The good folk over at Warner Pictures are pretty pumped about a live action version of the classic anime film Akira. In fact, they have such confidence in it they are looking at it as a franchise.

The original animated version, which came out in the 80′s, is still considered to be (in my opinion also) a masterpiece in visual styling. But the story was only partially told in that film as the original manga (Japanese comics) ran the story through a much wider arch. Taking over as writer/adapter for the property is Albert Torres, and working with him is director Albert Hughes (“From Hell,” “The Book of Eli”).

The plan is to have the first film cover the first three manga volumes and a sequel cover the next three. Now these ‘volumes’ are just that, HUGE comics…think something akin to a small phone book. That’s how they roll in Japan, when it comes to comics they are quite serious.

I hope they pull this off well and don’t muck with the story too much. And lets also hope that Warner will actually hire the proper ethnic actors unlike what we have seen for The Last Airbender adaptation.

When I was growing up there was one particular cartoon that I fell in love with, Star Blazers. All about a future Earth that has been under attack by the Gamilon interstellar race for years. The attacks are from these radioactive bombs that were destroying our planet. Luckily we are contacted by Queen Starsha from Iscandar who has a way of curing our planet from the radioactivity…but we have to go to her planet to retrive the cure.

An ancient WW2 ocean faring battleship, the Yamato, is unearthed and rebuilt into a spaceship. The Yamato is not just a battleship, but it also has a compliment of fighters and the dreaded Wave Motion gun. Teamed with an elite crew they form the Star Blazers!

This was my favorite show as a kid and my first experience with a cartoon that was episodic. You really had to watch in order to understand the over-arching storyline, quite the concept at that time. I was quite surprised to see that there is a live action version coming out this year in Japan.

From wikipedia:
Noboru Ishiguro, director and writer of the original Space Battleship Yamato television anime series, confirmed at his Otakon panel on Saturday, July 17, 2009 that a live action version of Space Battleship Yamato is in development. He also noted that Takuya Kimura will star as the main hero Susumu Kodai in the remake of the space opera classic. Takashi Yamazaki will helm the project for a planned December 2010 release.

Personally I can’t wait for this to be released. A year to go though…sigh.