Normally, I don't have many anticipated up-and-coming anime that I'm waiting for. I seem to have more of a wait-and-see attitude, and often will wait until others of watched and discussed the anime before I start watching. As it is, I already have quite a backlog of anime waiting to be watched. I find that this serves me well, and it's rare that I watch an anime that disappoints me. But sometimes, based on previous experiences with certain creators or an intriguing concept, I'll find myself looking forward to several animes, like right now. There's a number of anime, mostly films, coming out of Japan that I am keeping an eye out for.

Can't believe I didn't find this earlier...

Got the link from Kineska.

Anime News Network has an enticing review of Satoshi Kon's Paprika. Yeah, I know it's been around since September. I'm slow.

Too bad that this movie will not be released in the U.S. till March. And it'll be a limited release, which means that it will most likely not be showing anywhere within a couple hours driving distance from here. I may have to wait for the DVD.

Since I recently bought Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers as an impulse buy, I found this blog entry on Iwa ni Hana (warning: spoilers!) to be a very interesting read after watching it. Sucks that I can't read Japanese, but then again, many of these subtle in-jokes and references would be missed by most Japanese since they tend to only be visible for mere seconds and in the background. Also check out the entry on Millennium Actress (again, warning: spoilers!). It would have been nice if the company that licensed and subtitled Tokyo Godfathers (Columbia Tristar) could have at least provided a decent English dub with optional soft-subtitles of the Japanese text (Like ADV did with The Place Promised in Our Early Days) to let us non-native-speakers catch in on those references.

Thanks to Don from "beware the kawaii" for these links!

Excessive reality

Here's an interview with Satoshi Kon.

You can watch an English-language trailer for Paprika here. (Click on "Bande annonce," then select "VO.")

Woah! I can't believe I missed this post on Anime News Network about that Paprika May Contend for an Oscar! Paprika is a Japanese animated movie that's directed by the venerable Satoshi Kon , one of my most favorite directors in anime (Second only to Makoto Shinkai) and I'm pretty excited to see what he comes up with here!