Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 23, 2009 in Animation
On this day in 1966 one of the first full length feature anime films made it to the United States: That was none other than Garibā no Uchū Ryokō (ガリバーの宇宙旅行) which was translated to Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon. The film was produced by Toei in 1965 and directed by the team of Masao Kuroda and Sanae Yamamoto, but what might make it interesting to current anime fans is that Hayao Miyazaki also worked on the film providing some uncredited writing and quite a bit of inbetween animation work. In the scene above we see young Ricky meeting Gulliver, and below is a scene featuring the Princess of the Star of Hope (who was voiced by Our Gang’sDarla Hood): Read more…
When I first spotted this limited edition Junko Mizuno Designer My Little Pony my first thoughts were “This looks like My Little Pony on LSD!” By adding the baroque flourishes to a sugar coated 80s cartoon icons the result reminds me a great deal of psychedelic inspired artwork from the late 60s — which in my book is a good thing (or an entertaining thing at the very least). By the way if you’re into the art toy treatment there’s also the My Little Pony Collector Art Pony Wave 1 Set although it looks a little bit more hipster like in its inspiration: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 22, 2009 in Animation
When Usavich came out it got quite a bit of novelty interest because it didn’t quite looks like anything else that anyone hasd seen before — after all how many Anime CGI series do you see that features the adventures of two Soviet bunnies? Well I’m happy to report that MTV in Japan has kept producing the show which is now in its third season. 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 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…
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…
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 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.
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…
It’s always amazing to me what gems people can save from another era: In this case this vintage box of Meiji Creamy Candy from the 70s features a powerful Kimba the White Lion theme on the packaging. The strong use of primary colors really gives this little box a powerful roar: Read more…
I think Sgt. Frog (ケロロ軍曹) is one of the most beloved anime series of recent vintage, so this Sgt. Frog USB Companion defiantly meets with our fanboy seal of approval! And what exactly does a USB companion do? When plugged in Sgt. Frog will move at random and react at your voice and sound. Not very practical, but then that isn’t what frog friendship is about. Read more…
Here’s the latest trailer for the Wii game Fullmetal Alchemist: Prince of the Dawn. What I like about this trailer is that while he pre-rendered animation looks great (when doesn’t it?) the actual game play scenes look pretty good too. This impresses me because as much as I love the Wii as a gaming platform it leave’s something to be desired in the rendering department. Here’s another video preview from a bit ago which shows more of the gameplay, including cut scenes: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 8, 2009 in Animation
This nicely done mini-documentary shows off the studio behind the anime series True Tears. The video starts off by showing off the real world town that True Tears, but then quickly moves to show the animators in action. It’s interesting to see that all of the drawing is done by hand, and the level of draftsmanship in those key drawings is just amazing. Here’s the opening titles from the show if you haven’t seen it: Read more…
The Japanese commercial is for the Monsters, Inc. attraction at Tokyo Disneyland which is set to open this Summer. I really love hearing the Pixar characters speak in Japanese, it makes them a bit more anime like for me!
I’ve been getting excited about the Sega science fiction game Infinite Space for a while, but of course my main fear was that we’d never see this cool anime spaceship themed saga in English. Well be careful what you wish for because the above trailer shows the English dub is shown above, and the voice acting is kind of average to say the least. You’d think that Sega would have learned from the Anime industry in the United States, but that isn’t the case here. However on the flip side even if the voice acting is bad what counts is the game design which looks impressive from what I’ve been seeing so far…
Acme Archives has released a beautiful set of faux posters based on the Pixar film Up illustrated by Eric Tan which are available through entertainmentearth.com. Be warned though: These are limited edition giclée prints which are hand signed so they’ll cost you a bit more than your average poster, however they’re signed by the artist and the quality is there. Read more…
Everyone’s had that tingling feeling running (as they say) up and down one’s spine when they experience something awesome. Last night I saw a preview of Hayao Miyazaki’s new film Ponyo — and the feeling hasn’t gone away yet. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 28, 2009 in Animation
A user on YouTube did a great job of putting together all of the Anime promos and commercials for the Summer season. The video above features: Bakemonogatari, Blue Flowers and Canaan. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 26, 2009 in Animation
Believe it or now I recall watching this show as a child, although it may have been in re-runs! The Jackson 5ive ran for two seasons from 1971 until 1973 and was produced by Rankin/Bass in collaboration with Mowtown. The show was very similar to the Beatles cartoons that ran a few years before: The average plot was that the group is on tour, one member falls intro trouble and crazy antics resume which are interrupted by musical numbers: Read more…
Every character in the Nendoroid series of action figures always picks up that extra bit of moe that makes you want to take it home and adopt it: And in this case this Usakottsu cyborg bunny looks as cute as can be! Our demon clawed rabbit friend is from the light comedy anime series Tentai Senshi Sunred (天体戦士サンレッド). Usakottsu is available from entertainmentearth.com and sports interchangeable parts including demon claws. Here are the opening titles from Tentai Senshi Sunred although sadly our cyborg bunny friend isn’t in them: Read more…
On this day in 1966 one of the first full length feature anime films made it to the United States: That was none other than Garibā no Uchū Ryokō (ガリバーの宇宙旅行) which was translated to Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon. The film was produced by Toei in 1965 and directed by the team of Masao Kuroda and Sanae Yamamoto, but what might make it interesting to current anime fans is that Hayao Miyazaki also worked on the film providing some uncredited writing and quite a bit of inbetween animation work. In the scene above we see young Ricky meeting Gulliver, and below is a scene featuring the Princess of the Star of Hope (who was voiced by Our Gang’s Darla Hood): Read more… 
