Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 26, 2009 in Animation, Fandom
I think this somewhat serious looking NHK news video is showing an cultural exchange program between the city of Osaka, Japan and Taipei, Taiwan. The cosplay maids are being deployed to the largest anime and manga event in Taiwan this week. Part of the exchange program is to help the local Japanese tourism trade which was down by 44% last year due to the avian flu and the recession. I think we should pray for the success of the cosplay maids in their diplomatic mission!
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 admit it, I’m a furry. Admit it? Right now I’m feeling rather proud of it. I don’t know what you think furries are, you’ve probably been brainwashed by the Vanity Fair–CSI Complex. What we are is a bunch of people with varied but overlapping interests in anthropomorphic animal characters. Like the Democratic Party, we’re a ‘big tent’ fandom – if you’re into cartoon, comic strip or comic book ‘funny animals,’ if you’ve built a ‘fursuit’ so you can physically become your animal alter-ego, if you draw your own pictures or write your own stories about ‘anthro’ characters (also known, just like us, as ‘furries’), you’re in. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 20, 2009 in Fandom, Star Trek
John Hodgman is always fun to watch, but in his speech for the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner he really excelled. Hodgman roasted the president for being a nerd in a long illustrated slideshow that included Superman and Spock references! My personal highlight comes at the 9:29 minute mark where President Obama flashes Hodgman with a Vulcan salute:
In a previous article where I explored Japanese pop singers who sound like robots I mentioned Aira Mitsuki having a strangely trashed sound which has little to do with poor quality Youtube sound:
For our first ever Fanboy.com giveaway the kind folks at Intel and Lenovo have given us a Star Trek laptop bag to bestow on a lucky fanboy or fangurl in our audience. So here’s what you have to do to have a chance to walk away with this geeky goodie bag:
On Twitter send a tweet to @michaelpinto (hint: it would be nice if you friended me on Twitter) with your first reaction to the Star Trek XI film. This can be a mini-review, snarky comment, cliched catch phrase or lament at the lack of Shatner. The deadline will be this Sunday, May 10th at midnight. Read more…
And why is today Star Wars day? Because some ingenious fanboys re-engineered the catch phrase “May the Force Be With You!” to “May the 4th Be With You!”. You can follow Star Wars day on Twitter…
I just read that Starlog magazine is ceasing print publication, and as a fanboy my heart is broken. Back in the day before the internet it was damn hard for a fanboy to find anything anywhere on science fiction films and TV shows — and riding a wave of Star Trek fandom Starlog magazine filled that gap. Read more…
This past evening Japanese cosplay singer Reni gave her second performance here in NYC and from all accounts the audience loved every minute of it! Shown above is some video footage of Reni performing the theme from Lucky Star. Mind you she did this as a request from the audience, but I’m especially impressed that she had her dance moves down so well for he song. To check out Reni’s English blog go here.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 13, 2009 in Animation, Fandom
If you’re an otaku near New York City you’ll want to reserve Sunday March 1st on your calendars: Japanese cosplay singer Reni will be performing her “Japanese Maid Show” which features anime and J-Pop songs done in an authentic Akihabara style of singing and dancing:
Top Tunes, 303-305 East 53rd Street at 2nd Avenue
March 1st, Sunday 5-6pm (Doors open at 4:30pm)
No cover charge/one drink minimumRead more…
Editor’s Note: In this column animation critic Joe Strike gives us an overview into his adventures running around the New York Comic Con this past weekend.
This damn thing keeps getting bigger and bigger, not that that should be a surprise to anyone. The only surprise is why did it take so long for NYC to get a world-class con of its own. When the New York Comic Con opened for business in ’06, four years ago, its exhibit area was a tiny (for the massive Javits Center) basement space that was overcrowded from almost the instant the con opened its doors. This year the exhibitors took over most of the high-ceilinged main floor, an enormous space that the equally pop-culturey Licensing Show used to fill before moving to Las Vegas. Read more…
Editor’s Note: This essay is the result of my walking about the New York Comic Book Convention this year and asking myself the question “What brings you here?”
While escaping the New York Comic Book Convention I came across a series of Watchmen posters in the street, saturated by the orgy of the show I naturally assumed that the posters were aimed at folks entering and exiting the mega gathering of geekdom. However several blocks I realized that I was only kidding myself as I came across the same set of posters again — what was once the realm of fanboys twenty years ago was the mainstream of Hollywood today. In this way Watchmen is no different than Oprah or any frat boy focused reality TV show on MTV that’s a hit. Read more…
This video is from a New York fashion show that showcases models wearing superhero chocolate outfits. The fashion show was part of the New York Chocolate Show last year (I knew I should have gone). I think the most delicious featured frock was Barbarella although the outfits for Wonder Woman and Iron Man were also tasty treats.
The joy of New York City is that for a fanboy there are all sorts of unofficial landmarks that become special to you over the years — and as this is a city of change the heartbreak of this is that you realize that nothing can last forever. And over the years I’ve watched some of my favorite landmarks vanish like CBGBs where I spent my New Year’s Eve in 2000. Well sadly it looks like Love Saves the Day will be joining the ranks of lost fanboy destinations as they will be closing their doors in mid-January. Read more…
The famous rocketship of Coney Island is looking for a new home as the long time amusement park Astroland will be forced to close down on January 31st. As a fanboy this breaks my heart as the spacecraft captures the excitement held by America for the high frontier at the dawn of the space race in the early 60s. To me this rocket belongs in the Smithsonian or the Seattle Science Fiction Museum, although I’d love to see it stay here in old New York: Read more…
Anime and manga expert Gia Manry is now the managing editor or Anime Vice a well done website which is worth adding to your RSS reader. Vice is a video rich community focused site which has quite a few user friendly features — and is already stocked with a wealth of cool content. I really loved their up and coming release section and of course their cosplay photo collection has to be seen. The devil is in the details and one can tell that Gia sweated those details to put together one of the better fan oriented encyclopedias that I’ve seen in a long time (and as a blogger it’s nice to have other places to link to rather than ANN or wikipedia).
It’s with a heavy heart that I learned of the passing of Forrest J Ackerman because so much of what we take for granted today as fanboys we owe to the man and his generation. Forrest was among the members of First Fandom: The first generation of fanboys who during the 30s invented science fiction conventions, fan clubs, fanzines and cosplay. And Mr. Ackerman did all of that by playing a leading role in establishing the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society in 1934, attending the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939 and published on the first fanzines Futuria Fantasia in 1939. Here’s an interview with him talking about the early days of science fiction fandom from 1996: Read more…
It’s amazing what a bunch of Nintendo fanboys can do if they put their mind to it! I present to you the Pushpin Mario Shrine:
“This is the third revision of this project. From the first pin to the last took about two and a half semesters, though the final version was completed entirely within the first two months of Fall 2008. There are over 17,000 pins on the board, and the work was done entirely by students, mainly members of the CIS Student Association. The board is currently in the Student Computing Center at the University of the Fraser Valley.” Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 18, 2008 in Fandom, Lost
There are two things we love at fanboy.com: The TV show Lost and people who write books about fandom! So we’re very honored to have an interview with Amy “hijinx” Johnston the co-author (with Jon “DocArtz” Lachonis) of Lost Ate My Life: The Inside Story of a Fandom Like No Other which is now out in stores. Amy is also currently hard at work on her next book which will examine the evolution and psychology of online fandoms for television shows, and it will be out sometime in Spring 2010:
Q. What was it about Lost that made you a fan of the show in the first place? And what makes it extra special to you?
I knew the show was being made by JJ Abrams and I was a HUGE fan of Alias. I knew he was an amazing storyteller who typically thought “outside the box” – breaking the rules of conventional television storytelling – which has always appealed to me. He has also been very character-driven with his shows – the characters are not just puppets playing a part. They live, they breathe, they make you FEEL something. LOST from the beginning has been that way – stories that break convention, characters that are unforgettable. Plus the show has always been this package deal – it’s the writing and it’s the acting, but it’s also the directing and the cinematography and the SFX and the score. Watching LOST is an all-encompassing experience. Read more…
How come there’s a William Shatner cameo in Fanboys but not in the upcoming Star Trek XI flick? And speaking of Shat did you know that he once saw a UFO (not!): Read more…
