Movies! TokiKake Gets New Pic, Yamato CG Finishes Up

Several different items within the world of otaku-related cinema. First up, word on Tokyograph is that Riisa Naka, the award-winning actress who voiced heroine Makoto Konno in the anime version of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (or Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo), will be playing the original heroine in a live-action adaptation of the same novel. (The anime film featured a different heroine-- the granddaughter of the original --operating as a similarly-themed sequel.) And sort of a reverse Winter Sonata, if you will. (Naka is a pretty interesting actress: she's of mixed descent (three-quarters Japanese, one-quarter Swedish-- and she's named after the Mona Lisa.)

ANN spotted word that the CG film of Space Battleship Yamato, not to be confused with the live-action film currently in the works starring Takuya Kimura, has completed production. The film takes place a couple decades after the original Space Battleship Yamato tale, and will hit Japanese theaters this December. Apparently the Family Gekiba network will also be airing an original documentary discussing the "historical ties" of the show, and the History Channel will air another one that talks about the era in which the movie was made as well. Cool beans!

Finally, the Mainichi reports that a director's cut theatrical edition of Madhouse's TV anime adaptation of Osamu Dazai's novel No Longer Human-- which was animated as part of Madhouse's Aoi Bungaku Series, which animated several of Japan's best novels --is going to hit theaters in Japan in December. It's basically an edited version of the four-episode arc, which featured designs by Death Note illustrator Takeshi Obata, with a bit of new footage as well.

Oh, and while I'm at it, just a little quickie: Inglorious Basterds is coming out in Japan this November, and apparently if you go see it within the first days of its release there, and you walk out within the first hour of the flick, you can get your money back. I wonder how many people will demand the refund?