Our Favorite Toys from 2009

Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 1, 2010 in Hobbies and Collections

O-No! Sushi

Fanboys love their toys! And 2009 has been a great year for collectors of both high and low art, so we’ve put together our favorites from this year with an eye on unique twists on old themes. For example shown above O-No! Sushi by Andrew Bell is an urban toy reaction from a vegetarian to sushi. Read more…

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The Toro Station Looks at the Upcoming Lucky Star Game

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 28, 2009 in Animation, Videogames

This latest episode of Weekly Toro Station (週刊トロ・ステーション) takes a look at the Lucky Star Net Idol Meister game that’s coming out in January. I love how both cats are dressed as characters from the series in their sailor girl outfits.

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The Lucky Star Concert I Sadly Missed!

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 14, 2009 in Animation

This commercial is from a month ago and who knows when this concert took place — but according to this advert the DVD for Lucky☆Star in it for you from the Budokan will be released on December 25th and will be available through kyotoanimation.shop-pro.jp. The video is 118 minutes long and features Dolby stereo so you can sing along with the voice actors, although the light sticks that the audience members have are not included.

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Lucky Star Net Idol Maestro

Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 12, 2009 in Animation, Videogames

This is latest video promo for the Lucky Star Net Idol Meister game for the PSP. This music focused game will be released on December 23rd, with a follow up additional song in January 2010. My personal preference would be to see a second OVA coming out, but in my book there’s no such thing as a disappointing Lucky Star release of any kind. Here is pervious promo which gives you an idea of the game play of this title: Read more…

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Macross Themed Lucky Star Mementos Hit Akihabara

Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 21, 2009 in Animation, Hobbies and Collections

Macross Themed Lucky Star Toys

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…

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A Proper Otaku Porsche

Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 6, 2009 in Animation, Hobbies and Collections

Lucky Star Car

Oh sure any fanboy can put an anime emblem on their car — but it takes a very special otaku to tattoo their beloved Porsche with the characters from Lucky Star and Hatsune Miku! Read more…

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This Lucky Star Drive Makes Me Purr!

Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 28, 2009 in Animation, Hobbies and Collections

Lucky Star Nyamo USB Drive

As a Lucky Star fanboy I always feel left out! Sure there are like a billion action figures associated with the show, but I’ve always found a lack of USB merchandise to satisfy my geeky side. Well it seems someone in Japan answered my prayers by designing this Lucky Star Nyamo USB Drive. The drive features the abstract cat character Nyamo, who is said to be a self-portrait of manga artist Kagami Yoshimizu (the man created Lucky Star to begin with). Read more…

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Suzumiya Haruhi Animated with Lucky Star Characters

Posted by Michael Pinto on May 21, 2009 in Animation

This amazing fan made video from Japan recreates the opening titles to The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi using the cast of Lucky Star. I’m quite blown away by the quality of this!

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Cosplay Singer Reni Conquers NYC with Her Lucky Star Rendition

Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 6, 2009 in Fandom

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.

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I Got to Get a Konata Statuette!

Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 10, 2009 in Animation, Hobbies and Collections

Konata statueThe above advert is for the upcoming April issue of Comptiq magazine. The magazine got started in the 80s as a computer magazine, but over time shifted to computers and in 2003 became mixed media. Over the years Comptiq has featured a quite a few serialized manga from Gunbuster to my favorite Lucky Star. Of course what caught my eye in this ad is the very prominently statuette of Konata which looks very cool.

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Lucky Star OVA: Third Trailer

Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 29, 2008 in Animation

This is the latest trailer for the Lucky Star OVA release — this latest promo stars a live action actor playing the owner of the comic book shop. While wandering around on Friday at the New York Anime Festival I asked the marketing director of Bandai here in the States if they we’re planning on bringing over the OVA and reading in between the lines my sense is that they’re waiting to see how the current box set for the first series does on the market.

To me this sort of represents a major issue that the “Anime Industry” in the US faces — unless you can sell at least 5,000 copies of a DVD it just isn’t worth the effort to even think about a show. And even then it can take well over a year from when a show comes out until it can be packaged for America, and by that time tastes may have already changed. The flip side is also that the Japanese may want a premium for their show, which while it may be a hit in Japan could be a risk for an American distributer. And inside of this gap the niche audience for a show will either “share it” via P2P or a brave few will order a DVD from amazon.jp.

I do see some hope emerging as slowly companies seem to be waking up: At NYAF Funimation was pushing people to watch their channel on YouTube or order their channel on Verizon FIOS. I was also hearing about a Hulu channel for Anime and it even seems that Anime News Network is getting into the act by streaming some show in a “low quality resolution”. But I think the real solution will be for the Japanese companies to cut the middle man out and put their stuff on YouTube, have fans subtitle it at low cost and make their money by having Google sell the advertising. This is just a theory of course but I have noticed that even with this economic meltdown that Google’s stock price has yet to go below $400 a share.

The other nice thing about the Google/YouTube model is that it will allow indie film/video folks to produce a show that can hit a global market: So you might see a flood of new work coming from Bollywood and Hong Kong aimed at a larger audience.

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Lucky Star: Jet Stream Attack!

Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 28, 2008 in Animation

Super Mega Special Mecha Awesome Chocolate-Dipped Shining Flaming Glowing Incredible Serve! Shown above is a clip from the new Lucky Star OVA which was just released in Japan. While on the surface the show is a comedy, what I’ve always admired about the series is that doesn’t mean that the characters are flat like a typical sitcom.

This scene is a good example: There’s a volleyball showdown that makes many references to various pop culture references, but under that there is the touch of getting inside the mind of Tsukasa Hiiragi who is the younger sister of Kagami. After getting knocked down Tsukasa grows up a little bit and dusts herself off to try and beat her older sister — in Hollywood this would be the turning point and the loser would become the winner. However the writers still make her lose, but now she can dream of the future day of not being in her sister’s shadow.

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Preview of the Lucky Star OVA

Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 27, 2008 in Animation

I’m not 100% sure what the cute pup has to to do with Lucky Star, but the above video is a commercial for the Lucky Star OVA which will come out in Japan on September 26th:

Lucky Star OVA’s TV Commercial Streamed

“The official Japanese website of the Lucky Star anime franchise is streaming a television commercial for the Lucky Star OVA, a new adaptation of Kagami Yoshimizu’s four-panel gag manga about four girls’ everyday life. The site posted the designs of the characters Konata, Kagami, Tsukasa, and Nanako in fantasy adventure outfits. It also posted the designs of Konata cosplaying as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya’s Yuki in a witch’s hat and Kagami as the virtual idol Miku Hatsune, as depicted on the anime’s jacket cover. ”

Lucky Star OVA

Read more…

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