Wabi Sabi's post on the trailer of Yasuhiro Yoshiura's Time of Eve reminded me to search for a DVD of Yoshiura's earlier works. And found it I did on CDJapan. The R2 DVD does come with English subtitles (and Aquatic Language on the DVD comes with English dubbing) and I have a region-free DVD player, so no worries there.

So for a birthday present to myself (getting to the ancient age of 29 this Sunday), I decided to order the R2 DVD. Besides, I've liked Pale Cocoon enough that I feel I should at least own a real copy of it.

Martin has said everything I probably would have said about Pale Cocoon, so go there to read about it.

One of the biggest things that intrigued me about Tekkon Kinkreet is not just the reception it already received in Japan, nor the fact that it was produced by Studio 4ºC (Though that is the major reason I first took notice of this movie), but the fact that it was directed by an American. A rookie American director, at that. Though Micheal Arias has lived in Japan for 15 years and has worked with Studio 4ºC in the past on projects like the Animatrix, this is the time a westerner was at the helm of a Japanese animated feature.

And, more importantly, AniPages Daily has an excellent interview with the man! There's also information after the interview about the premier of the movie in New York City on April 25-30 for those who are in the area.

Well, according to the Makoto Shinkai Fan Web (Who performs the wonderful service of translating tidbits from the official Byousoku 5 Centimeter site for us English-speaking Shinkai fans), the final edit of Shinkai's upcoming film had been completed sometime before this previous Tuesday (Jan. 23, 2007) and that it will premiere at the Cinema Rise theater in Tokyo in March 2007! Heck yeah I'm excited!

Check out the screenshots that I've captured from the high-definition preview trailer! You can also download the trailers themselves from the official site, and you can also find subtitled version if you look around (I.E., search on YouTube . I would do it for you, but YouTube was down for maintenance when I was writing this entry...).

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.")

Another trailer for Makoto Shinkai's new movie trilogy, Byousoku 5 Centimeter, is available! I've been a big fan of Makoto Shinkai since I first saw Voices of a Distant Star and She and Her Cat, and I loved his first feature film The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I can't wait to see his new movie!

Thanks to the Anime News Network for announcing this.

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!