That is good news that Wolverine's design for his "anime" is closer to what fans expect. I didn't care for that "animation test" shown before. Not that the animation quality was bad, but it was that Madhouse seemed to have shoved Logan through an anime filter, which is pandering. I'm glad to hear that didn't happen in the finished product.
I do agree that Blade could work out well in an anime vampire series.
The Iron Man anime trailer looks alright. I was less than thrilled to see CGI armor, although the integration between that and 2D has improved since, say, "INVINCIBLE IRON MAN" two years ago. I was expecting 2D armor, which was accomplished well with GUYVER in 2005, but I imagine the budget for this is higher so Madhouse may as well throw it around for CGI.
I am interested in how the X-Men will be handled, and what the roster will be. Warren Ellis has had them fight some weird, yet generic, stuff in ASTONISHING X-MEN, and hopefully this anime avoids that. As much as some people get annoyed to see the X-Men fight Magneto for the 400th time, I'd roll my eyes at seeing them fight a tentacle monster or something. If I had one selfish wish, it is to see Colossus, in an X-Men cartoon, perform an awesome, epic feat of strength in a fight that shows how cool he is. I haven't seen anything like that since 1994, and I am convinced I never will even if I live to my 90's. Marvel has 63 years to prove me wrong. The clock's ticking.
The odds of such a thing happening are probably a little higher in an anime, since that is a medium known for more violent action than Western cartoons (sometimes), but who knows. While the Iron Man anime has a trailer and Wolverine had test footage, I haven't seen anything concrete about the Blade and X-Men anime yet.
I doubt the X-Men anime would look like those 90's intro's to the Japanese version of the original show. I mean, the costumes are outdated (it was animated Jim Lee, which was impressive). Part of me doubts we'll see Beast break open the grand canyon just by punching the ground. It'll look more like contemporary anime. Honestly, the notion of "teenagers born with odd powers train in a school" is a format that anime has exploited and ran with, with many franchises, for years now. The question is whether this stuff will simply be anime with the trappings of a Marvel franchise atop it, or will it be a Marvel franchise conforming to anime expectations? Or something more unique?
I also am curious if Wolverine would be in both his own anime and the X-Men anime. If so, it would be curious that Marvel Animation continues to spam Wolverine when, in real life, I think he's less popular than he's been in at least 15 years. His ongoing comics sell like rubbish compared to even 3 years ago, and at least 50% of everyone who went to see "X-MEN ORIGINS WOLVERINE" did so to see another character, such as Gambit or Deadpool, and not him. I think Marvel has reached their apex of Wolverine popularity and rather than hold steady at the top, it has reached some natural decline, but instead of cope, they're the last to know. On the other hand, the X-Men may not be able to sell without him even (or especially) in Japan, and keeping him out of an anime might risk that sort of flop. At the very least, Steve J. Blum will be kept busy.
The dilemma of painting Wolverine as the be all and end all of the X-Men franchise is that when he stumbles, he brings that entire franchise with him. The comics have thus tried to shift accordingly and not rely exclusively on him, and I will be curious if anime or future X-Men cartoons or anime follow likewise. On the other hand, if Fox's "X-MEN: FIRST CLASS" tanks, it will be blamed on the lack of Wolverine (which very well could be the case). It's a tricky time for the X-Men now; it certainly isn't 1995 anymore.
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