Akemi’s Anime Blog

This is a total non-sequitur, but a while back I happened to watch an obscure mid-70s vintage vampire-action movie called Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter. It is cheesy, poorly made, and generally just plain bad, but I was struck by the fact that it absolutely screamed “anime.”  From the exaggerated characters, to the relatively creative action, to the big showdown at the end, to the general layout and theme of the movie, to the general good cheer of the characters (it’s a vampire movie that is NOT a horror movie, rather far closer to straight action), were you to take exactly the same script, replace the blonde Captain Kronos with a nice, lanky, too-cool anime stud, and hand it to a decent art director, you’d end up with a solid anime action flick.

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen a live action movie that begged so much to be anime.  Read into this what you will.  IMDB tells me the writer and director is Brian Clemens, but I see nothing in his list of credits to indicate he’s predisposed to anime-style stories (except maybe Highlander II, which was largely awful in context, though I suppose might have worked as a completely unrelated standalone anime movie too, if you were determined to).

I’m hoping to add a number of blu-ray reviews to the site in the very near future, but I want to get it right before going live. I’m hoping to do some side-by-side image quality comparisons with the DVD version, so you can get an idea if you’re actually paying for some improvement or just for the fancy box. (The Gunbuster “movie,” for example, is remastered but has absolutely no business being on blu-ray–it just looks extra-blurry in comparison; Akira actually has something to gain from the added resolution of the format, plus the uber-fancy audio they spend several pages of the booklet talking up.)

However, the actual purpose of this is to mention that Amazon is running a big blu-ray sale for the next couple of weeks, and I didn’t want to let the good anime buys mixed in to go unmentioned.  The best deals (at least 40% off, which is about as low as I can find them anywhere, plus free shipping if you spend at least $25): Paprika ($23.50), Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles ($15, good movie!), Vexille (Special Edition) ($17.50), plus Afro Samurai ($15), Dead Space: Downfall ($15.50), and all of the Dragon Ball Z double features ($17.50 or less). They also have Tekkon Kinkreet at 40% off, but you can probably find it cheaper elsewhere.

Full disclosure: We get a cut if you buy through these links. That doesn’t make them any less good of a deal, though.