Japanese fan artists appreciate a classic the only way they know how...
Rorschach MOÉ!
Silk Spectre MOÉ!
Tasukete, Rorschach nii-san!!!
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Collected in part from the Higenashi blog (NSFW), the 5910 blog, the Puchi Tomato wo Tsubusu blog and others.
God damn Japan...
Posted by: tissuekins | September 27, 2009 at 08:41 AM
Gotta say, the Silk Spectre/Doc Manhattan one, awesome. it just screams him saying "yeah, I'm hitting that" doesn't it? :)
Still blows my mind how perfectly Japanese fan artists can capture the central essence of something when 'professionals' here in the States utterly miss the boat.
Posted by: Steve Harrison | September 27, 2009 at 09:02 AM
Wow. that's just...wow. I've seen Watchmen done a bunch of different ways but never through moe lenses.
heh..I wonder if they'll be doing their own action figures..:-)
Posted by: ChrisM | September 27, 2009 at 09:05 AM
Ironically, the actual comic is still pretty obscure over here, and as far as I'm aware the film didn't do particularly well at all. (Coming out on the heels of the Batman flick, I think the moral gray-zones, deep cultural references, and outright violence took a lot of Japanese superhero fans by surprise.
One friend of mine to whom I'd enthusiastically recommended the film returned with a hurt look on his face, describing the experience as "like being struck repeatedly on the head with a hammer."
Posted by: MattAlt | September 27, 2009 at 09:36 AM
>>I wonder if they'll be doing their own action figures..:-)
This series gives even Ozymandias' company's toy line a run for its money:
http://image.rakuten.co.jp/gettry/cabinet/bearbrick/img56180207.jpg
http://www.itoyokado.jp/game/27007/32715/47740/-/detail/4530956301761
Posted by: MattAlt | September 27, 2009 at 10:06 AM
I'd have to assume that Watchmen would be a dense struggle for casual Japanese AmeriComi fans. Totally ignoring the Charlton heros connection, there's so many ingrained comic book tropes going on, as well as visuals,where they'd get the surface but not some of the deeper things.
Of course, the same can be said for Americans and most manga, really. I mean, there are cultural assumptions that go deeper than anything like simple translation can hope to catch.
For example, there's CONSTANT riffs on the 'Military is fed up with the Government and attempts to stage a coup, all the way to hall monitors trying to overthrow the student consul in school comedies. Warring states period and all that.
Blah blah blah. :)
Posted by: Steve Harrison | September 27, 2009 at 02:41 PM
Some actual figures:
In Japan, "Watchmen" got slammed by the likes of "Dragonball Evolution" and "Yattaman." On the other hand, it managed to croak past "Keroro Gunso 4."
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/japan/yearly/
$4,035,072 at the Japanese box office versus $14,574,849 for Dark Knight and $8,658,784 for Iron Man the year before.
Posted by: MattAlt | September 27, 2009 at 04:13 PM
I was surprised they went the full Monty with Dr. Manhattan in Japan as they usually obscure the nether regions in Japanese films....
Posted by: ShoheiK | September 30, 2009 at 03:16 AM