Studio Ghibli's New Anime Short...

 

Celebrating a Legendary Artist...

MAMORU OSHII

(Born August 8, 1951)

Happy Birthday to Mamoru Oshii

Director of Ghost in the Shell, Angel's Egg, 

and one of Japan's most influential filmmakers.

When Mamoru Oshii was offered the opportunity to adapt Masamune Shirow's "Ghost in the Shell". At first, the assignment held little appeal. A cyberpunk police thriller seemed an unlikely vehicle for his interests. But as Oshii immersed himself in Shirow's premise, he recognized something more compelling beneath its genre framework: an opportunity to examine how the rapid expansion of digital networks and information technologies was beginning to reshape the boundaries of human consciousness and identity.

As Oshii and screenwriter Kazunori Itō developed the adaptation, they quickly concluded that Shirow's irreverent sensibility was fundamentally at odds with the film they envisioned. The original 1989 manga balanced its philosophical ideas with manic comedy, punctuating tense action with slapstick, fourth-wall jokes, exaggerated chibi caricatures, and the playful antics of the Fuchikoma spider tanks. Nearly all of these elements were removed.

The most profound transformation was reserved for Major Motoko Kusanagi herself. Shirow's heroine is impulsive, outspoken, and often disarmingly playful; Oshii and Itō reconceived her as a figure defined by stillness, introspection, and profound existential isolation. Her emotional reserve became an extension of the film's central inquiry into the uneasy relationship between body, mind, and machine. Oshii reinforced this conception through the animation itself, instructing his artists to minimize Kusanagi's blinking, lending her an almost uncanny stillness that subtly underscores her distance from ordinary biological life. Oshii transforms what might have remained a conventional science-fiction thriller into something far more reflective: a meditation on memory, mortality, and the increasingly fragile distinction between the human soul and the digital systems that surround and ultimately redefine it.

Next Club Meeting is August 15, 2026

A N I M A T R I X   N E T W O R K

Peace Before the War...

M O N T H L Y   M E E T I N G

 
Fountaindale Public Library

300 W. Briarcliff Road

Bolingbrook, IL  60440

Peggy J. Danhof Board Room

 (2nd Floor)

Saturday, August 15, 2026

11:15 AM - 5:00 PM

 

We will be in the BOARD ROOM on the Second Floor.

 
Hope to see everyone there!

 

A Viewing Schedule will be posted soon.

 

(Click below for maps)

Time to Wake Up From This Nightmare!

DREAMLAND

Ever since his moth­er died in a fire, Ter­rence has seclud­ed him­self in an emo­tion­less world.

He goes through his dai­ly teenag­er life apa­thet­i­cal­ly… with one excep­tion! The sim­ple sight of a flame plunges him into a world of fear, an awak­ened ver­sion of his night­mares – for, every time he falls asleep, he help­less­ly relives the trag­ic event, thus rekin­dling his pyro­pho­bia. Until that one night he can’t bear it any ­more and stops run­ning away from the dev­il­ish flames. Lit­tle does he know that, by doing so, he over­came his great­est fear and became a Trav­el­er: a very spe­cial kind of Dream­er, able to explore Dream­land, the dimen­sion born from mankind’s dreams… and nightmares!

“The trump card was… a witch.”

Witch and Hound

Based on the original novel "MAJO TO RYOKEN" by Rainy Kamitsuki, published by Shogakukan Inc. Original character designs by LAM

The dark fantasy novel "MAJO TO RYOKEN" by Rainy Kamitsuki, originally published under Shogakukan’s Gagaga Bunko imprint, is officially getting an anime adaptation. The series is directed by Takanori Tsujimoto, whose works span both live-action and animation, including the live-action Ultraman series and the animated feature film HYPNOSISMIC -Division Rap Battle-. Character designs are by Kengo Saito, who has contributed to numerous acclaimed productions at Yostar Pictures.

Produced by the rising animation studio TriF Studio, the series promises stunning visuals and intense action.

"All men have limits... I ignore mine."

BATMAN: KNIGHTFALL PART 1

DC, Warner Bros. Animation, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment present Batman: Knightfall, a three-part movie event bringing to life one of the most iconic and beloved sagas in the rich history of Batman comics.

Part One of the trilogy, Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Knightfall premiered at the 2026 edition of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival with an official release planned for later this year. When the mysterious behemoth known only as Bane frees Batman’s entire Rogue’s Gallery from Arkham Asylum, the Caped Crusader is pushed to his mental and physical breaking point. Based on characters from DC and the DC Comic Book Event, Batman: Knightfall by Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, Alan Grant, Dennis O’Neil, Peter David, Jo Duffy, Jim Aparo, Graham Nolan, Norm Breyfogle, and Jim Balent.

Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Knightfall is directed by Jeff Wamester and written by Jeremy Adams. Rick Morales serves as Supervising Producer alongside Producers Jim Krieg and Kimberly S. Moreau. Sam Register and Michael Uslan are Executive Producers. 

The voice cast stars Anson Mount as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Michael Mando as Bane, Pablo Schreiber as Jean-Paul Valley/Azrael.

AI Rendition of an Anime Classic...

BATTLE of the PLANETS

In Japan, Battle of the Planets is known as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, written in Japanese as 科学忍者隊ガッチャマン (Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman). G-Force, a five-member superhero team, fights to defend Earth and its space colonies from the threat of the planet Spectra.

We hunt for powerful relics...

ESLUNA: The Crown of Babylon

The fantasy world of Esluna is ruled by descendants of a sacred bloodline, and technologically powered by the advanced relics of their ancients. MAEVE is a relic hunter, aided by her robot sidekick and a reformed sky pirate. When her mentor and surrogate mother CAZ is kidnapped by the rogue monk SPARROWWOOD, Maeve has no choice but find a powerful relic known as the CROWN OF BABYLON, rumored to have the power to bring back the dead. She teams up with BATAAR, an old friend with telekinetic powers and an agenda of his own, and together they try to find the crown, save Caz, and stop Sparrowwood from endangering the lives of everyone they know.

Watch on Prime or AppleTV

About Cloudrise Pictures: Cloudrise Pictures is an indie Canadian animation studio founded in 2017 by animator and director Denver Jackson. The studio is currently still young and growing as we produce more passion projects. Current films include shorts: Cloudrise, The Wishing Jar, SOS, a webseries: Esluna: The First Monolith, and our first feature film: Esluna: The Crown of Babylon.

To Survive, they must Transform...

FOOL NIGHT

A long-awaited anime adaptation of the globally popular manga "Fool Night," the first collaboration between Sunrise and Shaft, will stream worldwide in 2026, exclusively on Netflix.

"Living... there isn’t a single thing fun about it."

In a dark world full of despair, he chooses the path of transforming into a Spirit Flower — a plant into which humans transform.

Should he continue living as a person, or discard his pain and start a new life as a plant? Which path would you choose in his situation?

"Go create the ending you desire!"

FALSE  MEMORY

In order to return to the past, Guan Chao searches for the energy source known as "Blazing Stone" (灼石), which is needed to activate the Time Gun. However, he unexpectedly falls into the Memory Bureau, where he joins memory administrators such as Fang Tang and Bai Chong. Together, they battle through bizarre and mysterious layers of memories.

Premieres on August 2 at 12:00 PM!

The first release includes 3 episodes, streaming exclusively on Bilibili.

Note: The title 《记忆管理局》 literally means "Memory Bureau" or "Memory Administration Bureau." Since it's a new donghua, the official English title may differ when it is released internationally.

"It's coming to kill us!"

H  O  P  E

In the remote South Korea village of Hope Harbor, police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung- min) and officer Sung-ae (Hoyeon) are called to find a mysterious creature that has wreaked havoc on the village. In the nearby forest, a coterie of hunters, including Sung- ki (Zo In-Sung) set out to track the beast and find themselves hunted instead. But all is not as it seems, and perceptions can be misleading. What begins as ignorance plants the seed of disaster, escalating through human conflict into a tragedy of cosmic proportions.

In theaters September 9

A Human Entered Beaststars...

Hitoner

In this video, I turned Chapter 1 of Hitoner into a short AI-powered “anime” using manga panels as the base.The goal: test how far current AI animation tools can push static manga pages into something that feels more like an opening episode, with motion, camera moves, and effects. 

Patreon - Dr.pierce