Hellboy Anime

[The Xenos]

Well it seems we get a little more detail about the Japanese animated Hellboy Del Toro was talking about.

It seems they are looking to the studio Gonzo for animation. They have made the badass vampire series Hellsing, Last Exile, Blue Submarine No. 6, and the demon and nun filled Chrno Crusade. Now if you look around my room, you will find not only Hellboy posters and figures, but I got a number of Hellsing and Chrno Crusade posters and figures too. I'm just getting into Chrno, but have been into Helsing for a while.

Now while I am fans of their series, I am concerned with how faithful they will be to the original work. With both Hellsing and Chrno Crusade I have heard fans complain about changes they made from the manga. Heck, just today I read a bitter review of how one fan thought Gonzo butchered Chrno.

I've seen some fan translations of the manga (it's coming over next month in the US from ADV manga) and seen some fansubbed episodes of the anime(coming later this year maybe). It's not as bad as that fan made it sound, but maybe I haven't seena nd read enough. Meanwhile,Gonzo had Hellsing end kinda crappily in that it leaves things open and basiclaly ends with fighting a miniboss and leaving many many questions unanswered. I hear they changed a few things from the manga. I'm only up to Vol 2. Starting to see the divergence there. By the way, it is published by the same people as Hellboy, Dark Horse.

Yet I am sure Del Toro, Mignola, and those involved with certainly stay on top of things and keep things as true to the source as possible and of course make changes for the better if needed (as we saw in the film).

Plus overall the animation at gonzo is pretty good. I hope they don't use too many 3d effects and animation. Somtimes in Hellsing they took too many shortcuts in animation, but nothing too bad. Some have complained, I thought it was overall decent to excellent animation. I belive anime (and a lot of animaiton) is about cutting corners to save time while still making it look good.

So I think this is gonna be awesome. I hope they stick close to Mignola's style and have a ton of black.

-Xenos

[Le Pijon]

I can only presume this the same animated Hellboy movie as was shown on Cartoon Network this past Saturday. I missed the beginning of it but caught most of it. For me, it was a mixed bag. The story wasn't bad although not as good as the comics or Del Toro movie or the Amazing Screw On Head Animated pilot, for that matter. The voice acting was serviceable, I suppose. The animation was not quite as Mignola-ish as I would've liked although it was halfway decent and downright good on certain scenes. I think it's entertaining enough to sit through although I don't think it'll really satisify anyone looking for a Mignola fix. :wink:

[The Xenos]

Actually, checking the company credits on IMDB, it seems they went with an American animation studio instead.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810895/companycredits

Actually, from the Hellboy Animated Blog, I could tell they went with an American company.
http://hellboyanimated.typepad.com/

Hell, just go over to the Hellboy Cartoon thread here in this very forum.
http://www.comics2film.com/BB2/viewtopic.php?t=3974

So Gonzo didn't end up doing Hellboy. Though somehow they ended up making a Witchblade anime (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4284).

Well, I can't complain too much. Nice to see an animated feature come out of America instead of Japan. Also, to me, studio Gonzo's been hot and cold. Blue Sub No. 6 was awesome for its day. Saw it at my anime club the other day. Last Exile was good.

I thought their Hellsing was good until I read the manga. Then I saw the more accurate and amazing job done by Wild Geese / Satelight on the Ultimate Hellsing direct to video series. Though to be fair it got a bigger budget, didn't have to fit to a certain number of TV episodes or censorship codes (Nazis!), and more of the manga was completed.

Though I will say that Trinity Blood's animation by Gonzo has been slightly disapointing. At the same time I keep hearing Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo is amazing. Plus Gantz looked decent save for the ending that ignores the comic.

Wait, they also did Speed Grapher and Chrono Crusade.

Also, I have yet to see Witchblade. Though it looks quite different from the comic.

Though now I've talked so much about Gonzo, maybe I should move myself to the anime forum.

Anyway, it's nice to see Hellboy was done by an American company. Nice to see American direct to video animation is taking off too.

[Le Pijon]

Thanks for getting me up to speed with the news and links, Xenos. Yeah, I thought it looked more American to me. Guess I'll repost my review in the right place.
I'm a big fan of Anime although admittedly I don't have much knowledge of the field. I'm really not that familiar with any of the titles you mentioned though I'll be sure to keep an eye out for them.