02.06
“East meeting West” isn’t exactly the newest of concepts out there. For as long as I can remember, there has always been some kind of attempt at combining the two incredibly different cultures, whether it is a “fish out of water” type of story, or just in the sense that a story is told or displayed in a fashion similar to the other’s.
In some cases, this has been successful.
For others, well…
… and now, after what seems like much longer than it should have been, the hotshot comic guys at Marvel have finally followed suit as well, buddying up with the guys at Madhouse Animation to (as the press release states) “create four all new anime versions of classic Marvel Super Heroes.” First up are Iron Man and Wolverine.
Based on what I know about each series, I would have to say that the “Iron Man” series looks much more promising. The series already has an overall plot that translates incredibly well to the realm of anime. I mean, you have a primarily adult cast going through the trials and tribulations of their somewhat corrupt lives mixed in with the whole theme of sporting a robot suit to fight crime… sounds like an anime to me.
As for the “Wolverine” trailer, I’d have to agree with the YouTube ratings and say that I’m a bit iffy on this one. While, again, Wolverine’s story is dark enough to translate well into an anime, the blatant changes made to his character design are less than satisfactory for those who keep up with the X-Men series and all its incarnations. I’m not in any way a hardcore Marvel fan (I only recently got into the Ultimate line a year ago) but even I’m aware of how Wolverine should look. And, just as the case was with Dragon Ball making the jump to live action, if you can’t get a character design down solid to please the majority of fans, then you’re gonna have a hard time hyping up that particular incarnation of the series. Without getting further into my rant mode, I’ll just say that while I’m aware that Logan did have some kind of other life in Japan (at least that’s what “Wolverine and the X-Men tells me) based on the trailer, it looks like they’re tweaking with his character, aiming for more of a “refined badass” over a straight-up feral one—that’s what his sudden change in height and build gives off to me, anyway. And the mullet… that’s just giving me mixed signals there.
But regardless of what the trailers’ first impressions give off, I’ve gotta say that I’m pretty psyched about this move, and the thought that there’ll be two more Marvel series to be done like this just made things that much better. My initial guesses were Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, but further checking things, it looks like next up will be X-Men and Blade. Uh… whodathunkit?
Originally posted on Friday, July 31, 2009.