The Vile One's Dungeon: Anime Expo 2008 - Day 2

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 07.05.2008

EVA 1.0! Solid Snake sings! The future of ADV! Mild spoilers!

It was a beautiful July 4th day, so why wasn't I spending it outside at BBQ's and lighting fireworks? Because I was busy wrecking AX '08. Here's the lowdown on Day 2 of the biggest anime con of the year:

David Hayter: QnA

David Hayter took the time to conduct a panel in front of thousands and fans. While none of them were aware that I spoke with him in a one on one interview just two days before. Suckers. Hayter answered many questions from fans in attendance, many which involved doing lines as Solid Snake, which Hayter was more than totally cool about. Interestingly enough, Hayter said there was one scene he didn't really like in Metal Gear Solid 4 that is still in the game. He is not very fond of the scene in which Snake puts a gun in his mouth and then starts shaking. Hayter feels that Snake would not hesistate if he was serious about blowing himself away. Regarding the comparison to Snake Plissken of Escape From New York, Hayter said it was not his intention to mimic Kurt Russell's legendary character. When he first auditioned as the character over 10 years ago, he tried really hard not to sound like Plissken because he feared they would all get sued for similarities. Hayter also talks about coming to Hollywood to become famous, and sounds glad overall it didn't turn out that way since he has friends that did become famous, and it did some negative things to their personal life. So being a screenwriter/part-time voice actor does give you a nice amount anonymity. The absolute greatest though was Hayter fulfilling a fan's request and doing some lyrics of MG3's "Snake Eater" theme song. You had to be there.

EVANGELION 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone



As far as I know, this is the first time the movie has been shown in the US besides the Seattle International Film Festival. The print was shown on a big screen, with a 35mm projector. Sound quality was great, but the print looks like its done a little time. That said it was still great getting EVA in full, classic, theatrical form.

This is the first of four movies of the "Rebuild of Evangelion". The project director is the original series' creator, Hideako Anno. While a lot of the scenes and designs look similar to the original series, this movie is essentially a totally re-animated version of the first six episodes of the regular Neon Genesis Evangelion series. Things have been altered. Scenes have been tweaked, entirely new scenes and subplots have been added in, one at the end which was quite shocking. The EVA-unit/Angel battles come off as even more epic than ever before. Shinji however is still pretty whiney and annoying, unfortunately.

It looks like many if not all the classic VA's have reprised their roles. Shiro Sagisu returns to do the music. While a lot of the classic themes are in, some of them have been noticeably altered and amped up.

The idea of this movie series is to attract new fans and audiences to EVA, since chances are the hardcore fans will eat up anything EVA no matter what. It's definitely a well executed, well presented movie. It's a much tighter, bigger, more epic version of the early part of the series. But it also looks like it will be going in a totally different direction from then on, making this an essential retelling of the series much like the high school drama/comedy version of EVA as well as the popular doujinshi comic, Re-Take. Anno at the helm does give the project legitimacy, so its not necessarily another cheap cash-in. Hopefully the fourth and final movie will have an actual ending though instead of the dreck that was served up in the series and then the two crappy movies.

While I missed "Cruel Angel's Thesis" more than anything, the closing credits were followed by a quick preview of Evangelion 2.0. From this preview alone, it looks like things could be much different with the Evangelion saga from here on out. I hope Anno isn't having women trouble at the moment or anything of that sort though.

ADV Industry Panel



Matt Greenfield and John Ledford, the respective co-founders of ADV, headed up this panel to talk about the future of the company. The basic gist is that they've had a bad year, mainly due to their financial partner, Sojitz, who they are now going their separate ways from. They have lost a good deal of their titles, which has already been reported on numerous anime sites have been picked by Funimation Entertainment (Iicense rescue a-go-go). Earlier Greenfield said there are some hard feelings, but it's really just business. According to Greenfield and Ledford, while they did lose some good titles (such as The Wallflower and Five Centimeters Per Second), they weren't crazy about some of the titles they lost. Other word is that the live action Evangelion movie remains in development, and the production is currently being headed up by Joseph Chou (producer on Appleseed Ex Machina). Chou has been shopping the movie around Hollywood, and supposedly three big production companies are looking at it. Ledford and Greenfield played it off that since Transformers the movie was a hit, now giant robots are in and Hollywood wants to get on the gravy train. And now Robotech has a deal set up at Warner Bros. as well. ADV still wants WETA on the movie provided whoever picks the movie up is cool with it.

Besides all this, Greenfield and Ledford also confirmed that while they are no longer associated with Sojitz, they have a new financial partner. So they are still around for the time being. ADV hopes to have more to report at the Otakon anime convention next month, along with new licensed properties. In addition, the anime KIBA which was previewed the previous day will be released on DVD after its television broadcast debut. I think a number that was called out was about 20 anime. So don't count out the Houston, TX based anime distributor just yet.

Bandai Entertainment Industry Panel

Bandai had a few announcements to make regarding some new shows and properties this year. One such new property is Hayate, The Combat Butler. It's a 52 episode series, and it basically looks like a younger themed version of another anime, They Are My Noble Masters just with a lot less fan service. Also announced was Gundam 00, the latest in the juggernaut Gundam franchise. The Gundam 00 anime will be premiering on Sci-Fi Channel's Ani-Monday block starting November 17th. Another new title was Rocket Girl, which looks rather ridiculous, but to sum it up: Three school girls become astronauts for a Japanese rocket program and travel to space. Hey, its anime. More good news, Ghost In The Shell: Innocence will be re-released by Bandai Entertainment after that God awful Dreamworks/Go Fish Pictures fans were forced to suffer with for several years. This will feature a brand new English dub produced by ZRO Limit/Animaze who have done just about every Ghost In The Shell anime in existence, including the series. Besides that, the new DVD releases will have GOOD covers, and I imagine subtitles that work and are not closed captioning passed off on English subtitles either. Innocence will also be getting a Blu-ray release. Bandai will also be releasing The Girl Who Leapt Through Time manga in addition to the anime. Sword of The Stranger will have a brief theatrical run in the US before its DVD release later on.

Other Announcements and Cool Stuff

If you want to know the official English voice cast for the anime Ouran High School to be released by Funimation Entertainment, here it is:

Mike McFarlund as Rank
Greg Ayres as Kaoru
Luci Christian as Honey
Caitlin Glass as Haruhi
Vic Mignogna as Tamaki
Travis Willingham as Mori
J. Michael Tatum as Kyoya
Todd Haberkorn as Hikaru

To coincide with the announcement, the voice actors literally cos-played as their characters during the official autograph signing:


From L to R: Voice actors Travis Willingham, Luci Christian, and Vic Mignogna

Funimation Entertainment has recently picked up over 50 anime titles, which were originally released under the Geneon or ADV banner. This includes such big name titles as Hellsing and Black Lagoon. Funimation reps say all of the Geneon shows will continue using the original voice actors recorded for their shows. The ADV titles are still considered "TBA" though. One thing to keep in mind is that many voice actors for ADV and Funimation are crossover talent. So its more than likely the ADV shows now to be finished by Funimation will more than likely have the same voice casts intact such as Devil May Cry, The Wallflower, Tokyo Majin, etc. ADV did say they plan on working with Funimation to help keep continuity for these shows for the fans.

The coolest bit of swag I managed to snatch up today was at the Things From Another World store booth. They were selling the Hot Toys Biohazard 4/Resident Evil 4 12" action figures. I picked up the 4th game version of Leon Kennedy for $70, for an item that's normally priced about $144 or more. Here are some pics:







STAY TUNED: Day 3 will be the premiere of Batman: Gotham Knight. Yours truly will provide the recap coverage as well as the QnA. Also don't forget, the one on one interview with David Hayter, as well as his blockbuster, atomic bomb revelation about MGS4.