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Gainax announces "Blue Uru" is in production

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T

Tom_Cody

Member
6arfUOD.jpg
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Another piece of concept art from the original production.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Somnid said:
I'm sure it was "worldwide," I'm not sure it was a "release" though, more like a "worldwide containment."
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See, this is when it gets stupid when people all want to argue about what specific words "should" mean or whatever. I'm not wasting my time on this anymore.
 
T

Tom_Cody

Member
distantmantra said:
Only?

That's actually pretty cheap. I think I paid more than that when it first came out.

edit: Yep, I paid $55 for it with Amazon in 2007. It's totally worth the price.
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Annoying sarcasm?

The average movie is ~$15 on blu-ray. I would like to own Wings of Honneamise but that price is absurd.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Tom_Cody said:
Annoying sarcasm?

The average movie is ~$15 on blu-ray. I would like to own Wings of Honneamise but that price is absurd.
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It's not sarcasm. Japanese animation is priced very differently from Hollywood films. The print runs for niche art films can be pretty low too, which means the prices will only go up. Pretty sure Wings of Honneamise is out of print too, and the company distributing it in the US has gone out of business.
 
D

distantmantra

Member
duckroll said:
It's not sarcasm. Japanese animation is priced very differently from Hollywood films. The print runs for niche art films can be pretty low too, which means the prices will only go up. Pretty sure Wings of Honneamise is out of print too, and the company distributing it in the US has gone out of business.
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Honneamise is still technically releasing the Gundam UC blu-rays in North America, but the company for all intents and purposes is out of business. I'm actually surprised it's not selling for a lot more.
 
R

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
Fritz said:
Yeah, I wanted to say flash animation.
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I can't remember many shows lately that have used Flash animation. Maybe just Panty & Stocking, and to what extent I can't say for certain.

edit: Oh and Thermae Romae/Inferno Cop but those are three-minutes long per episode.
 
K

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
Woah, crazy news.
Wish Anno was directing. Yamaga hasn't been on his A game in a long, long time, but hopefully returning to his passion project here will revive his creative spirit. Fingers crossed.

I wonder how much the project will change with Yamaga in the director's chair, if at all. The concept art from when Anno was in charge is very reminiscent of Nadia and Evangelion.
 
G

geebee

Banned
Wings of Honneamise is one of the first anime blu rays I own and definitely one of my favorite anime movies. I'm going to be super hyped for this sequel!
 
T

Tom_Cody

Member
distantmantra said:
No sarcasm at all. It's basically a Japanese release that saw distribution in North America, and ended up being sold under the Japanese pricing structure.

edit: http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0018KKQAK/
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duckroll said:
It's not sarcasm. Japanese animation is priced very differently from Hollywood films. The print runs for niche art films can be pretty low too, which means the prices will only go up. Pretty sure Wings of Honneamise is out of print too, and the company distributing it in the US has gone out of business.
Click to expand...

distantmantra said:
Honneamise is still technically releasing the Gundam UC blu-rays in North America, but the company for all intents and purposes is out of business. I'm actually surprised it's not selling for a lot more.
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I guess that makes sense.

In the ends I think I'm just annoyed at the thought of spending so much on a blu-ray.
 
B

Branduil

Member
Krev said:
Woah, crazy news.
Wish Anno was directing. Yamaga hasn't been on his A game in a long, long time, but hopefully returning to his passion project here will revive his creative spirit. Fingers crossed.

I wonder how much the project will change with Yamaga in the director's chair, if at all. The concept art from when Anno was in charge is very reminiscent of Nadia and Evangelion.
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Anno hasn't been on his A-game for a long time either, LOL.
 
D

duckroll

Member
TheJollyCorner said:
This.

Honneamise is one of my favorite animated films of all time.
Very excited for this.

Also: please, please, please get Ryuichi Sakamoto!
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I fucking love Honneamise too, but come on, Sakamoto was the weakest link in the movie. His experimental music style really didn't fit well as a movie soundtrack imo. I think I would be fine with someone else scoring Blue Uru! ^^;

Krev said:
He didn't fall as long as hard as Yamaga though.

Hoping and praying 3.0 doesn't suck. It does though, right?
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I think it's easier to not "fall as hard" when you work a lot less too. Yamaga has been turning out a lot of trash at Gainax, but a lot of those feel like stuff they basically do because it's what's available to them (adaptations in particular). Anno is just a rebel, when there was no more work at Gainax which interested him, he just bailed out and formed Khara! :D
 
J

jett

D-Member
duckroll said:
I fucking love Honneamise too, but come on, Sakamoto was the weakest link in the movie. His experimental music style really didn't fit well as a movie soundtrack imo. I think I would be fine with someone else scoring Blue Uru! ^^;



I think it's easier to not "fall as hard" when you work a lot less too. Yamaga has been turning out a lot of trash at Gainax, but a lot of those feel like stuff they basically do because it's what's available to them (adaptations in particular). Anno is just a rebel, when there was no more work at Gainax which interested him, he just bailed out and formed Khara! :D
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Sakamoto is a genius, maybe he didn't put his best effort in scoring Honneamise. :p I liked the music in Honneamise still.
 
D

duckroll

Member
jett said:
Sakamoto is a genius, maybe he didn't put his best effort in scoring Honneamise. :p I liked the music in Honneamise still.
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I agree that he's a genius, but I just felt the fit wasn't very good in Honneamise. I don't think he lacked effort either, it just didn't work that great as a soundtrack.
 
J

jett

D-Member
duckroll said:
I agree that he's a genius, but I just felt the fit wasn't very good in Honneamise. I don't think he lacked effort either, it just didn't work that great as a soundtrack.
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His Honneamise work has a synthpop sound to it that is take it or leave it. It kinda fit the era of the movie's release for me, late 80's/early 90's. He can easily make something more traditional if he is indeed hired for Blue Uru. Sakamoto makes such good music I can't ever deny the chance for more work from him.
 
D

duckroll

Member
jett said:
His Honneamise work has a synthpop sound to it that is take it or leave it. It kinda fit the era of the movie's release for me, late 80's/early 90's. He can easily make something more traditional if he is indeed hired for Blue Uru. Sakamoto makes such good music I can't ever deny the chance for more work from him.
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Sure, I agree, but what concerns me is that if it's the same core creative staff reviving a two decade old project which was intended to be the sequel to Honneamise, I'm sure there's a temptation to try and recapture that exact feeling. The electric synthpop 80s style of the soundtrack is the one thing from Honneamise I feel I can do without. Lol. I'm definitely in the leave it camp.
 
J

jett

D-Member
duckroll said:
Sure, I agree, but what concerns me is that if it's the same core creative staff reviving a two decade old project which was intended to be the sequel to Honneamise, I'm sure there's a temptation to try and recapture that exact feeling. The electric synthpop 80s style of the soundtrack is the one thing from Honneamise I feel I can do without. Lol. I'm definitely in the leave it camp.
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Yeah I can see that being a concern. :p
 
T

TheJollyCorner

Member
I just feel that experimental style worked with the unique world that Honneamise takes place in.
I mean, the opening credits theme is a fantastic piece of music and I still find myself listening to from time to time.
I also love the music played when Shiro has the gravity tests with the test pilot (plays off of the main theme song), as well as the more traditional Japanese music played as night falls on the busy city. The training montage music was also really catchy and the assault/launch music just fired me up. There's a bit of Mid-Eastern flavor in that track, which is interesting.

I guess the style just worked for me.
A hi-budget, full-orchestral score like AKIRA or a stylish/tech oriented OST like Ghost in the Shell just wouldn't work as well with the world presented for me, nor would something simple (but layered) like a Joe Hisaishi OST.

Honneamise presented a world I definitely wanted to see more of and I guess my ears just instantly connected it to Sakamoto's OST. :)
 
X

/XX/

Member
Woo-hoo! Busy for a few days and I'm late to precisely one of the best announcements parties I can think of, a resurrection one. Are you ready for Streets of Fire 2: WILD SPACE FORCE? Man, and I was loosing hope (http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=47486016&postcount=14380)!

With the plans of studio GAiNAX for the next couple of years laid out already after the projects announced/seen at their Tokyo International Anime Fair booth (supposing this was the same project Mr. Takeda referred to at that time; http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36608895&postcount=6150), I kind of miss in there a new Super Robot show starring Kumagawa...
oh, and Ghost Rhapsody, if Tadashi Hiramatsu ever avoids being absorbed into what Hideaki Anno will keep working on.

Also, I was thinking that this would have been a nice opportunity to see Yoshiyuki Sadamoto confirm his return as animation director after his additional task on Evangelion: 3.0. Come on, man! Just leave the promotional graphic novel companion of this upcoming film to a couple of your multiple assistants.

7Th said:
Everything is smiles and hopes until they reveal all the ships are now CG.
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Well, that first promotional poster is at least encouraging... but, yeah, they probably just secured the necessary funds Mr. Yamaga wanted to get and there is the pending process of assembling the "returning", one-off time staff and all that, so... unless they have been secretly keeping a stack of layouts, KA and things like that (SIXTEEN YEARS HAND-DRAWN!) in a vault since the first "frozen" designs were scrapped, along a lot of the pre-production work, I don't expect them to ignore what those tools can offer nowadays for a work like this one, even if they want to retain the feel of the original project. I don't really see anything crazy like that happening, of course!
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
I recently read the Animerica interview with Toshio 'Otaking' Okada, and he mentions that the initial concept Yamaga had for Blue Uru copied off elements from the movie Streets of Fire. If the whole "gotta rescue my babe from street punks" plot gets transformed into something more sci-fi for this film, it could lead to some crazy shit. Anything could happen after such a long period of intermittent development. That's what's so exciting about this announcement, in conjunction with how awesome Honneamise is.
 
T

TheJollyCorner

Member
Dragoon En Regalia said:
I recently read the Animerica interview with Toshio 'Otaking' Okada, and he mentions that the initial concept Yamaga had for Blue Uru copied off elements from the movie Streets of Fire. If the whole "gotta rescue my babe from street punks" plot gets transformed into something more sci-fi for this film, it could lead to some crazy shit. Anything could happen after such a long period of intermittent development. That's what's so exciting about this announcement, in conjunction with how awesome Honneamise is.
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so the question is: how long until we get a completed film?

4-5 years? :/
 
T

TheJollyCorner

Member
I apologize for the bump, but apparently this has a tentative release date of 2018 now.

(from May 2014)

http://www.japanator.com/gainax-s-aoki-uru-set-for-2018-32516.phtml

According to a website for the Japan booth at the famous Cannes Film Festival, the 120 minute Aoki Uru is now scheduled to hit Japanese theaters in 2018.
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Not sure of the legitimacy of this site, but has anyone heard anything else regarding this?

2018. Fuck. :/
I'm sure it'll be worth it, though.
 
D

duckroll

Member
I'm sorry but we're just being trolled by marketing at this point. The film is not in fact in production. They're apparently working on a "pilot film" right now, which is probably more like a proof-of-concept trailer to get funding for the actual film. 2018 is probably when they expect to be able to release the film if they get funding for production via distribution deals.
 
T

TheJollyCorner

Member
duckroll said:
I'm sorry but we're just being trolled by marketing at this point. The film is not in fact in production. They're apparently working on a "pilot film" right now, which is probably more like a proof-of-concept trailer to get funding for the actual film. 2018 is probably when they expect to be able to release the film if they get funding for production via distribution deals.
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well... I guess I'll start drinking now. :[
 
D

duckroll

Member
TheJollyCorner said:
well... I guess I'll start drinking now. :[
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Making animated films like this is actually pretty hard. They're not super cheap to produce, but there also isn't much of a market for them. Studios wanting to produce quality original content as feature films not linked to existing franchises and not targeting kids or perverts can find it hard to get funding.

For example, Sword of the Stranger was first promoted by BONES at their booth at Tokyo Anime Fair in March 2003 as "Mukoh Hadan". It was just a 5 minute pilot film showing off the tone of what they wanted to make. The film didn't go into actual production for years, and was only eventually released in Japan in late 2007.
 
T

TheJollyCorner

Member
duckroll said:
Making animated films like this is actually pretty hard. They're not super cheap to produce, but there also isn't much of a market for them. Studios wanting to produce quality original content as feature films not linked to existing franchises and not targeting kids or perverts can find it hard to get funding.

For example, Sword of the Stranger was first promoted by BONES at their booth at Tokyo Anime Fair in March 2003 as "Mukoh Hadan". It was just a 5 minute pilot film showing off the tone of what they wanted to make. The film didn't go into actual production for years, and was only eventually released in Japan in late 2007.
Click to expand...

I don't know much about modern anime culture (I'm not an expert), but is it just easier these days to get a massive series produced over a single film OVA? I really don't see many these days (other than Studio Ghibli stuff), so I guess that is just further proof of what you are saying.
It seems to me the return of some of the creative minds & talented animators that worked on the phenomenal Honneamise would be a big deal, but they are still having a hell of a time getting this off the ground.

Slightly OT, but is Otomo still making films? Does he deal with the same level of difficulty in getting films made or is his "creator of AKIRA" title allow him to be immune to such challenges?
 
K

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
duckroll said:
Making animated films like this is actually pretty hard. They're not super cheap to produce, but there also isn't much of a market for them. Studios wanting to produce quality original content as feature films not linked to existing franchises and not targeting kids or perverts can find it hard to get funding.

For example, Sword of the Stranger was first promoted by BONES at their booth at Tokyo Anime Fair in March 2003 as "Mukoh Hadan". It was just a 5 minute pilot film showing off the tone of what they wanted to make. The film didn't go into actual production for years, and was only eventually released in Japan in late 2007.
Click to expand...
Wasn't there a pilot for Steamboy in 1996? And Redline in 2006?
If they're not done with the pilot yet, this thing is a long way off.
 
D

duckroll

Member
TheJollyCorner said:
I don't know much about modern anime culture (I'm not an expert), but is it just easier these days to get a massive series produced over a single film OVA? I really don't see many these days (other than Studio Ghibli stuff), so I guess that is just further proof of what you are saying.
It seems to me the return of some of the creative minds & talented animators that worked on the phenomenal Honneamise would be a big deal, but they are still having a hell of a time getting this off the ground.

Slightly OT, but is Otomo still making films? Does he deal with the same level of difficulty in getting films made or is his "creator of AKIRA" title allow him to be immune to such challenges?
Click to expand...

I dunno about "massive series", but it's definitely seems easier to get a TV series made compared to an OVA or feature film. There are various reasons for that I guess. Even considering the much lower cost of making animation in Japan, a proper feature film would end up with a budget of a 13 episode TV series at least (a few million dollars). But you have to recover the costs of the film via boxoffice and DVD/BD sales of a single film. There's also actual distribution to consider, and it costs more to get a movie into cinemas than it does to pay for ad space and get a show on TV.

Otomo just recently released the Short Peace film anthology, which is a set of four short films with "Japan" as a theme, with different directors and writers - similar to his Memories project. It was okay.
 
T

TheJollyCorner

Member
Hopefully duckroll doesn't kill me for bumping, but it seems the short film Aoki Uru: Overture will air in Japan on December 30th of this year.

https://hummingbird.me/anime/aoki-uru-overture

A short special created by a newly launched Uru in Blue LLP (Limited Liability Partnership) in Singapore that will be pre-streamed in 2015 and will be a lead up/preview to the full film, set for 2018.
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Seems it was supposed to happen this past spring, but was pushed to the end of the year.

It might actually be happening! :D
Keep the faith, Honneamise fans!
 
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