Oshii to take Tetsujin 28-go to the big screen
Anime/manga adaptations onto the big screen are always things that have to be done carefully. You can screw up a little, or a lot, and have yourself a Dragonball: Evolution in your hands. Sorry for making you all remember that film. Anyways, /Film reports that director Mamrou Oshii will be helming the upcoming live action adaptation of Tetsujin 28-go.
Before you even ask, yes we will explain what Tetsujin 28-go is. During the final days of World War II, the Japanese military is secretly developing a superweapon that help save the Japanese Empire. After twenty-seven failed attempts, Dr. Kaneda completes a three-stories high, remote-controlled robot. The robot is officially named Tetsujin 28-go. The war, however, is already over, and Dr. Kaneda dies of heart failure. Rather than becoming the military’s key weapon, Tetsujin 28 is given to Dr. Kaneda’s ten-year-old son, Shotaro. Under the Shotaro’s control, Tetsujin is put to work stopping criminals and enemy robots.
The manga was originally created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama in 1956 and quickly spawned onto not only a manga series but an anime television series as well. There has also spawned already one film based on the manga series along with a play that was directed by Oshii himself. There were talks that Imagi Animation Studios was going to make an animated version of the manga, but since Astro Boy tanked big time in the box office, it does not look like that’s happening. The project is currently in development, but hopefully this will be more of a fun and faithful adaptation.
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Astro Boy was actually an excellent movie. Unfortunately, Summit Entertainment screwed up the movie’s advertising and scheduling, plus audience assumptions (that it was strictly a little kid flick, since a kid is the main character) also kept it from connecting with audiences. But word-of-mouth for the film is high; check out the B+ grade given it by the Yahoo Movies board, plus the 73% Fresh rating from the Rotten Tomatoes movies board. I’m glad I took a chance on it; it had more depth, feeling and far better animation than I would ever have expected.
But if it’s true that Astro Boy had trouble connecting to a large enough audience to make it successful, it’s a sure bet a T-28 movie would have bigger troubles. Just a thought…
Melissa Molina Reply:
December 28th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Possibly, but I was one of those who really liked Astro Boy. It’s just a shame how the marketing was handled poorly from Summit, seeing that they give other properties like Twilight the red carpet treatment with advertising.
Japanese comic book adaptations never seem to hold up well for the most part, whether it’d be animation or live action. It does seem that when Japan grabs their own material to be adapted that they handle it far better than we do (Ex: Deathnote compared to Dragonball: Evolution), but that’s just me.
Jon Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Look at Blood: The Last Vampire…a movie/anime-adaptation that’s so bad the studio buried it. Leave these adaptations in the hands of the people that know them the best: the Japanese.
Matt Keith Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 8:59 am
“Leave these adaptations in the hands of the people that know them the best: the Japanese”
Ditto.