Recently I was wandering through a Korean food mart and I came across this very cute package design for Japanese animal crackers: Aside from the captivating colorful characters the first thing that blew me away was that the crackers are actually teaching kids to understand English, not Japanese! I started to suspect that this was something just done for the American market, but the package actually comes from Japan (produced by Ginbis). The back of the box even had a cute mini-dictionary of animal names (my favorite touch are the cartoons of each creature next to the name): 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…
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:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 19, 2009 in Animation
Clockwork is a short animated film that stars a cute robot girl named Hina. Being a caffeine addict the idea of robot making a morning brew caught my attention right away, but I have to say that the design of the robot is great and the animator did a great job of picking a refreshing soundtrack for this sweet little short. Here are some wonderful photos of Hina: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 19, 2009 in Japanese TV, Tech
I don’t know the exact date of this advert but looking at a primitive cell phone my guess is that it’s from the late 80s. The spot is for KDDI who entered the cel phone business in in 1987 and are still going strong today. The music in the advert is by Yuming (Yumi Matsutoya) who hit her career high point from the late 80s until the early 90s which is why her music seems to dominate the spot.
If you take the J train over the Williamsburg Bridge, get off at Kosciusko Street and walk a few blocks west, you’ll come to a storefront that looks like it’s home to a going out of business sale, with benches and various other effluvia out on the sidewalk. Inside is a bar and club called Goodbye Blue Monday that’s most definitely in business: the place is decorated not unlike Pee-wee’s playhouse or the home of some mad collector of antique TV sets, mountains of action figures and bizarro furniture (the rocking chair made out of two motorcycle gas tanks was pretty impressive). Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 18, 2009 in Videogames
This is the trailer for Edge of Twilight and while I can’t speak to the game play, the steampunk styled art direction in this Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 title looks nothing short of absolutely amazing. Even the voice acting and sound design on this trailer do a nice job of complimenting the visuals. In fact I hate to say it, but when you look at game trailer like this is makes you sad that nothing this original or interesting is being made in Hollywood these days: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 17, 2009 in Animation
Why bother to put Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs into theaters when it can go straight to cable? The first film was average but had some decent moments, but this latest one looks like it has freezer burn. There seems to be some sort of Land of the Lost plot going on in this “film” — and I bet that they scripted that before they knew the rebooted Land of the Lost would bomb. You know it’s been about fourteen years since Pixar released Toy Story and yet the other studios still seem to be playing catch up…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 16, 2009 in Comic Books
I love Skottie Young’s work, but I’ve been wondering just when Marvel would allow him to take a pass at one of their more well known characters and it looks like for Wolverine First Class #19 they’ve let him run with the ball. The first thing I love about this cover is that it has a sense of humor, too often Marvel covers (or DC) take themselves too seriously. Yet you get right away who Wolverine is despite Young’s cartoony approach. In addition to the usual great draftsmanship and page layout the coloring here is A+: The added zip-a-tone as a texture is nice homage to comics books of the past: Read more…
Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike (テイルズ オブ ヴェスペリア) is interesting is that it’s a prequel to the videogame Tales of Vesperia, but the twist is that instead of being a game it’s going to be an animated feature film. The film is due out in October this year and is being produced by Production I.G. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 15, 2009 in Pulp Fiction
Reverend W. Awdry
Wilbert Vere Awdry was born on this day in 1911, his fulltime gig for many years was serving as a clergyman (he was known as the Reverend W. Awdry after all). But luckily for us in 1943 when his son Christopher was suffering from the measles he would make up stories about anthropomorphic trains to distract him from his malady. By 1945 these stories would be turned into his first book The Three Railway Engines which was the beginning of 26 books (the last published in 1972) which were known as the The Railway Series. But it wasn’t until the second book in the series that the title Thomas the Tank Engine would be used: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 15, 2009 in Animation
Up until this point I’ve guessed that everybody has seen photos of the full scale Gundam model in Japan which was created for the 30th anniversary of the show. But what I don’t think many folks have seen is a video of this amazing wonder, which gives you a much better feeling for the impressive scale of this wonder. Read more…
Nothing says 80s more than oversized hip hop jewelry — of course if you want to take it to the next step having your bling as a homage to Reagan era videogames will give you that nice extra touch of bling! And that’s where Blingvaders comes in: They’re oversized jewelry based based on the sprites from Space Invaders: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 14, 2009 in Japanese TV
AKBINGO! a variety show which features the J-Pop group AKB48 which has so many members that they actually divide them up into different teams. In this episode the competing diva troupes has a show down by jumping rope! The fate of the young lady who is hot by the rope? Well she’s forced to dress up in nerdy eye glasses and must face the taunts of her fellow team members: Read more…
I guess this Summer we’ll get to see if a science fiction romance film can have some luck at the box office! We reviewed the novel for The Time Traveler’s Wife just a short time ago. Here’s the official description of the film which stars Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 13, 2009 in Japanese TV
It was only a matter of time until virral video marketing found a way to Japan — in this case this ad campaign is for Fit’s Gum which is manufactured by Lotte. I have to say that the dance music is rather catchy and i like the added touch of the secondary dancers: The first who is a mannequin and the second girl in the dog outfit. By the way you’ll notice the ever so cute Akita Inu doggie in the lower right corner of one of the spots. Read more…
On this day in 1916 film and TV producer Irwin Allen was born in New York City — in his career of over thirty years he created a slew of amazing show like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. In the 70s he turned his talents to disaster film, producing such classics as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 11, 2009 in Videogames
I’ve been following the fame of Vocaloid software mascot Miku Hatsune via the dozens of fan videos from Japan for some time now, so it’s cool to see that Sega will be featuring her in an upcoming Sony PSP game. What’s great about the trailer above is that it almost reminds one of a classic old school MGM musical from back in the day, it’s my bet that after this game comes out that it’s only a matter of time until she stars in her own anime series (although she’s made some cameos so far). Read more…
There was a time in my life where the one thing I looked ahead to was the next Martin Scorsese film, and then in 2002 that was all take away for me. I spent about a year waiting for Gangs of New York and when it came out I found myself totally deflated. Most of the film was great except for one minor thing, and that would be Leonardo DiCaprio who in retrospect single handedly ruined what should have been a great film. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 11, 2009 in Videogames
Being the pivotal historic event of the 20th Century up until now I thought World War II had it all — but obviously that isn’t good enough for today’s consumer market so Activision went ahead and improved it by adding zombies! I honestly couldn’t complain about Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 2 but my understanding of the franchise was that it prided itself on being historically accurate. I mean why not go all the way and add some werewolves and vampires too? Read more…
“The House slashed NASA’s manned space exploration $4 billion budget by 16 percent for 2010, as the White House will wait patiently to hear more of NASA’s plans once the shuttle fleet is retired. The $670 million cut will leave just $3.21 billion, which is less than what the U.S. space agency is working with already.” Read more…
If you came of age in the era of Pokémon prepare to feel like an old timer: Every generation has their entry level show which introduces them to the world of anime and the current hot show with the elementary school set is Bakugan Battle Brawlers (爆丸バトルブローラーズ ). With Bakugan there have already been over 50 episodes of the anime series aired in both Japan and North America with and additional 55 millions toys sold last year. So it’s no surprise that a videogame had to come out of this: Shown above is the trailer for the upcoming Bakugan game which is due out later this year for the Wii and DS. Read more…
