This is latest video promo for the Lucky Star Net Idol Meister game for the PSP. This music focused game will be released on December 23rd, with a follow up additional song in January 2010. My personal preference would be to see a second OVA coming out, but in my book there’s no such thing as a disappointing Lucky Star release of any kind. Here is pervious promo which gives you an idea of the game play of this title: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 12, 2009 in Animation
Here’s the latest trailer for Despicable Me and I’ve got to say that I’m even less impressed with the film now than when the previous trailer came out. This is the same crew that was behind Ice Age so they’re not as bad as Dreamworks, yet they’ll never be as good as Pixar. As usual we’ve got famous movie stars who are lame at voice acting and visual gags that are overplayed, and the end result doesn’t make me want to stand in line to buy a ticket.
Yes I know James Cameron will make a billion dollars with Avatar. But you know what Cameron will never know how to do? Create a damn high quality giant robot that kids will want to buy thirty years from now! Shown above is the reason why: The Avatar AMP Suit (shown above) looks like a left over prop from the film Aliens: Read more…
Sadly the reviews that Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen received were slightly less than stellar, however if you’re a fanboy you may still want to purchase the film because it comes on this nifty re-useable 4GB USB Stick. The packaging is pretty cool too, it’s so sad that they didn’t put the same amount of care into the movie: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 6, 2009 in Animation
The good news? Blu-ray for Samurai Champloo will be out on December 15, 2009. The bad news? What the hell ever happened to Shinichirō Watanabe! I realize that having been behind two great anime shows is pretty good for one lifetime, but damn it I’d like to see the guy do one more big thing. I’m not saying that he’s a slacker in fact Watanabe is the associate producer on the 2011 Cowboy Bebop film. But instead of seeing him revisit the past I’d love to see something new.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 6, 2009 in Animation
I just finished reading a very scathing review of what Funimation is or rather what it isn’t doing for UK fans. The blog in question is Tiamat’s Manga Reviews and the first thing I can tell is the blogger in question loves anime — however as someone who also understands the pro side of the world I thought I’d address a few things that otaku may not always understand. So here’s my point-by-point insights on Tiamat’s critique: Read more…
PansonWorks from Japan has created a line of One Piece air-deformed (and super cuter) figurines. PansonWorks is best known for a hip collection of character designs known as Robin and his 100 Friends. The One Piece figurines go on pre-sale on December 14th. Here’s the rest of the collection: Read more…
The December issue of HyperHobby magazine has a special treat for old school anime fanboys: A special supplement cover that features Cyborg 009! For those of you who may not know it Cyborg 009 started as a manga in 1964, there was an anime film in 1966 and a series in 1968 but the 1979 anime series really put the show on the map. Here’s the black-and-white intro from the first series, which still hold up pretty well: Read more…
Kazuo Umezu (楳図 かずお) is the the godfather of the Japanese horror manga genre. A new film has been released in Japan which profiles the author/artist who got his start in 1962 and is still active. Umezu is best known for such works as The Drifting Classroom, Makoto-chan and Reptilia. The Drifting Classroom was turned into a live action film in 1987. Here are some samples of his wonderfully gothic work: Read more…
While looking at the coverage of the launch of Windows 7 in the Akihabara district of of Tokyo when I came across the coolest feature of the new operating system: The unofficial Windows 7 anime spokesmodel! This moe character design features a girl with dark blue hair who sports a clover symbol which is made up of the official Windows colors: Read more…
If there are characters that deserve the title non-action figures it would have to be he characters from Family Guy. Sure GI Joe has to go out and fight Cobra, but the Griffins would be more at home attacking a pizza. This Family Guy Mini Figure Boxed Set contains Peter, Lois, Brian, Chris, Megan and Stewie and will be in out in November: Read more…
The thing that makes this commercial for me is seeing Sally from the Peanuts gang scratching records — and of course having Snoopy, Marcy, Peppermint Patty and Lucy back up J-pop star Kaela Kimur (木村カエラ) singing her Hot Pepper song pushes this advert to the next level. And so what is Hot Pepper? It seems to be some sort of food website which is sponsored by Recruit which is a job placement service. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 20, 2009 in Animation
On the surface Soul Eater looks amazing, in fact the animation in this clip is very well constructed. Yet for me it feels like the studio isn’t taking any chances or trying anything new: For starters the plot is pretty much Bleach and the character designs remind me a great deal of One Piece with just a dash of Jamie Hewlett thrown in for fun. The show looks entertaining yet it’s evolutionary not revolutionary in terms of the field. Frankly is it just me or is the character of Black Star very similar to the character 2-D from the Gorillaz? Read more…
Back in the day my friend Ardith Carlton (who now lives in Japan) would keep telling us about this amazing anime series called Tomorrow’s Joe (あしたのジョ) which she claimed at the time was one of THE best anime series of all time. Of course none of us believed her because the subject matter in the show was boxing and this being the 80s our obsessions at the time were giant robots and cool looking spaceships and of course Joe offered none of that. Little did we know what a cool series that we were missing out on! Ashita no Jō is now seen as one of the heavyweights of its genre. And in celebration of the series Kaitendoh is releasing a huge 1/6th scale collectable statuette which will come out in December: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 16, 2009 in Animation
On this day in 1923 two brothers founded an animation studio to produce a series of cartoons for Margaret J. Winkler. Margaret started out as a secretary at Warner Brothers during the silent film era which then branched into cartoons in 1917. Her breakthrough came in 1922 when she put together Pat Sullivan and Felix the Cat. Based upon that success she formed her own distribution company, but had a then falling out with Pat. So Margaret was on the lookout for a replacement when some kid called Walt Disney showed her a pilot reel for a film called Alice’s Wonderland which featured a live-action girl in an animated setting. Read more…
This is the second trailer showing gameplay from the up and coming Astro Boy videogame. It’s funny how sometimes that the more you see of something, the more it just unsells you: And in his case the lack of quality of the game is not only unselling me from the game but from the film itself. Frankly everything associated with this film is starting to feel second rate to me. Read more…
I always love how in japan they’re willing to go that extra mile to promote a anime series in some special way! In this case the show Usavich (ウサビッチ) which features computer animated rabbits on MTV Japan was featured on an automobile: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 6, 2009 in Animation
If you grew up loving Star Blazers the good news is that the website for the live action Space Battleship Yamato film is now live! The bad news? There’s very little detail on this film on the website at all. There’s a listing of the crew which stars Takuya Kimura, a launch date of December 2010 and a tiny visual of the Yamato stuck in the mud: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 6, 2009 in Animation
Mobile Suit Gundam fanboys can now enjoy Char Aznable’s Spicy Curry Noodles from Nissin Foods which features a special reusable glass cup which features the infamous red Zaku suit. The instant soup is also colored red and features spicy and red peppers contrasted with just a hint of cheddar cheese flavor. Nissin is also selling refill sets, although my guess is that most Gundam fans won’t dare open the package. Here are some other shots of the product: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 6, 2009 in Animation
Weighing in at about 50 tons and costing $1.5 million dollars the now famous Gigantor (原寸大鉄人28号) statute is the hit of Kobe, Japan. I figured at this point that everyone has seen all the photos of this 60 foot tall wonder, however some amazing videos are just starting to flood YouTube. Here are some of the coolest that I’ve come across so far that can give you a sense of scale: Read more…
While wandering through the streets of Manhattan today I came across this brilliant Simpsons themed poster making fun of the current race for Mayor which features Charles Montgomery “Monty” Burns. Behind this humorous campaign (official website here) is a serious message: That despite how good of a mayor Bloomberg may be, many folks are quite upset (including yours truly) that he eliminated term limits without a public vote. Adding to this irony is also the fact that Bloomberg came in as a result of terms which drove Rudy Giuliani from office right after 9/11. Read more…
Not so long ago I had a friend who’s a modern anime fan hunker down with a copy of the now vintage manga Black Jack, and to make a long story short he couldn’t quite grok the cartoony style of early 70s Tezuka. In fact to him the cartoony style look dated which spilled over into a twitter debate with Ed Chavez of Vertical which re-published the manga. As I have an art school background I’d thought I’d try to explain this via a little art history lesson so that we can put Black Jack (which got started in 1973) into perspective: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 1, 2009 in Animation
Some humorous fanboy has edited together highlights from the Roger Corman produced New World Pictures dub of the Galaxy Express 999 movie. By the way this isn’t the worst dubbing of that era, in fact this is even a notch above some of the VHS stuff I remember seeing in the early 90s where the voice talent was usually the intern or immediate family of the producer. There were of course exceptions to the rule (for example Star Blazers had some great voice acting) however I’m glad that the good old days are over.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 1, 2009 in Animation
I so want it to be good: Wes Andrson is brilliant and stop motion animation is an amazing medium. But alas the more I see of Fantastic Mr. Fox the less I like it — and the rave review my Rolling Stone convinces me that print is dead too when it comes to film reviews. The first thing you notice with this trailer is that the voice actors are indeed famous movie starts, but that doesn’t mean that they can voice act. And next there is the quality of the animation; if you want to see A+ stop motion animation look at Wallace and Gromit and then tell me what you think of this Mr. Rolling Stone film critic…
While looking at 
Back in the day my friend Ardith Carlton (who now lives in Japan) would keep telling us about this amazing anime series called 
Weighing in at about 50 tons and costing $1.5 million dollars the now famous Gigantor (原寸大鉄人28号) statute is the hit of Kobe, Japan. I figured at this point that everyone has seen all the photos of this 60 foot tall wonder, however some amazing videos are just starting to flood YouTube. Here are some of the coolest that I’ve come across so far that can give you a sense of scale: 
