More footage from "Musashi: The Dream of the Last Samurai" at Twitch

by Chris MaGee

Only a couple weeks after animation and Japanese film fans got a chance to check out the trailer for the Mamoru Oshii scripted "Musashi: The Dream of the Last Samurai" there comes even more footage from the film about the early 17th-century samurai from our friends at Twitch. Now this isn't officially released footage mind you. It seems to have been filmed on someone's digital camera during a press conference for the Production I.G. film that was held during this year's Tokyo International Anime Fair.

Not only was Oshii (far right) on hand to speak about this animated feature which relates the life story of Musashi Miyamoto, the samurai who wrote the still in print book on martial arts and strategy "The Book of Five Rings", but so was the film's director Mizuho Nishikubo (second from left), Production I.G. President Hisashi Akira Ishikawa (far left) and Japanese folk singer Shigeru Izumiya (second from right) who has composed and performs the theme song for the film due out in Japan this summer.

I'm still not blown away by the animation that I'm seeing for "Musashi", particularly the character design which seems kind of simplistic and wooden in contrast to the renderings of the lush backgrounds (it was the same problem I had with Oshii's "The Sky Crawlers"), but the chance to see what Oshii brings to the retelling of the life story of one of Japan's most important historical figures is still something I'm very curious to see.

Like I said, this isn't officially released footage, so head over to Twitch here and follow the links to check it out before it gets yanked.