Posted by Guest Author on May 17, 2009 in Animation
Editor’s Note: In this column animation expert Joe Strike allows you to test your Pixar smarts:
Think you know your Pixar? Take my little quiz… You could probably get all the answers via 10 minutes on Wikipedia, but that would be cheating. (Not that I have a problem with cheating – it shows initiative.) And away we go…
1. Pixar’s very first computer-animated short was
a) The Adventures of André and Wally B
b) Fish Story
c) Ghost in the Machine
d) Tin ToyRead more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 17, 2009 in Animation
On the final episode of this season’s Family Guy they’re doing a cute tribute to infamous musical triumph sequence of the 1984 film Revenge of the Nerds. The term “nerd” itself became re-popularized in the 70s due to Happy Days where Fonzie would always refer to Richie Cunningham and his friends as nerds. And of course in the 70s everybody wanted to be Foznie, but by the 80s the baby boomers went in a more yuppie direction and started to focus on wealth — so he financial success of the computer industry (due to folks like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates) started to make it socially acceptable to be a nerd again. Although acceptable still wasn’t cool, that would have to wait until the 90s when publications like Wired made nerds look like rock stars on their covers. Read more…
If you’re an anime fanboy (or fangurl) who loves spaceship battles it looks like Infinite Space from Sega for the Nintendo DS will be a role playing game well worth checking out. These just released promotional films from Sega look amazing given the limits of the screen size on of the DS, the game itself allows you to build, control and outfit over 150 different spaceships and features over 200 anime styled characters to interact with during the course of your game. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 14, 2009 in Animation, Design
Saint Paul Police Detectives and Their Work was a public service color stop motion cartoon produced in 1940. The quality of the animation is itself quite crude and done on tabletop, although the design of each scene which represents a criminal activity is fascinating as each screen is well designed and uses everyday objects. The added touch of the art deco lettering gives you a Dick Tracy feeling offset by an almost surreal sounding soundtrack: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 11, 2009 in Animation
Disney just released their latest trailer for The Princess and the Frog and it doesn’t look too bad, although it’s a bit early to tell. But from what I see here Disney is going back a step in a good way and getting back to a 2D style and good old fashioned fairy tales which has always been their strong suite. In general I like the Mardi Gras twist on the tale, but the devil is in the details to see if they can make this work. Here’s an official description of the film: Read more…
Taking him into the maze! Of course being a mouse playing a maze game is second nature when you kit bash Mickey Mouse and Tron. This Tron Mickey Mouse Vinyl Collectible Doll is available for preorder at National Console Support, here’s their description: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 1, 2009 in Animation
Basquash! (バスカッシュ! ) is a sports/sci fi anime title of sorts — it’s not too often you see those two genres mixed up so you get characters playing basketball with their giant robots. Although I like what little I’ve seen of this show so far which was created by French animator Thomas Romain and Shoji Kawamori (who worked on one of my favorite anime films Crusher Joe): Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 29, 2009 in Animation, Tech
If you’re any sort of anime fanboy (or fangurl) you’re going to want to sign up for Nico Nico Douga which is almost like a Japanese version of YouTube (in fact the first version of Nico Nico Douga used YouTube as a source). However most fans get turned off as you need to register to see any videos and the entire interface is in Japanese (although there are Spanish and German interfaces available if you know those languages). The other nice thing about the site is that it encourages users to post high quality video.
To make it easy to get started I put together the first three steps to get you to he right spot. This is where you click on the homepage: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 28, 2009 in Animation
I was quite pleasantly surprised that the above robot design was created by Disney! Earlier this year Disney cracked the Japanese market with a show called Fireball which was designed to appeal to a Japanese audience (with some help from Toei who did all of the heavy lifting). The main character is a robot-girl named Hatsune Miki who also goes by “Drossel” is a mech-girl — shown above is a figurine based on her character (which can be pre-order from National Console Support). Sadly Fireball didn’t do too great because a second season isn’t in the works, but here’s a bit of video to give you a taste: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 21, 2009 in Animation
This promo for the upcoming The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-chan looks like it contains a few scenes that haven’t been seen before. Volume 1 goes on sale on Friday May 29th for 5040 yen. The first run will include a special soundtrack CD and other otaku goodies.
Posted by Guest Author on Apr 21, 2009 in Animation, Tech
Virtual idols have been around longer than you think — shown above is a magazine cover featuring Kyoko Date from 1996. In this article Nick Kent gives us his insights:
The interesting “real” Robo-Girl in the pop culture room is Hatsune Miku, who really is software:
She’s a second generation Windows voice synthesis software released in 2007 that anyone can buy at mainstream Japanese software retailer for around $150. With a slightly difficult user interface software one can program her to sing anything in a voice that’s now not far out of place on the pop charts. The Vocaloid technology was created by Yamaha and then licensed to developers, namely Crypton who developed the character and voice. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 18, 2009 in Animation
Once upon a time there were the Flintstones followed by the Jetsons, animated family sitcoms that adults could watch as well as the kids. Then a great dark age followed for many years until the Simpsons brought the genre back in 1989. Since then we’ve seen it all from South Park to Family Guy and frankly the concept is a bit tired at this point. But when you take that and add second rate jokes you get Sit Down, Shut Up. And just in case you think the first video clip that I found was lame, here’s additional proof that this is the must miss show of the season: Read more…
These two commercials for the Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek! attraction at Tokyo Disneyland are enjoyable on two levels: First it’s great to see these familiar Pixar characters speaking Japanese, it almost gives them an anime like quality. Next on the first ad above I love the intercuts of the typical Japanese family mirroring the actions of the animated characters. In fact the high quality of the Japanese voice actors almost makes me want to re-watch the film in Japanese with English subtitles just to see what they did. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 14, 2009 in Animation
In this ReelzChannel interview the stars of the new Dragonball film reveal that not only have they been signed up for a sequel — but that there may be two in the works! By the way I’ve never seen actors work so hard in an interview to unsell me on the film, you get the feeling right away that they put no energy into learning their kung fu moves (to be fair showing the strings doesn’t help). And no where in the interview do they even fake having seen the anime series and loving it. But you be the judge! Does this shot look like “the actress” engaging in intense combat or casual jazzercise: Read more…
Being an animation fan from time-to-time I’ll see an ad for a “serigraph cel” from a favorite animated film or TV show. As most fans of animation know old school cartoons were made with hand painted animation cels — which is a piece of acetate inked on one side and with the color painted on the opposite side. These animation cels are always punched so they can be registered, and it takes a mind numbing number of these to make an animated film which is shot at 24 frames per second (although most animation is done by limiting this 12 cels per second or less which is known as “shooting in twos”). Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 8, 2009 in Animation
The Girl That Leapt Through Time really put director Mamoru Hosoda on the map for many Americans — his next film will be Summer Wars which is a light hearted action-adventure film about a modern day Japanese family.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 6, 2009 in Animation
This fan made video is brilliant — someone edited together every single scene from Star Blazers (Space Cruiser Yamato) which features Leader Desslok firing the famed but ever so flawed Desslok Gun which is a cannon mounted on his flagship. Needless to say if he ever destroyed the Yamato with his gun the series would have been slightly on the short side. One things that’s interesting for me to note is that I like the American voice actor (Eddie Allen) for Desslok much better than the Japanese actor. By giving him a Boris Karloff he seemed much more original, interesting and somewhat twisted: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 2, 2009 in Animation
This is a trailer for the upcoming anime series Shangri La which is based Eiichi Ikegami’s novel. Here’s a crude translation of the description for the show: “Due to global warming Tokyo has been transformed into a tropical city, to fight these effects the center of the city is being transformed into a forest — a utopia (Shangri-La) where global warming does not exists. In the center of Tokyo the privileged citizens live in an Atlas-like tower city while ordinary people are intimidated and lead a life of squalor. Houziyou Kuniko is an 18-year-old heroine with her massive boomerang made of carbon fiber leads a fight against government forces.” Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 30, 2009 in Animation
Sadly not many animation fans know who he was, but today is the the 96th birthday of legendary Disney animator Marc Davis who was born on this day in 1913 (and passed away in 2000). Disney had a core of talented animators who were known as “Disney’s Nine Old Men” and Davis was a member of that dream team. His did character design work and animation on Thumper from Bambi (1942), Tinker Bell in Peter Pan (1953) and my favorite Cruella De Vil of 101 Dalmatians (1961). He was also involved in creating many characters for Disneyland rides including working on the costume design for the Pirates of the Caribbean. Here’s an amazing video profile of Marc from the Disney Family Album which will inspire any fanboy: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 28, 2009 in Animation
Not to date myself, but I grew up watching Lupin III episodes on VHS from Japan — my all time favorite episodes of the show were the ones directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki as we all known known is an animation genius, but when you put that together with Lupin there was a real sort of magic. Lupin III started life as a manga and the first episodes date back to the 60s, but when Miyazaki got his hands on the show it went from being a manga adaption to a place in television history. Read more…
This sneak preview of the upcoming Family Guy episode which features the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation looks pretty good. The episode airs Sunday night on Fox…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 27, 2009 in Animation
How can’t you be gonzo for the Great Gonzo? Shown above is a new Great Gonzo puppet replica based on the glory days of the Muppet Show. What I love about this Jim Henson creation is that Gonzo is an ugly creature, but yet it hard not to love him. He’s very proud just to be himself — and what’s interesting is that unlike the Muppets he’s not based on any known animal, so he’s a true freak. The other endearing quality about Gonzo is that he represents the eternal optimist in all of us: Read more…
Once upon a time there were the Flintstones followed by the Jetsons, animated family sitcoms that adults could watch as well as the kids. Then a great dark age followed for many years until the Simpsons brought the genre back in 1989. Since then we’ve seen it all from South Park to Family Guy and frankly the concept is a bit tired at this point. But when you take that and add second rate jokes you get 
