25th April
Gedo Senki - ゲド戦記: Tales from Earthsea
I was quietly looking around a bookstore in Atsugi for something new to read when I got struck by quite an unusual sight: piles and piles of The Earthsea Quartet dominating the shelves of the foreign section. For the record, The Earthsea Quartet, is a series of books, originally a trilogy - now a quartet (quadrilogy? tetralogy? who knows), written by Ursula K. LeGuin in the seventies. Ah, yes, and it’s also my favourite book of all time, a deep, imaginative fantasy masterpiece that I would put up there beyond Tolkien with the likes of His Dark Materials trilogy. The people who knew me in my late teens can probably still remember my obsession with this book.
Anyway, I’m not trying to write a review… I was just wondering why so many copies of such an old, unfashionable, untraslated book were on display. Eventually I found out that Hayao Miyazaki’s son, Goro, apart from being a six-limbed giant monster at the end of Mortal Kombat, is currently directing the newest anime production from Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke, Spirited away, My neighbour Totoro, Howl’s flying castle and so on) based on the third and fourth books of the Earthsea quartet: ゲド戦記 - Gedo Senki: Tales from Earthsea.
To me, it’s a relief. After having seen my favourite book being butchered to pieces by the infamous Sci-fi channel production The Legend of Earthsea that not even the presence of the beautiful Kristin Kreuk could redeem, I was waiting for something that would bring such a wonderful book to the general public and display on screen what so far could only live in my imagination.
There are, however, some concerns in the fan community. First of all, this is the first major piece of work directed by Goro, who could simply cock it all up. Fortunately, it seems that there has been a substantial input from Miyazaki sr. who hopefully helped to put everything on the right track. Secondly, due to the need of cutting cost and production times, Gedo Senki will be completed in half the usual time and replacing lots of manual work with computerised graphics. I have no idea of what the final result will be like, but I’m currently hosting the latest Gedo Senki trailer here. Download it freely and see for yourself.
The anime will be released here in Japan in July. This summer, men and dragons will be as one.
druka said,
May 8, 2006 at 8:59 am
The book is great, since you gave it to me I haven’t been able to put it down! I don’t think that they can condense all of it into a movie, despite the rename of the Ghibli brand.
Thanks for introducing me a beautiful story