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.
What makes One Piece (ワンピース) so appealing is that the characters aren’t stiff but cartoony and fun. This new set of One Piece Portrait of Pirates Excellent Model Mild Straw Theater Figures picks up on this and pushes the character designs even further as collectable figures by making the head of each character just a bit bigger and cuter. This collection includes Monkey D. Luffy (shown above), Roronoah Zoro looking grumpy and a happy smiling Nami: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 29, 2009 in Animation
Shown above is a commercial for the upcoming anime series Sora no Otoshimono (そらのおとしもの) which translates to The Heaven’s Lost Property in English. The series which starts on October 4th is based upon a manga by Suu Minazuki and combines romantic comedy plot elements with fantasy. Here’s an official trailer from July Read more…
Posted by Christian Liendo on Sep 28, 2009 in Fandom
Yes cosplay often offers more cheese than cheesecake, but the art of looking sexy while being dressed up as a cartoon character is a challenge not to be underestimated. And in our case that craft is not unappreciated; here are our picks (which are by no means scientific) for the sexiest cosplayers that we crossed paths with at the New York Anime Festival 2009: Read more…
Posted by Christian Liendo on Sep 28, 2009 in Fandom
Cute and anime go together like peanut butter and jelly, and cosplay is no exception! Here are the cutest cosplayers that we found at the New York Anime Festival 2009: Read more…
Posted by Christian Liendo on Sep 28, 2009 in Fandom
Oh sure anyone otaku can dress up as a character from Sailor Moon, but it takes that extra bit of creativity and hard work to come up with a costume for Sailor Moon Zombies! And thus we salute the coolest craziest cosplay that we spotted at the New York Anime Festival this year: Read more…
Posted by Christian Liendo on Sep 28, 2009 in Fandom
Editor’s Note: My deepest thanks to Christian Liendo to taking some amazing photographs of New York Anime Festival.
Shown above is illustrator Eric Maruscak working on an amazing Soul Eater themed chalk drawing. What follows is a photo essay of what it was like to walk around the convention floor which was packed: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 25, 2009 in Animation, Fandom
I came across this very odd photo essay from a Japanese blog that shows some poor store manager in the Akihabara district of Tokyo who is forced to wear a suit and a Keroro mask in order to sell snacks based on the anime series that features frog stories aimed at fanboys: Read more…
The Toyota Automobile Museum (located in Nagakute Town, Aichi Prefecture, Japan) will be running a special exhibit on “The Car and Comics” from October 10th until March 7th, 2010. The exhibit will feature many autos from various popular manga titles and anime series like Initial D, Detective Conan, Speed Racer and my favorite the Lupin III film Castle of Cagliostro. Here’s a guide to the exhibit from the official museum website: Read more…
The main selling point of the Coffee Prides Motion is that unlike a Japanese maid café not only can you read a manga while drinking your coffee but that you can actually draw a manga too. This first café in the cyber city district of Zhongguancun (which is in Beijing, China) is that there are classes on how to draw cartoons. The building which houses the café also sells all sorts of anime goodies as well: Read more…
K-On! (けいおん!) candy is hitting the store shelves in Japan for sweet toothed otaku. The candy inside of the cool guitar packaging are chocolate and strawberry marshmallow treats (which are not in the shape of a guitar). Although some of the boxes include a Yui Hirasawa t-shirt treat at random. Read more…
A line of Lucky Star toys with a Macross theme (that’s Robotech for you American fanboys) is due to hit stores in Akihabara on September 26th. This photo series shows a preview of these goodies which are put out by Banpresto and will be awarded on some sort of lottery system: Read more…
Summer is just about over but for a hardcore fanboy it’s never too late for anime themed flip-flops! These new flip-flops feature the characters from K-On! (けいおん!) and man are they too cute: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 1, 2009 in Animation
The latest Space Cruiser yamato film is set to come out on December 12th this year and a new trailer has been posted to the official website yamato2009.jp. Looking at the trailer above I’m happy to see less of an obvious computer graphics look to the film, but on the other hand the plot looks exactly like something that we’ve seen before. And that’s an amazingly sad statement for me to make given that I can’t even speak a word of Japanese! Read more…
Despite having no mouth Hello Kitty has taken a huge bite out of America, yet most mundanes have no clue who Doraemon is! Example: When I came across this cute Doraemon flash light it was sadly listed as a “Space Kitty Rechargeable Flash Light”. Now looking at this site it’s clear to me that I’ve committed the crime of just shining the light on all things Sanrio — so here’s a quick intro to Doraemon, the other Japanese kitty you should know:Read more…
Shown above is the GeGe no Kitaro Original Version posable figure which goes on sale in October. It’s amazing for me to think that the character of GeGeGe no Kitaro has been around since 1959 yet he’s never become well known in the United States. Kitaro is a demon spirit who was born in a cemetery; his trademark look is that he’s missing one eye which he cover up with his hair. Since his manga introduction he’s gone on to star in about six anime series, a PlayStation game and two live action films. Here are the opening titles from his 1968 anime series which hold up rather well: Read more…
This is a promotional video for the anime themed Nintendo DS game Spice and Wolf: The Wind that Spans the Sea which comes out on September 17th. This is the second title in the series, Spice and Wolf: Holo’s and My One Year came out earlier this summer. Here are some screen shots from the up and coming title: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 27, 2009 in Animation
This is the third trailer for AstroBoy, yeah there’s a quick shot of Tezuka (at the 1:18 mark) if you don’t blink or get distracted by the bad voice acting. But what pains me is the poor animation I’m seeing here. The danger of doing 3D animation is that you put yourself up against Pixar unless you are doing something very different, and for something that’s very different (it is suppose to anime, no?) this looks like a 2nd rate Ice Age straight-to-video project. Of course the real problem from what little I’m seeing here looks like the script, if you can’t get that all the money you throw at the screen won’t improve anything. Read more…
This is Noto Arisa (能登有沙) who is nicknamed Nocchi, this video is a regular feature on the DogaDoga7 Anime NewType Channel. I’m somewhat addicted to these videos on YouTube because Nocchi is always hanging out at anime cons and sneaking around animation studios. In the video above she’s announcing her 2nd personal manga, talking about some DVD and mentioning that she will debut as a voice actor in an animated drama titled Deba no Hime Goto. Below is the video of her snooping around Gonzo, the studio responsible for the Strike Witches: Read more…
I recently came across these two Kenner toy commercials from 1986 for M.A.S.K. (which stands for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand and shouldn’t be confused with the 1995 animated series based on the the Jim Carey film The Mask) and was surprised to discover that this classic 80s kids series was in fact anime! The series was produced by DIC, but the actual animation was produced by three Japanese studios: KK C&D Asia, Studio Juno, Studio World and Ashi Production. Of course they weren’t alone back then, many anime studios did work for American series — the best example would be ThunderCats from that era. Read more…
You can relive your memories of the early days of anime with this Mobile Suit Gundam USB Memory device. It will hold up to 4 gigs, which might just hold a few digital backups of your old VHS tapes or photos of your giant robot collection: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 7, 2009 in Animation
We already know that Ponyo is going to be a great film — but the real question is if Disney would mess up the voice acting? I always hate when Hollywood studios favor screen actors over good old fashioned voice actors, but I’ve got to say that it sounds like they’ve pulled it off looking at this second trailer! The film opens on August 14th so get ready to reserve your tickets…
