This week was all about festivals! It began with a post about the Scotland Loves Animation Festival 2013 and was followed by a post about the announcement that Hayao Miyazaki will be retiring from directing feature films (here’s a more in depth article about his decision which makes my post look silly. I totally want him to take a break now!) which was broken at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Then there was that post about the line-up of Japanese films at the BFI London Film Festival. Tomorrow there will be a post about the Raindance Film Festival. Those last two festivals… I’ll be attending them! There will be two more festivals I will write about before the year is out, the East Winds Film Festival and the Vancouver Film Festival. In the year when I resolved to cover more festivals I can safely say that I did it.
What’s released this weekend in Japan?
Space Pirate Captain Harlock 
Japanese Title: キャプテン ハーロック
Romaji: Kyaputen Harokku
Release Date: September 06th, 2013
Running Time: 115 mins.
Director: Shinji Aramaki
Writer: Harutoshi Fukui (Screenplay), Leiji Matsumoto (Manga)
Starring: Shun Oguri, Haruma Miura, Yu Aoi, Arata Furuta, Ayano Fukuda
Leiji Matsumoto is a big deal in Japan and his manga/anime keep getting remade. This year sees the big budget CG movie adaptation of his 1977 manga¹/1978 TV Asahi anime. The film is directed by Shinji Aramaki who has been in the anime industry for a long time with involvement in titles like Bubbegum Crisis, Megazone 23, Wolf’s Rain and Gundam. He knows how to make CG films having directed the recent Appleseed movies. The seiyuu (voice actors) are impressive with live-action film stars Shun Oguri (The Woodsman & the Rain) voicing the heroic Harlock, Yu Aoi (Penance, Hana and Alice, Mushishi), Arata Furuta (Thirteen Assassins,Ninja Kids!!!) and Ayano Fukuda voicing some of Harlock’s crew and Haruma Mirua (Tokyo Park) voicing an assassin. There are also full-time seiyuu like Maaya Sakamoto, Chikao Ohtsuka and Kiyoshi Kobayashi on the cast.
In the year 2977, mankind has become complacent and stagnant because machines perform all manner of tasks while humans indulge in entertainment. This is the moment when mysterious invaders from space invade the Earth. Rebelling against Earth’s inept government, Harlock (Oguri) and his crew of 40 use his space battleship to fight for humanity. This fight comes with risks beyond space battles as a young man named Yama (Miura) is ordered to kill Harlock.
Genkinahito 