If you are local, you should go to the my favorite movie event of the year: NY Asian Film Fest. I wish I could attend the whole thing, really, but I don't have the money for that.
NYAFF brings equal measures mainstream, arthouse, and cult to New York City every year: obviously I'm most fond of the latter, but there's a lot of great stuff on this ticket. Most notable to anime fans is the adaptation of Tezuka's Buddha, but there's a lot of other stuff that's of some interest to anime fans and which you might not know about. Here is a helpful list.
Ninja Kids: kids' anime Nintama Rantarou adaptated by Takashi Miike. Miike cranks out adaptations at light speed, and aside from the usual Japanese studio BS-- a boy band member has to star and you will insert an idol for him to fall for-- he always does well by the source material and makes fun movies.
Yakuza Weapon: adaptation of a manga by Go Nagai's bro Ken Ishikawa in which a yakuza (played by Tak Sakaguchi, the dude from Versus) has a number of heavy firearms attached to his body. I'm hearing this movie is actually boring but the free afterparty is tempting.
Both Gantz movies are playing, but Gantz is already kinda lame and I imagine that a glossy mainstream movie that has to tone down the violence and the sex-- the only thing that comic's got going for it!!-- would be even lamer.
Karate-Robo Zaborgar is a remake of the Japanese superhero show by the guy who's given us such gorefests as The Machine Girl. I've heard nothing but good things and I'm hype as hell for this one.
And of course there's the cult classic Hong Kong adaptation of Riki-Oh, The Story of Ricky. That one's a midnight show, naturally. I've seen this movie before, but the chance is too good to pass up. I already have my ticket.
Between the otaku choices and a ton of unrelated movies that look awesome, my wallet is as sad about NYAFF as I am excited about it. Unfortunately, Milocrorze sold out while I was writing this...
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