Japan Does Batman: Gotham Knight

Monday, March 3, 2008

Japan Does Batman: Gotham Knight - SendMeRSS

To tide you over until the next Dark Knight trailer appears, here are some images and a link to a preview of Batman: Gotham Knight.

What is it? It's an anime take on our other favorite non-super-powered hero who dresses up in a costume to fight crime.

From the press release:

Batman: Gotham Knight was headed by an impressive list of directors who have brought their distinctly different anime styles to the classic Batman character. The production was divided among three renowned studios â€" Studio 4ï¿½C, Production I.G and Madhouse â€" and included the truly inimitable visions of directors Shojiro Nishimi, Futoshi Higashide, Hiroshi Morioka, Yasuhiro Aoki and Toshiyuki Kubooka.
With stories written by several of the most talented writers of film, comic books, and animation, including Academy Awardï¿½-nominated screenwriter Josh Olson (A History of Violence), David S. Goyer (Batman Begins), Emmyï¿½-winner Alan Burnett (Batman: The Animated Series), Jordan Goldberg (Associate Producer, The Dark Knight), and award-winning comics writers Greg Rucka and Brian Azzarello, Batman: Gotham Knight presents thrilling new adventures of Batman that spotlight several of Gotham Cityâ€™s most dangerous villains, including the fearsome Scarecrow, the freakish Killer Croc and the unnerving marksman known as Deadshot.

Now you can call me an animation heathen if you like, but for some reason I've just never been a big fan of anime.

However I watched the presentation for this at WonderCon and the more I watched, the more I became convinced that these artists had really captured the spirit of the character in a far edgier way than we're used to seeing here in the U.S.

Now if you can get past the slightly different look of the character in some of these image, I think you'll admit they look very cool and intriguing.