ANI-MOVIES, *Batman: Gotham Knight

While Marvel had its own various "anime" TV series, the Caped Crusader beat them to the punch by a few years. Granted, anime-styled features like The Animatrix have come out before this, but Batman: Gotham Knight(which was the third DC Universe animated movie)acted like Dark Fury and Clone Wars which bridges the gap between two chapters of a franchise. It's supposed to happen after Batman Begin, and just before The Dark Knight, although it doesn't 100% fit into the given continuity of both films.

This movie is broken up into six segments, each one directed by an actual Japanese anime director. The first one shows some kids each telling their own version of running into Batman. Second has two Gotham City cops running into a gang war. Next is a very bishounen-looking Bruce Wayne donning a costume strait out of Gatchaman to test his own personal forcefield. Following that is a slight 2-parter of sorts where Batman heads into the sewers to take on Scarecrow and their own version of Killer Croc, which later has Bruce Wayne flashing back to when he was travelling the world and training. In the finale, Batman clashes with the sniper-for-hire, Deadshot.

Gotham Knight has some great comics writing from Brian Azzrello, Greg Rucka, and Bruce Timm. Some of the anime studios behind it were Production I.G.(Ghost In The Shell) and Madhouse(Vampire Hunter D). There is some very fine animation in this movie, and mostly worth getting for that alone. It's also bound to satisfy the average Bat-fan. The only real drawbacks to it are like the previous DC Universe movies is that it was too short. I felt they could've added some more to each of the chapters, or at least maybe left out some of the chapters while making the others longer. It gives a good insight into the way the citizens of Gotham each view having a masked vigilante in their town, while at the same time showing how it is for Bruce Wayne to be Batman. It isn't necassary to see this in order to enjoy any of the Christopher Nolan trilogy, but you'd still have a thrillride at Bat-Time!