After seeing the advert for the Manga Force Ultimate Collection, I decided to go out any buy the first copy - for only £2.99 - with a Ghost In The Shell DVD for free! How could I resist?
Anyway... after spending as much time as I could last night about Manga Force, I came up with a few important things to mention about the collection.
For one thing, they keep referring to Anime (Japanese Animated Movies) as Manga. This is not true. Manga are Japanese comics. The comics always inspire the anime film. Neither are they cartoons.
I have collected a list of as many of the films that will be in the series as possible. The HP website says there will be 50 in the series for £8.99 each. I think it's a bit much for the each DVD, but let's see what's on offer.
Each pack comes with a DVD and a booklet with a synopsis of the film, the director, producer, and has several images from the film/episodes. As far as I can tell this is probably not the right way to go if you are discovering Japanese Anime and how cool it is. I would start with Studio Ghibli films - the best of which is Spirited Away (its on today from 5.15pm to 7.15pm on BBC2 remember!). If that doesn't "spirit you away" then I don't know what will!
The website for the series is here, but there isn't a lot on there.
- 1. Ghost In The Shell [IMDb] [Wiki] (series)
- Blood: The Last Vampire [IMDb] [Wiki]
- Akira [IMDb] [Wiki]
- Appleseed [IMDb] [Wiki] (2 movies)
- Neon Genesis Evangelion - The End of Evangelion [IMDb] [Wiki] (anime series and films)
- Macross Plus [IMDb] [Wiki]
- Ninja Scroll [IMDb] [Wiki]
- Street Fighter Alpha [IMDb] [Wiki] (film and VG series)
- Heat Guy J [IMDb] [Wiki] (anime series)
- Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex [IMDb] [Wiki] (subscription only) (anime series)
- Akira - The Making Of (subscription only)
From only a short list there, I could say that the genre for this series seems to be cyberpunk - or at least traditional Japanese action, fighting and robots! Other non-anime films like this are Blade Runner, The Matrix Trilogy, The Animatrix (Second Renaissance), and I Robot (maybe even Sin City as well).
