At long last there’s an answer to the classic problem is that you’re an aspiring j-pop guitar player but you don’t want to disturb your neighbors. VOX is introducing a line of K-on! themed headphone guitar amplifiers so you can practice your chords in private. These goodies will be hitting music stores in japan in late April and come in three editions — one for Yui Hirasawa, another for Azuka Nakano and a bass guitar one for Mio Akiyama. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 11, 2010 in Television
I was sad to learn that Dixie Carter has just passed away — while she did have a role in Desperate Housewives her legacy will be the Designing Women sitcom which ran from 1986 until 1993. If you look at the above clip you’ll see a wonderful fearsomeness in Dixie which almost reminds me of female version of Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction. The writing is pure camp but she owns every damn word being spoken and clearly means it. I always admired how she managed to balance the comedy in her role with the finer points of drama. And speaking of beauty queens it should be noted that in 1959 she competed in the Miss Tennessee pageant, where she placed first runner-up. Read more…
In 1995 the Gamera franchise was robooted with the film Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. Our titanic turtle friend made his first appearance in November of 1965 in the film Daikaijū Gamera in which he awakes due to an atomic bomb explosion during a cold war tango between the Americans and Soviets. So of course our turtle friend the decided to go on a rampage of Tokyo — which has endeared him to generations of Japanese ever since! Shown above is the Tokusatsu Revoltech 006 Gamera and below is the Tokusatsu Revoltech 007 Gyaos who like to fight each other and wreck havoc in densely populated urban locals. Read more…
Astronaut Soichi Noguchi (seen on the left) grew up watching Space Battleship Yamato which is well known to American fans as Star Blazers. And here he is on International Space Station making us Earth bound retro anime fans very proud. Here’s the official caption for the photo from NASA which sadly omits the fanboy reference: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 10, 2010 in Animation
Rail thin blond ladies and killer mecha, yup we got that! This beautiful fan made video from Japan combines Leiji Matsumoto animation with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. My thanks to Evan Minto of Ani-Gamers for finding this gem!
Apple is turning the screws tighter on Adobe to kill Flash — with their latest update to the iPhone OS they’ve now gone as far as to put in their agreement with developers that they can’t use Flash. This got me thinking about the history of Apple: As old time fanboys remember when Steve Jobs returned to the company it wasn’t a happy time. We were all glad to have him back, but upon arrival he killed the Newton and put HyperCard out to pasture. In fact one of the reasons I first dismissed the iPod was that as an old Apple fanboy it was never going to be as cool as the Newton. Little did I know that it would evolve into the iPhone. Read more…
These fine Kirk and Spock Nutcrackers are perfect for opening the L’maki nut which when pureed makes a wonderful blue cream cake frosting. Ah but that recipe is from Voyager, getting back to Kirk and Spock the pair of nut cracking officers will set you back about $20 for the four inch tall versions — or if you are more ambitious there is an eleven inch tall version of Spock and Kirk which go for about $33 each.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 9, 2010 in Japanese TV
This Godzilla themed canned coffee advert perfectly captures my inner crankiness when I can’t get my daily caffeine fix. The commercial is for Kirin Black Deep Body Fire which features a “51% blend of carefully selected premium bean” from Guatemala. Although the two main selling points are that this coffee is both sugar free (and thus low calorie) and apparently tastes quite bitter. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 8, 2010 in Japanese TV
This commercial is for Daiwa House, the largest homebuilder in Japan. Apparently D-room is a reference to the dining room in a Japanese house. In fact when you’re looking at real estate ads in Japan they’ll often use letters to represent the number of rooms in a house. So an LDK would be a house with living room, dining room and kitchen. And from what I can see D-room is an online service for real estate. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 7, 2010 in Japanese TV
These two adverts for Mizkan are quite creepy yet somehow pleasing with their offbeat humor. Both commercials seem to be for onigiri which are Japanese rice balls which can come in both triangle and round shapes. And although the spot doesn’t show it onigiri are quite often wrapped in seaweed. I really got a kick out of the second commercial which shows the creative ways to incorporate onigiri into a creative bento box for lunch. Read more…
