"Gedo" vs. "Brave" R3 - The real winner is?

No major media talks about it, but in net/blog world, the winner of the summer anime war seems to be neither "Tales from Earthsea" ("Gedo Senki") nor "Brave Story".

"Toki wo Kakeru Shojo" ("The Little Girl Who Conquered Time"), animatization of 1983's Kadokawa hit movie and directed by Mamoru Hosoda, opened in limited theaters on July 15 but is getting very high reviews by the viewers and is expanding its showing.  On "Eiga Seikatsu" user review, the score is 89.69 out of 100, vs. "Earthsea" 46.38 and "Brave" 51.66.  "Earthsea" is backed up by NTV/Yomiuri group and "Brave" by Fuji TV/Sankei team, and both have employed their maximum media muscle (TV spots, informercials, newspaper coverage etc.) and are earning an OK revenue, but the viewers are basically trashing "Earthsea" and neglecting "Brave".

"Toki" is the fantasy/youth story of a young girl who happens to gain the ability to time travel.   In addition to the good reviews, blogosphere is churping about the "revenge of Hosoda".  Director Hosoda was the original director of Ghibli's previous animation "Howl's Moving Castle", but was fired during the filming and replaced by Hayao Miyazaki.  Blog vines say it is due to the inside politics within Ghibli, and then Goro Miyazaki, Hayao's son, was named as the director of their next big project "Earthsea", despite of his lack of experience.  They say "Ghibli's nepotism factor chased out the more-talented outsider Hosoda, and now, see, Hosoda is making a better product!"

I have not seen any of them and have no personal opinion, but it is quite interesting to see the "polarization" of the popular audience, helped by the power of Net.

Source:  Movie Consultant Blog, Eiga Seikatsu, various blogs

And by the way, this original "The Little Girl Who Conquered Time" starring Tomoyo Harada is schedule to be shown at Japan Society New York in fall as a part of their "LOLITA IN FULL BLOOM" series.  Below DVD is Region 2.