a mission. He’s got a book and he’ll go to just about any length to sell it. His book, “The Power of Words” is targeted at Japanese Americans who want to improve their English skills. Quite a niche if you ask me.

Boyd shares an apartment with Jerome, a Japanese sumo wrestler in training. Together they form an odd team. Boyd is giving Japanese lessons to Jerome while he trains (eats). They also go door to door selling Boyd’s book.

Along the way, they make friends with Andy, the Mexican who works at a Sushi restauraunt, and Mai, a Japanese nurse trying to improve her bedside manner. They all struggle with issues of ethnicity, identity, and overuse of gerund verbs.

Analysis:
Alright! Now it’s time for all those undergrad film theory courses to pay off! I used to be a film major, in case anyone is wondering.

Dave Boyle’s Big Dreams Little Tokyo is in essence, a film about characters struggling with their ethnic identity. Boyd is that dude in Japanese class that was way too into being formal with the teacher. He’s the classic weeaboo who wishes he was Japanese. Rather than come off as being annoying, however, he’s mostly sincere, even as he tells a Japanese person that he “doesn’t do white people.”

Boyd isn’t the only character struggling with these issues, however. Jerome is technically Japanese, though he doesn’t have much of his Japaneseness intact. At one (maybe the only) poignant part of the film, Jerome talks about how he was made fun of as a child for being Japanese, then later alienated by the Japanese around him for not being Japanese enough. Jerome’s character is mostly used for comic relief, however. It’s too bad since he could’ve had his own (real) subplot.

Despite all this talk about race issues, Big Dreams Little Tokyo is mostly a comedy. It’s a tricky blend of bilingual comedy that native English speakers who know Japanese would find funny. Luckily, I fit into that category. Most of it is in the form of Boyd being hypersensitive to Japanese culture, even moreso than the Japanese around him. For example, he cautions Jerome not to knock on a door four times, since “shi” is Japanese for “four” and “death.” Like most Japanese would notice, right?

Not all the jokes are language specific, thankfully. But I would recommend a few years in Japanese class to get all the jokes.

As far as the production itself goes, I’d say it’s a solid attempt by an indie filmmaker. I understand the budget for the film was probably fairly low. But I’ll point out what I noticed anyway! First off, the sound was a bit weird. The levels just didn’t feel right from scene to scene. It’s all in the post production. Speaking of sound, I thought the soundtrack appropriate. A lot of random sounds for a random movie.

I have mixed feelings about the acting. Boyd seemed a bit stiff at points (moreso than his character would or should have been). While he got the awkwardness down pat, I felt like some of the awkwardness was unintentionally bad acting… So either Boyd’s actor was an amateur, or a genius. I had no problems with Boyd’s Japanese, though. That dude’s actually pretty good (better than me, at least)! Jerome’s acting could also use some coaching. His inflections were sorta weird at parts, like he was just reading from a script. Mai, Andy, and the rest of the cast were all great, though.

The story itself also seemed to lack cohesion. There was a part where Boyd started a food delivery service, seemingly out of thin air. It was around this time that Mai suddenly vanished from the movie for a while, too. This kind of narrative hiccup is to be expected in an indie movie, though. I can forgive a little sloppy scriptwriting.

Conclusion:
Big Dreams Little Tokyo is a film that lives up to its title. I think Boyd’s story of persisting through his own company is probably similar to the creation of the film itself. How easy could it be to create a film about a weeaboo and his adventures in bookselling? It’s pretty much in a niche of a niche. But like Boyd himself, the movie has a lot of heart. I can’t see Big Dreams Little Tokyo gaining a lot of mainstream attention, but it doesn’t matter; I think Dave Boyle has already accomplished what he had set out to do.

Many thanks to Dave Boyle for sending me a screener of Big Dreams Little Tokyo!

So according to ComiPress, there’s going to be a Negima live action drama! And that’s about all the news there is.

Personally, I dunno if a live action Negima can work. I don’t know if there’s any real life kids who could fit the Negima role well. Plus with all the girls, I’d have a feeling it’d be hard to tell them all apart (unless they actually had pink hair, etc).

Also, would you really want to watch a 7 year old boy get into ecchi situations with 13 year old girls in real life? The anime version works because the girls at least look like they’re older than that. You can sorta suspend your disbelief when it’s anime and manga, but with real life? I think it’d just be creepy.

So the next episode of The Adventures of the ASOS Brigade has come out! For some reason this one is number 005. So they’re skipping around like the original Haruhi anime? Great… In this episode, Haruhi gets a tip about a secret alien base. She, Mikuru and Yuki go to Area 42.

They stalk around and find a real life alien closet! The closet is some kind of clothes changing one. So Yuki gets the witch costume and Mikuru gets the bunny suit from Asahina Mikuru no Bouken. Would it have killed them to get Patricia Ja Lee in a bunny suit? Seriously, that’s how you sell dvds!

After that, they get secretly stalked by an alien. They stumble upon the special edition DVD box. Whoa, that sure was subtle! The alien attacks and Haruhi orders her subordinates to do something. Yuki uses her wand attack and Mikuru uses her mikuru beam. They’re both ineffective so they resort to guns.

But WTF, the alien’s just a normal guy, and they’re actually in front of a green screen! Haruhi wakes up and finds out it was all a dream. Just like the eighth season of Dallas! Then the accent-laden narrator talks about the stuff included in the special edition dvds.

It was a pretty fun episode overall. It kind of dragged on though. Like seriously, they could’ve reduced it to maybe 4-5 minutes or so from the 8 minutes it actually ran. The costumes and the cheesy special effects were a nice touch. As far as the extras go, they look pretty cool. Like they include the CD singles and other random junk.

When are we gonna get some Haruhi fanservice? She sort of spun around a little bit, but there was definitely no pantsu action. Seriously, include something along those lines and I’ll buy all the DVDs, multiple times!