Yamauchi wants Nintendo in anime biz

honru

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/09/29/news_6109187.html

TOKYO--The man who inherited his family's playing card business and turned it into an electronics giant now wants his former company to expand into animated motion pictures. According to various media outlets including the Kyodo News, former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, age 76, told reporters today that he has plans for Nintendo to break into the anime business.

If Yamauchi’s proposal passes through Nintendo during its business conference next month, the company will be expected to take a more prominent role in the creation of anime movies based on its games. In the future, the company may also make games that are based on characters that debut from its anime movies. Historically, few animated films have been made using the company's characters, and the ones that are green-lighted have always been licensed to other production companies.

“I'm thinking of suggesting that [Nintendo] make movies, and to have them run in conjunction with game releases," commented Yamauchi to the press. "I want them to be something that will be accepted overseas as well as in Japan. The production of games and animated movies are relatively similar. It's something that the management [at Nintendo] will decide, but it's the kind of field that we should be going into. Nintendo can take the risk."

jared almasy

sounds good, i sure hope it isnt like some of the other nintendo feature lengths!! bob hoskins and john leguizamo haunt my dreams because of it *shudders

evad_lhorg

Id love to see a zelda and a metroid anime movie.

KdjaCL

Metroid done by whoever with Riddick Dark Fury be rather cool.

kdjac

honru

Not related to anime, yet has anyone seen the god awful Legend of Zelda cartoon that aired in the States during the 80s? Excuuuuuse me, Princess.

I trust Nintendo's internal studios can do better than that...

jared almasy

zelda cartoon...URGH, but if nintendo can link up with some prolific studio(s) this could be an amazing development. all those games we played as children and in the past few years re-done in mind melting anime style with explosions and crap could be the new...well nothing i can think of matches up to my expectations

eoin5

I'd prefer some square-enix anime productions, tho the possibility of a metroid anime is mouthwatering.

TCamen

Not related to anime, yet has anyone seen the god awful Legend of Zelda cartoon that aired in the States during the 80s? Excuuuuuse me, Princess.

Still have the videos of that, 'Captain N' and 'The Super Mario Bros. Super Show'

'Captain N' was a much better attempt @ the whole Nintendo cartoon thing -- loved the Megaman bits

rainbow kirby

I used to love the Super Mario Bros Super Show when I was younger! Though it's easy to impress an 8 year old with cartoons...