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Real Treat for Anime Fans
Returning for its fourth year, the Reel Anime Festival showcases the best and most talked about feature length anime films.
While it may not be one of the biggest or most comprehensive of film festivals on the Australian circuit, Reel Anime is proving itself to be one of the most popular, tapping into the grass roots fandom of Australia's Asian influenced pop-culture; from hard-core manga fans to cosplayers and the growing numbers of the J-culture obsessed.
This year the four film line-up is arguably one of the festival's strongest, showcasing the absurd, the nostalgic and the raw metaphysical inventiveness that has defined the anime feature film landscape in recent years.
Running between September 2 to 15 in all capital cities (excluding Darwin), Avoca Beach and Canberra with the Perth season kicking off September 16 , Reel Amine enters its 4th year with an eclectic quadrilogy of Japanese language films (with English subtitles) that offer something of a tip-of-the-hat retrospective to the genre's violent and pensive roots.
Reinforcing the festival's popularity and influence among fans, Reel Anime launches with an impressive coup, scoring the world premiere of the high-octane actioner Redline, a sci-fi assault to the senses from director Takeshi Koike (The Animatrix- World Record) who, working under the mantle of Studio Madhouse delivers a post-modern, crack-fuelled homage to anime chaos of the late ‘80s, complete with bizarre alien characters, kaleidoscopic visuals and white knuckle car racing.
Jumping genres to a more reflective comedic adventure, Summer Wars (pictured) returns to Australian screens after a short run at the 2010 Sydney Film Festival. Directed by Mamoru Hosoda whose acclaimed Girl Who Leapt Through Time bought comparisons to master animator Hayao Miyazaki, Summer Wars is a nostalgic teen adventure that brilliantly combines elements of The Wonder Years with a Matrix-like undercurrent all wrapped up with an existential Japanese flair.
The third film featured as part of Reel Anime 2010 is director Kazuyoshi Katayama's King of Thorn, a sublime thriller that effortlessly blends sci-fi, action, mystery and horror genres to craft a compelling, visually elegant story of survival, where a plague that decimated Japan gives way to an onslaught of grotesque creatures and claustrophobic fears.
But without a doubt, the headline film for this year's program is the highly anticipated Evangelion 2.0: You Can [Not] Advance, the second film in the acclaimed ‘rebuild' series of Hideaki Anno's original 1995 television series, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Following on from Evangelion 1.0: You Are [Not] Alone, 2.0 delivers fans of the series a stunning new perspective on the Evangelion mythology, deviating from its original narrative of children piloting giant robotic beasts in battle against strange metaphysical leviathans to fully embrace its cinematic potential.
"In the new Evangelion 2.0, many of the characters have changed," reveals Yûko Miyamura, a Japanese voice actor whose Evangelion personae, Asuka Langley Shikinami, is one of the series' most beloved characters, and makes her big screen début with 2.0. "I was very excited about doing Asuka again. In the TV series Asuka had a very bad end; in this new series, she might finally have a happy ending."
But while Evangelion remains one of the most successful anime series to cross the cultural barrier, generating numerous English language DVD releases, manga adaptations and a pending live action feature film utilising the effects wizardry of New Zealand's Weta Workshop, the anticipation surrounding the ‘rebuild' series has been nothing short of phenomenal, with screenings of 2.0 expected to sell-out as Reel Anime plays across the country.
"I think most anime fans are really gentle and pure," reveals Yûko when asked about the overwhelming reception she has received in Australia while attending the recent Smash Anime Expo at Sydney's Town Hall. "Anime fans know how they want to be entertained. I truly respect anime fans regardless of them being Japanese or from any foreign country."
For cinema information and session times, click here.