Thats too bad to hear about Astroboy, I thought he would do better and the fact that the One Piece movie did so well is amazing. Keep making more Marzgurl!

Its hurts so much..

Imagi shouldn't tank, they are ok as a team, but should make better designations and there own shows like they did with Zentrix, Father of the Pride. They weren't great, but they were original and ok in storyline, and that's how they should continue. It's not the idea for some studios to go bankrupt, but to learn from their mistakes and to continue with their work, better, more quality and stuff.

Yay for theme music! I was wondering if you'd ever get one. Hell I even wondered if this would become a series.

Warmed up to One Piece yet?

Marzgurl,

totally off topic but i wanna know your opinion on the anime/manga Fairy Tail.
Also any news on the Kamen Rider Disney front cuz with the cancellation of Dragon Knight and the end of Power Rangers im worried what will happen in the world of Toku

All the best
-Jake H.

It's always sad when a company has to do major layoffs. I personally have no problems with a company performing layoffs for the sake of increased efficiency or to cover major losses from a bombed product or direction. After all, the business world revolves around money. But, as a consumer it's ultimately about my money or how I spend it, as it were. And Gatchaman is really the only title of theirs I'd pay full theater prices to see, just on nostalgia power alone.

Otherwise, it's wait for DVD or rental, and brass tacks says they don't make the same profits that way. I hope IMAGI will do better in the future, and that the executives are honestly doing what's best for the company and the product. As they rework their business model, maybe the company will turn around and people will be rehired. Who knows.

There's also the possibility that, like Serenity, the target markets preference isn't the theater public, but private alternative markets like DVD or direct access and their products succeed that way.

I'm not an expert on any aspect of the movie industry and I wont try to be; all I can say is the 21st Century business model is definitely not the same as yesteryear. So those who don't evolve with the times will be left behind, hopefully, leaving better companies and patterns of success for future endeavors and experiences.

Just my 2 pennies rubbed together hoping for change. Love your stuff Marz, keep up the good work. And Peace.

I think "Americaneese" TV shows has done a blow to the adaptation side of Anime/Manga.

with Americaneese i mean series that are made to look like anime but are animated by american companies. Series like Teen Titans or Avatar (those are bad example because they are actually pretty good) But other "americaneese" shows like Totally Spies and Galactic Football is definetly something that will perhaps make people think twice before they go see a Theater Adaptation of something.

Astro Boy bombed? Big surprise... seriously, if I had the choice to go see this or a theatrical release of the Hotel Mario cutscenes in CGI, I'd definitely go see the cutscenes, especially if it was going to be the same voice actors.

It makes me wonder... there's movies that are so bad that they're good, does it mean that there's some anime that falls under this category? I certainly hope so to be honest.

Anyway, WHY CGI for anime movies? Seriously? Well, I'm just used to the good old format we have for well... every anime there is but I assume most people thinks the same way, or perhaps not?

What? There's an Astroboy CGI movie? How come I didn't know that?

Oh yeah, it went poorly at the box office meaning it got no media attention and I therefore didn't hear of it.

No More Heroes in the opening? You earn an instant +3 awesome.

Oh, and too bad about the anime adaptations. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of demand for those kind of things, which would be why they are so shaky. Also given the current economic climate, companies are less willing to take risks. Especially when a significant attempt like Astro Boy bombs like that.

There was a "G-Force" movie, but the less said about that, the better!

What about Avatar the Last Air Bender?

That's not anime, that's an American intellectual property animated in Korea.

Avatar is not an anime title, its American made cartoon by Nickelodeon, Paramount division.

not to pick fights, but in the big picture, what's the difference? (similar art styles, similar themes to localized anime, face it, they are targeted towards pretty much the same audience, so the difference IMO is merely semantic)

seriously? Astroboy was an awesome movie! How did it not make money? That movie had a lot of heart.

I didn't know it was out yet

Too bad for Magi studios...

Wait, didn't they do some sequences for the original TRON?

No, iMagi was founded in 2000, Tron was made in 1982.

Such a shame to see how bad the astro boy movie bombed. It was not bad and it stuck to it's source for the most part. But I really hope the Gatchaman movie will still go on. It's also pretty sad to see a whole bunch of these people lose their jobs and right before the holidays too. I can relate...

I really really hope the battle angel movie gets made... it's my favorite manga

The reason why I didn't see the Astroboy movie is because they decided to only feature the movie in my native language (dutch). I highly prefer seeing this movie in the original language with subs or in English. I really hate it that they do that for every animation movie (TMNT, Garfield, ...) since that means they are only focusing on a kids audience. But really, how many kids of up to 12 have even heard of Astroboy?? The target audience for these movies are people of around my age (25), you know, the people who grew up with these animes/cartoons! I would really like them to feature the movie at least once a day or even week in the original version...

i hope imagi tanks
i hope any anime movie studios that make bad decisions and bad movies head down bankrupt road
thats the way of the industry, if you cant evolve then you die
simple as that
i hope the Gatchaman movie is canceled along with the Akira movie and specially battle angel alita movie!!
anyone that defends this crap that should go have a look at the Gyver live action film or the preview of the king of fighters live action film and lets not forget the rape that was dragonball evolution!!

enough said

Yes, because if they don't stop making live-action anime movies, Uwe Boll & Micheal Bay will probably start making them too. The world doesn't need that.

and we don't need those two weighing in to a already mess up situation

AVATAR was a good way to wait for Battle Angel Allita

There's still talk over the following anime/manga adaptations:

Priest, Death Note, Full Metal Panic, Ghost In The Shell, Cowboy Bebop.

I don't see why MarzGurl was talking about company that does CGI-movies and abiout western adaptations of the anime and manga titles instead of actual anime and manga titles. Thease don't have almost nothing to do with anime and manga exept for maybe source material. And TMNT CGI-movie didn't have even that.

well, it exposes the source material to a wider audience, thus increasing its popularity, meaning more anime gets released in the US. Works the same way for comic movies (just look at Iron Man)

I talked about it because
A) My main audience is Americans, and from Day One of this series it's been about the state of anime in America
Astro Boy and Gatchaman are anime titles that are having American adaptations made of them (yeah, Imagi made TMNT, so what? They aren't my news, so just because Imagi made something that wasn't Japanese I have to not make an ANE about them even though they DID make movies based on Japanese IPs?)
C) Why not? It IS anime news. Hell, if you check my source I got it from Anime News Network. It's not like this ISN'T anime-related news.

Both movies were abominations.

This doesn't sound like anything new. 2 Disney reps came to my animation class & told us that they fire their entire animation staffs after each annual feature & start afresh. A couple of classmates had their dreams of working there full-time crushed that day.

Very nice intro Marz. Personally, I hate to sound mean, but I'm not exactly fond of Imagi for been putting out so far. And I really hope that Gatachman doesn't come to the states, because knowing us "SAUCY AMERICANS" we're just going to dismiss it as a Power Rangers rip off like with Dragon Knight. I have never hated living in America so much in my entire life.

Priest is not a manga but a manhwa, or if you don't know a Korean comic book. Not too many differences but its not manga.

No i think Imagi should continue with making CGI movies, but not adaptations becouse we see where they lead them to. Original projects like they already did(Zentrix and Father of the Pride) that were original and OK, and also they put studio on the map and they should continue working that way. Instead they focus on making adaptations of mangas, animes and comic book related movies and it lead to this. So, in conclusion hope they learned their lecion by not doing any more adaptations like they did till now.

There's already 3 Live-action Death Note movies (Which were pretty good, and came out fairly recently) How could we possibly need an American version? O.o

Agreed, and by fair they were decent, still i think Kira actor could be better casted. Anime and manga are still "must read" if you asked me.

I want your hair to be red also was the Astro Boy movie any good ?

Is that a new intro? It's awesome! I personally blame the butt-machine guns for the bomb that was Astroboy. Seriously, once they showed that scene in the trailers everyone I know, including myself, assumed it was going to be a farce and not at all loyal to the source material. Which is not true at all. It was a good movie that any Astroboy fan, heck anyone could enjoy. Some of the actors sucked... but other than that it was entertaining. In my opinion, those in charge of advertising should be punished(along with those behind the bad acting like you said) and not the animators.
Btw... might you also be looking for a theme song along with the artwork?

I certainly wouldn't mind one!

First off, love the new intro.

Second, it sucks to see that AstroBoy bombed as badly as it did, as well all the cuts at Imagi.

I didn't even know there was a Gatchaman movie in development. I honestly know jack about the series, but still it's nice to know.