081220: "Big movie" Tie-ins for Anime/Manga

Many apologies for the several months' of inactivity! We were busy studying for finals and busy enjoying our break (a little too much). Since you should all have time to enjoy yourselves, movie recommendations should be in order since you can just enjoy the full movie at a stretch instead of being content with just short episodes. (Well, you could just binge watch lots of short episodes but then this introduction wouldn't work anymore, would it?) Anyway, here are a bunch of movie versions of great anime/manga/other Japanese things!

A clarification: they've got to be standalone movies or else they don't count so don't expect to see movie installments like End of Evangelion or Gintama movies or stuff like that.

1) Detective Pikachu (2019)

21-year-old Tim (Justice Smith), a former Pokemon trainer, is the only one who can hear Detective Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds or Ikue Otani - basically it's Ryan Reynolds' voice to Tim but Ikue Otani's normal Pikachu voice to everybody else) who's particularly smart so they work together to look for Tim's missing police detective father (also Ryan Reynolds).

A big draw of Detective Pikachu is the immaculate animation of all the Pokemon which brings them from 2D (and even the 3D games) into our dimension really well. Pikachu looks super, super, super cute! Besides that, it's a pleasant enough story that's competently told and we thought it was quite clever, actually. We hope this heralds a wave of similarly competent and well-crafted video game movies so as to change the appropriate response to hearing about an adaptation from "Ugh!" to "Oh?".

2) Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

On that note, Sonic the Hedgehog was another video game movie that received a surprisingly warm reception. In fact, it's the 5th highest-grossing movie this year and the highest-grossing superhero movie this year (which is to be expected, things being what they are).

Sonic (Ben Schwartz) winds up on Earth and Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey doing his thing) tries to capture him to exploit his super speed for his evil designs for world domination. Sonic enlists the aid of a small-town sheriff (James Marsden - Cyclops from the X-men movies, if you remember them).

Thank goodness that the director decided to change that god-awful design! It's such a treat to see Sonic translated into "realistic" 3D and he really looks so cute and lovable! The story isn't particularly special but nobody really played Sonic games for the story anyway - all you need is Sonic running around looking for rings and Dr Robotnik getting up to no good and everything else is just gravy.

3) Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Edge of Tomorrow is an adaptation of All You Need Is Kill. The manga is about a rookie soldier who gains a "reset" ability during a battle and relives the battle over and over, dying repeatedly but learning more and more until he is able to win the battle with the aid of a beautiful and experienced but cold soldier who also possesses such an ability. The movie is largely the same, with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt in the respective roles, with minor differences. The acting is outstanding, the action benefits greatly from the enormous budget and it's an all-together fantastic adaptation. (I also like the ending of the movie version better!)

4) Illang: The Wolf Brigade (2018)

Illang: The Wolf Brigade is a high-budget but poorly-executed Korean adaptation of Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade, which was about a special heavy-weapons police squad taking on terrorists.

With the impending reunification, the South Korean police sets up a special team to combat anti-reunification extremists. The plot is largely the same as the original but it's incredibly bloated by the additional politics and inept direction. It also falls into the trap of focusing on getting the visuals right (although that's debatable) and utterly failing to capture the emotions and dramatic highlights of the original. Han Hyo Joo aside, this movie has nothing to offer but I'm including it in the list to make up a total of 5 movies and to express my hatred for this and perhaps excise the taste it's left in my mouth; and also to point you towards the original anime movie instead, which is one of my personal favourites:

5) Oldboy (2003)

And now for a better movie adaptation! In fact, a lot of people don't even know that Oldboy is based on a manga (which is criminally underrated and forgotten).

A man's wife is murdered, his daughter abducted and he is framed for the crime after he is kidnapped and confined to a hotel room for 15 years. He spends his time learning everything he can from the TV and training his body and he immediately sets out for revenge when he is suddenly released from the room. (In the manga, there's no daughter.)

The movie is very dramatic and stylistic and it's widely regarded as one of the best movies of all time. It's got exciting fights, tense stare-offs and clever camerawork. However, it's quite depressing and disturbing so take this as a serious trigger warning. The manga is much more manageable if you're worried about that.

Are there any that we missed? Please drop us a message or comment on Instagram and let us know! We'll try to keep our posts to a more regular schedule... Thanks for reading :D <3