Western Comics + Japanese Animation =

So apparently Marvel Studios and Madhouse are back together again, but this time to make some anime movies based on their characters set to come out in 2010.

There's a Wolverine one:


and an Iron Man one:


Now I'm a big fan of the characters, but not so much a big fan of a lot of anime. So this will be an interesting crossover of styles and story-telling.

Any thoughts?

Dude, what did they do to Wolverine?

I'm liking the look of that Iron Man one, but they may ruin it because of tendencies in Japanese story-telling which will certainly not go down well in the franchise if implemented the way I'm imagining.

If there is one scene where Tony Stark starts screaming "WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOOOR?!" I will very probably stop watching.

Iron Man looks decent, but why did they have to make Wolverine a bishie?

So... when exactly did Wolverine grow all that groovy hair?

Wolverine:

Wolverine was once in Japan a long time ago, right? Maybe that's why he looks young in the trailer.

Originally Posted by Dread

Wolverine was once in Japan a long time ago, right? Maybe that's why he looks young in the trailer.

Doesn't mean he needs to be a bishie. At least give him some muscle mass and a haircut.

Japan will never get over its bishies.

Just watched that Wolverine one, two words: Oh dear.

Wolverine gets a dot dot dot from me.

And it wasn't just the horrendous design either. . . okay, it was mostly that. But compare the animation to that in the Iron Man trailer.

As for Iron Man, I just hope they don't make Stark into an androgynous Final Fantasy castoff like they did to Logan.

Wolverine looks...not manly. Seriously, he looks skinny as hell and hairless.

Originally Posted by Snow_Storm

Wolverine looks...not manly. Seriously, he looks skinny as hell and hairless.

No, all his hair has migrated to his super-mullet.

Interesting. Madhouse is a very well-respected anime studio animating, for example, the absolutely amazing-looking Paprika. They've also done some contract work for studio Ghibli.


They're rather more hit-and-miss when it comes to plotting, usually doing better when they're doing a direct adaptation of some source material or when they've got someone like Satoshi Kon doing much of the behind-the-scenes stuff.


Anyways, on to the trailers, they both seem to have pretty good animation (though Iron Man comes out ahead here) but Wolverine definitely has the better direction.

It is, I must admit, very odd to see the characters...Japan-ified. I mean, bishonen Wolverine fighting Oni? Seriously? I'm not incredibly familiar with the character, but that sure doesn't seem right.

Iron Man comes off much better (but then, the "anime" style has always been excellent for drawing robots and similar) but some of the camera angles and cuts in the trailer are...questionable. I didn't get the sense of an epic fight. Rather, all the closeups made it seem like Tony Stark had gone to a photo shoot. However context may help there.

I also can't help but note that he seems to be fighting Space Pirate Captain Harlock, who has gained psychic powers.


I guess we'll see what happens. I'm tentatively hopeful, at least for Iron Man.

When I first saw Wolverine... I thought of Sabertooth, then I kept watching, and saw that he had a Super-Mullet, which is bad. The Iron Man one was okay, though

This is one of the worst things that could happen for both of those series'. They both fail to impress as of now.

I'm kinda looking forward to the failure that Logan's ultra0mullet will bring.

I guess the Japanese are just threatened by manly Americans. IDK it just seems weird like if they mixed Wolverine with a Japanese Castlevania. The Ironman one is meh but he's my favorite superhero so it's all good.

Can somebody tell those japs just because most of their cartoons suck doesn't mean they gotta make our cartoons suck.

(inb4 the irony)

Stan Lee needs to stop smokin that joint.