Do we have the Gotham Knight project to thank for this? Marvel Comics have hired Japanese animation house Madhouse - one of the true greats in the animation world today - to produce anime versions of both Wolverine and Iron Man. And while Madhouse's work-farm product has not generally been the most interesting of their output over the past several years if the just-released teasers for these projects are any indication then Marvel essentially handed off the material and told them to do whatever the hell they wanted with it. This stuff is very distinctive and very, very cool. Check the teasers for both below the break.
You are very welcome! For my money, the Wolverine looks the better of the two - I like the fact that these are radically different from the source material. I think it's rather brave and very cool that Marvel did this. But yes, I do think we have Gotham Knights to thank for it (and Animatrix).
: )
I'm generally a fan of Madhouse and especially the work of Kawajiri and Rintaro but these look just plain terrible. The Wolverine...thing especially is one of the worst successions of moving pictures I have seen this year.
I don't know Wolverine looks like it could be any action anime except the dude has metal claws. Nothing very original going on and whats up with the ridiculous mullet?
Ironman looks like it might be okay. Just okay. Nothing terribly inspiring though.
Gotham Knights at least tried to stick within the world of the new Batman movies. This on the other hand does look like they really did whatever they wanted without regard for the source material.
I wholeheartedly agree with Caterpillar.
These look appalling.
And this year's live Wolverine was crap.
The Iron Man one looks good. The Wolverine one looks very, very bad.
I'm with Rhythm, the Iron Man clip pumped. The wolverine clip has some nice action, but good god, who came up with that design?
Dont forget its anime, thats why the design, I loooove the animation in booth teasers, looks very very good, am pumped, cant wait.
Heres the positive thing, they will provide us awesome animated heroes, if that goes well marvel will work more with them and thus we can say bye bye to the poor american stylized cartoons.
If in good hands and am talking about the future this could go places and reach the heavens of pure pleasure.
Go Go Go
T
You realise that much of the "poor american stylized cartoons" are in fact done by Korean artists? And although I love anime, it is nice to have animation from a variety of sources rather than just in the form of anime. That would get boring fast. American stylized cartoons are not all bad.
Wolverine looks incredibly generic. Nice fighting but nothing we haven't seen before and without the claws the hero could have been anyone.
Ironman looked a lot more promising I think.
Iron Man looks awesome but Wolverine looks like Joe Dirt. They gave him a mullet but no beard? That's probably the first Wolverine I've ever seen without facial hair. He looks like a teenager almost. What I really want to see is a Spider Man anime. I think they could do great things with the character.
Have people forgotten the Animatrix?, that started this whole sidebar anthology anime trend. The Wolverine anime actually makes having claws look gay, sorry to say. Iron Man looks like a ful blown mech so who better to animate than the Japanese.
I'm dying to hear what voice they'll give Wolvie. Another one of those unrealisticly deep japanese voices is my guess. Their rendition of Wolverine looks incredibly generic. Can't wait to not see it. Iron Man looks a little bit promising at least.
One of the good things here is that Warren Ellis will be in charge of the script in both series. These videos were just an advance of the animation style. Neither of the characters, but wolvie or Iron man, will appear in the final series.
Even though I love anime and Madhouse I´m not very fond of Wolverine´s design. It´s like in these kind of mixed projects nobody wants to understand anything of the other part.
Anyway, besides the designs, if Rin Taro is in there, as well as Ellis, I´m in of course because they are superb.
Let´s see what will happen.
why can't anybody just do a version of the original Wolverine mini-series based in Japan? Just adapt it to screen animated or live-the whole storyboard is right there for you!
Is it Takeshi Koike (from Redline, Funky Forest, Taste Of Tea) the key animator for the Iron Man teaser? It sure looks like it.
The Iron Man short is good, as in "great visuals". The Wolverine one is definitely the weaker one. Keep in mind that the look is not confirmed to be used in the actual series.
Someone from Marvel must be lurking around these message boards...
This wolverine is by far the worst thing I've seen this week.
Well the Iron Man clip was at least able to retain the overall design and feel of Iron Man, but the Wolverine clip is horrendous. The only distinguishing feature that lets you know its Wolverine is his claws! That mullet hairdo and his tall thin statuesque build is not reminiscent of the Wolverine character. The character design has strayed too far away from what true Wolverine fans perceive him to be! I fear this will be a total failure, in the current design I would not even watch it at all.
OK the Iron Man, awesome. There's enough coolness going on in that brief trailer to give any Mech fan-boy a jizzgasm. Great character design, bold colors, solid action. Can't wait. Now the wolverine thing. Hoo-boy was this a bad idea. Let's make the character barely recognizable and throw him in some kind of late 80's samurai-horror anime/Onimusha mash-up. Madhouse is one of my favorite studios, although I found Gotham Knight kind of hit-or-miss. Yes to Iron Man, Wolverine, I'll watch it, but I won't like it. "Joe Dirt" that's funny man.
The y should do this way more often , Jap can deff give Marvel a good alternate look to some of thier heroes