When I first laid my eyes on this Batman Ame Comi Statue I have to say that I was impressed! The folks at DC Comics actually did a good job of giving the dark knight that anime touch — even down to the Captain Harlock belt treatment. But then I started thinking: Why no improve this and bring to the next level? So on the photo above I added my own captions to show what accessories a mangaesque Batman might be adorned with. And not to be left out I gave the same treatment to the Robin Ame Comi Robin Vinyl Statue: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 21, 2009 in Comic Books
I really love the work that Skottie Young is doing for Marvel these days: In this case his cover illustration for Marvel Adventures Spider-man #53 does a wonderful job of reinventing Peter Parker. Usually Peter is seen as the archetype of the geek who was playing with his science lab routine too much — here he’s reinvented as a punky juvenile delinquent, yet Young has kept true to the larger theme of superheroes with a secret identity. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 21, 2009 in Japanese TV
This new Japanese ad for Pizza-La features the J-pop act Buono! which is yet another side project associated with Hello! Project Kids and Berryz Kobo. Aside from the musical aspect of this I have to admit that the idea of a Camembert cheese pizza made me want to break my current diet. By the way what’s cool about this ad is that there is a version for each member of Buono!, shown below are the spots for Airi Suzuki, Miyabi Natsuyaki and the ever so cute Momoko Tsugunaga: Read more…
It was nothing less than a historic moment when director George Lucas decided to feature a trash compactor scene in Star Wars: Sure Stanley Kubrick broke ground in 2001: A Space Odyssey by showing a bathroom scene — but it look the bold vision of Lucas to take us dumpster diving into a space station the size of a planet (or small moon if you want to quibble). And that why the Franklin Mint, err Gentle Giant Products has decided to commemorate this milestone in cinematic history with the Star Wars Trash Compactor Bookends Statue. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 20, 2009 in Comic Books
At first I was struck by the fact that this cover for Runaways #12 had a bit of an anime flavor to it, you can tell right away with the look of the huge reflecting eyes and the high level of attention to the hair. Although the composition gives away that it isn’t Japanese, however I was still surprised to find out that the artist Sara Pichelli is in fact from Italy! So you’ve got a European illustrator influenced by Japanese manga working for a very mainstream American publisher like Marvel. If you step back this is amazing because twenty years ago in a pre-net era you would never have seen this — in fact my thinking is that more and more international borders will mean less and less in the world of comics. Read more…
Shown above is the latest commercial for the upcoming action videogame Senki Gundam for the Playstation3 and is due out on September 3rd, 2009. The developers behind this game also did the well remembered Dreamcast and Saturn games — so Gundam fanboys are pretty psyched about this. Below is a video from earlier in July which shows some actual gameplay: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 19, 2009 in Comic Books
The cover art from Gemini #4
In astrology Gemini is the sign of the twins, and in this case the comic Gemini #4 stays true to the symbolism of the sign. Firstly the comic is drawn by the team of Jon Sommariva and Fco Plascencia, and they do a good job of blending their talents in this book. But what really impressed me is that in most comic books you get the “bait-and-switch” routine where the cover art is brilliant and the interiors are average at best. In this case I found the cover to be underplayed, not bad but rather held back — and the interiors of the book were nothing short of amazing (thus my featuring of an interior page above). Sommariva and Plascencia have a fluid cartoony feel to their work with just a small dash of humor. The results make for a very animated comic book even though the layout is confined to traditional block panels: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 18, 2009 in Animation
The frustrating thing about Twitter is reading the tweets of all of my anime pals who are at Otakon this weekend: For me the highlights of these cons is to hear about all of the anime shows that are making their way into America. But the nice folks at FUNimation have actually taken their panel and uploaded it to YouTube. The good news is that it looks like they’ll be bring over Casshern Sins, Eden of the East, Daytime Drinking, more Case Closed movies. By the Daytime Drinking isn’t an anime series but is an award winning film by Korean director Young-seok Noh: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 18, 2009 in Animation
My favorite thing about this cartoon is that after our father-and-son dog team feel so guilty about trying to kill the poor mouse — that they in fact continue to spend the rest of the cartoon trying to still kill the mouse! Which also makes me realize that Good Mouse Keeping must be one of the few cartoons to feature a “dog vs. mouse” theme. This Hanna-Barbera cartoon was released on this day in 1952 and shows off the theatrical high quality work that that the animation studio was doing for MGM before they went off on their own for the low budget world of limited animation TV shows. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 18, 2009 in Cinema, Design
On this day in 1933 visual futurist Syd Mead was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He started his career in 1959 working for Ford Motor Company, but for us fanboys our love affair with his work really starts 70s when he started to make the jump from slick looking industrial design to science fiction. His early film work in Hollywood includes credits on the film Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 2010, Tron, Aliens and even the comedy Short Circuit (yes that was his robot design!). However his triumph for me was his preproduction work on Blade Runner: Read more…
If you love Gundam you may want to get your hands on The Gundam Big Face Encyclopedia which was just released in Japan. This soft covered book features 125 faces from various giant robots in the classic anime series which is now celebrating its 30th anniversary. Of course you just don’t get he faces, there are smaller full body shots of each mecha with commentary in Japanese. Here’s a preview of the book shot by an otaku for an Akihabara focused blog: Read more…
This is the second trailer for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes flick — normally I’d slag the mere notion of having to improve Holmes through cheap plot mechanisms like vampires (why not go all the way and have zombies too?) but I’ve got to say that the idea of teaming up high quality actors like Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock and Jude Law as Watson makes me think that this film might be a bit better than I’d expect. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 17, 2009 in Videogames
And of course you know that Futo is the largest of the Mini Ninjas! But if you didn’t know that this Edios games looks might be worth keep track of — it’s due out in September and will be eventually be available on the PC, Xbox, Playstation3, Wii and Nintendo DS. In the game Join Hiro embarks on an epic quest to “restore harmony to a world on the brink of chaos”. To battle a magical army of evil Samurai you have to use all of your hard earned Ninja training skills. I just love the look of this game, you can tell that developer Io-Interactive had fun with the details as seen in these screen shots: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 17, 2009 in Science
This is an interesting Science Now segment from the PBS series Nova on doing unmanned lunar exploration on a low budget. It shows how a team working on the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) used every day items to create a payload experiment that would look for traces of water on the moon. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 16, 2009 in Science
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first mission to land astronauts on the moon NASA has released a freshly restored video from the July 20, 1969 live television broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk. This initial release is part of a larger Apollo 11 moonwalk restoration project and features 15 key moments from the lunar mission. Read more…
This Star Trek USB Communicator is more than a toy that plugs into your computer, it’s in fact a fully functional microphone and earphone that will work with Skype, MSN, AIM and iChat! Better yet it features the official Star Trek chip sound when you open it up along with 21 uthentic sound effects. Now my preference would be for a wireless version of this, but with a 6 foot long USB cable I think you’ll be able to move about your command station in comfort. Read more…
What you’re seeing is not in fact a normal lens cleaner, but in fact is shaped like ladies underwear. It’s the latest gimmick that’s packed with the latest issue of Megastore magazine which is a Bishōjo themed publication aimed at Japanese fanboys. The publisher brags that this is an industry first for lads mags — and as such if you’re easily offended you may not want to look any further:Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 16, 2009 in Science
After several days of waiting Endeavour took off last night for the International Space Station. Part of me loves it anytime a spacecraft takes off and especially when it’s a safe and smooth launch — but another part of me regrets that it’s the year 2009 and NASA is still stuck with a vehicle that was designed in the 70s. But my hat is off to Commander Mark Polansky for a safe trip and return. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 16, 2009 in Animation
If you ever want to see what Pixar does right, take a look at the competition! This trailer for Despicable Me is like a free animation course in how to get a near miss. The first thing you notice is that even though there’s some bounce to the animation (called ‘anticipation’) the comedic results are telegraphed and slow, so you don’t catch yourself laughing. On another level the sound effects sound like they’re from a library and you can tell that the voice actors are just regular screen actors with no audible character traits to their vocals. The results is a mediocre mass of mush that’s destined for the drug store value DVD bin in less than six months. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 15, 2009 in Animation
The Japanese website for the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha film (魔法少女リリカルなのは) just went live today. Nanoha started life as a spin-off of the Triangle Heart anime series — what makes the show unique is that unlike other shows in the magical girl genre Nanoha actually features physical combat (well as physical as animated characters can get). This first film is logically titled Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The MOVIE 1st and features a parallel history story: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 15, 2009 in Animation
It’s frankly amazing for me to think that Pokémon: The First Movie came out over ten years ago — the release date was July 18, 1998 in Japan, which was followed by an opening in the United States in November of 1999. For a generation of fanboys (and fangurls) this would be their first introduction to the world of anime. This film would be the high point of Pokémonmania, although a shocking 11 other films have been produced not to mention countless TV episodes (605 and continuing!) since 1997. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 15, 2009 in Animation, Fandom
In what seems to be a growing trend of politicians coming out of the closet to embrace their fanboy roots in Japan it seems that Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shigeru Ishiba (石破 茂) has announced to the public that he is an otaku and proud of it! Ishiba made the announcement on a radio show in which he sited growing up with AstroBoy and being a huge fan of Space Battleship Yamato which is known as Star Blazers in the United States. Least you think that Ishiba is a slacker he did hold the position of Minister of Defence of Japan for a year and was up for the Liberal Democratic Party presidency in 2008.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 15, 2009 in Videogames
Sega’s Block People is an well done new arcade game — what makes it cool is that like a typical video game you have these cute creatures who need to crawl over blocks to get to their objective. But the twist that makes this arcade game is that the building blocks aren’t on the screen, but are in fact physical blocks that you have to place in front of the screen:
I really love the latest rage of kit-bashed character universe games that are coming out — shwn above is the latest video for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and below is a preview of Marvel vs. Capcom 2. And why are these videogames so cool? Because there’s a silly sort of honesty top them! Let’s face it: Every fanboy has always had those X-Men vs. Superman type of arguments, granted they’re silly but we all love that at heart. Read more…
