I have not posted any trailers yet so I better start now. These three titles cover a broad range but the most interesting by far is “Are Any of You Alive?” which is a great title and looks very interesting.
Are Any of You Alive?
Release Date: 18th February 2012
Running Time: N/A
Director: Gakuryu Ishii (previously known as Sogo Ishii)
Writer: Gakuryu Ishii, Shiro Maeda
Starring: Shota Sometani, Rin Takanashi, Hakka Shiraihi, Asato Iida, Mai Takahashi
Shota Sometani has appeared in some exciting films lately like “Himizu” and “A Man with Style” and this film looks very interesting. So much so that writing up a synopsis is a bit hard.
Set in a university campus that is attached to a hospital, there is a escaped female patient, a strange man, students and a café worker in a love triangle, a mother looking for a lost child, a love-sick doctor and an unreceptive nurse and an urband legend which could be linked to the end of the world.
.hack// The Movie
Release Date: 21st January 2012
Running Time: N/A
Director: Matsuyama Hiroshi
Writer: Kazunori Ito
Starring: Nanami Sakuraba, Toori Matsuzaka, Kei Tanaka
My only experience of the .hack// franchise was buying a Tokyo Pop manga back in the early 2000’s. This looks far more interesting and with character designs from the legendary Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (Evangelion, FLCL, Nadia, The Secret of Blue ater) and a screenplay which comes from Kazunori Ito (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor: The Movie) I’m very excited.
The story takes place in 2024 in a world connected by computer networks. A 14 year old girl named Sora Yūki has no interest in games accepts an invitation from her friends Kakeru and Tomohiko to go into a popular network game called “The World.” However, after an accident in the game, reality starts to suffer anomalies and strange events.
Take the ‘A’ Train
Release Date: 25th January 2012
Running Time: N/A
Director: Yoshimitsu Morita
Writer: Yoshimitsu Morita
Starring: Kenichi Matsuyama, Eita, Shihori Kanjiya, Pierre Taki
Yoshimitsu Morita directed ‘Crying Out Love in the Centre of the World’ which was a big deal in 2004 so this film caught my interest. Kenichi Matsuyama plays Kei Komachi a kaisha-in (office worker) and Eita plays Kenta Kotama who works at his family’s iron foundry. Both men large railroad otaku and meet while riding on the same train.
Are Any of You Alive? does look the most interesting of the trio. I have quite the list of films to see when my Eisenhower feature is over! I think I seen two 2011 horror films!
2011 wasn’t a bad year for horror. John Carpenter returned with The Ward a film that was better than most of his recent efforts and Insidious was a well-made greatest hits of horror techniques and tropes.
Anyway Are Any of You Alive? looks like it has that gem of originality that marks it out for as highly likely for a western release. .hack is a long-running franchise. I’ve read a couple of the manga but left the franchise alone until this trailer. It looks a tad cliched.