Madhouse to Resume Production of Yume-Miru Kikai

A little over two months after the death of Satoshi Kon, the director of such masterpieces as Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika, it has been announced that Madhouse Studios will be finishing Yume-Miru Kikai, or “The Dreaming Machine”, which had been in the middle of production when Kon passed away. Yoshimi Itazu will be serving as director in Kon’s place.

Personally, I think it’s a great thing that Satoshi Kon’s final work is set to be completed. It’ll stand as testament to his life’s work, as well as being a tribute to him. After all the time and effort he surely put into it before passing, it would be a travesty to leave it unfinished. We’ll have to trust that the Yoshimi Itazu and the rest of the team at Madhouse studios will be able to complete it exactly as Kon intended.

High School of the Dead

Now to steer things back to normal, lets start off with a nice, casual show. I’m thinking of something that’s fun, upbeat, and with lots of blood. Hey, I know! How about the recently aired first season of High School of the Dead! Yet another series I’ve come across by Madhouse Studios, High School of the Dead is jam pack with undead beasties and more fan service than an aired television program should probably have.  This twelve-episode series is an adaptation of the long running manga series of the same name which follows a group of high school students, a school nurse, a little girl, and her dog through a classic zombie apocalypse. I approached this series with a lot of excitement, because up until now most anime I have come across featuring zombies seem to lack the emphasis on how deadly the average zombie can be, and they’re usually the annoying grunts of some deadlier supernatural being, such as a vampire (think Hellsing); however, now we have a good ol’ fashion nightmare featuring zombies as the primary threat.

Millennium Actress

For my final movie review of Kon Month I watched Satoshi Kon’s second movie, Millennium Actress. Released in 2001 by Madhouse Studios, Millennium Actress is a surreal journey of love which covers, as the name suggests a millennium. Of all of Satoshi Kon’s work, I must say that this movie is easily my least favorite of his, which is a good thing and a bad thing: the good is that I now finally have something to criticize in one of his movies; the bad is that Millennium Actress simply isn’t on the same par as the rest of his work. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed this movie, but it was really lacking in some important elements. I suppose the best way to tell you is to just explain it all, so here’s why:

Tokyo Godfathers

Just about everybody loves to sit down and watch a nice Christmas story, any story that either shows how one learns the true meaning of Christmas (the presents, yo), or how one must save Christmas for whatever reason. Either way, stories of Christmas miracles seem to have a way of warming our hearts, no matter how ridiculously unlikely or serendipitous the story seems to be. And now for my stunningly smooth transition to the real review: Tokyo Godfathers, Satoshi Kon’s third film, is a great example of a Christmas story, but unlike most Christmas stories, this movie is about a group of unlikely heroes — well, most stories are about unlikely heroes, but Tokyo Godfathers has some really unlikely heroes, which I think brings a lot of realism to the story and is ultimately why I love this movie. Once again, I’ve stumbled upon a Kon film that I really can’t find anything wrong with, so be prepared to see a lot of praise.

Perfect Blue

Diving headfirst into Kon Month, I’ll be starting off with Satoshi Kon’s very own directorial debut, Perfect Blue. An adaptation loosely based off a book of the same name written by Yoshikazu Takeuchi, Perfect Blue originally hit theaters in 1997 and was greatly received by many around the world, not just anime fans. To this day, Perfect Blue has strong holding in the anime industry. Many people consider this movie to be Kon’s magnum opus among his many great films. I personally had not seen it and was skeptical of their opinions; even as I began watching the film I was skeptical of its greatness. However, by the end my opinion was greatly changed, and here’s why: