Posted by Tim Sheehy on May 25, 2010 in Videogames
Konami’s Love Plus, the ever-so-popular dating sim, has spawned even more merchandise for those of us lonely enough to want — this time, in the form of a cushion. I know what you’re probably thinking, “it’s a body pillow, isn’t it?” Well, at first glance, it sure looked that way, but after reading the description, stick cushion actually seems more apt. The cushion is about 5 ½ inches in width by 1.3 feet in length. That’s big enough for maybe your neck, or wrist at best, and while it may seem small, I’m sure that won’t stop certain people from getting creative. Perverse thoughts aside, the cushions are kind of cute. If you’re looking to pick one up, they retail for around $20. HLJ should have them in stock, though they’ll probably sell out fast. Read more…
Some of you may know Danny Choo, he’s a pretty popular guy among otakus and fanboys alike. As such, I tend to share many of the same passions, such as Japanese anime and figures. Recently he uploaded these amazing photos to his flickr account, showing off some fantastic anime papercraft. I especially loved the Asuka he posted, as it actually looks better than some of the low-end PVC statues I’ve seen floating around. Pretty crazy considering it’s just paper. Check out his flickr stream if you want to see some more. Read more…
I recently came a across a nice series of fan videos by GoldenJellyBean on YouTube which included a few well done tutorials on creating crochet anime and videogame characters. Here’s a nice one on creating a Totoro: Read more…
Posted by Christian Liendo on May 24, 2010 in Fandom
There’s nothing like cosplay to put a bit of spring into your Spring! This photo essay shows off the fashion in action at Sakura Matsuri 2010 which was held at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden at the beginning of May: Read more…
H.P. Lovecraft was great at spinning a good yarn and I think he would have been quite charmed by this little guy! This Holy Guacamole Cthulhu Baby is suitable as either a key chain or backback buddy. Designer UglyGerbil also makes a wide range of these guys available in almost every color of the Cthulhu rainbow. Read more…
The Law of Inverse Importance states thus: the more splashy Square Enix gets about a game announcement, the less exciting the actual game is.
Example: When a new Final Fantasy comes out, all its official site might have is a simple logo to start. But Square Enix’s latest game was announced via a teaser site with Yahoo!, promising a game that would “make history” in Japan and was left up for some time, encouraging visitors to Tweet about it and garnering attention. Viewers wondered: could it be a Dragon Quest MMO? A Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy crossover? What could this history-making game BE? Read more…
This young Padawan is too young to know the power of The Force, yet is not too tiny to amuse fanboy and fangurl parents with this Baby Yoda Hat! This charming baby cap was crafted by Demulcent Arts, who is a middle school art teacher that you wish you had a child. Read more…
When I first looked at this very silly low budget trailer for Alien vs. Ninja my first thought was “this isn’t a bad fan video, but they could have spent some more time on the alien!” Little did I realize that this is very much a real film directed by Seiji Chiba. My only major critique is that these are most damn lazy ninjas that I have seen in my entire life — they seem to have a bit too much spare time on their hands to be so caught off guard by a guy in a second rate giger rubber suit. Read more…
Posted by Gia Manry on May 22, 2010 in Comic Books
Recently comic creator Hope Larson, of the tween girl series Chiggers and the romantic Grey Horses, recently released the results of an informal study she conducted with 198 teenage girls and women, all comic readers. The results were interesting and, true to form, many pundits reporting on the finding missed the point entirely. Read more…
The sad fate of most red shirts is Star Trek is brutal, but poor Ensign Bernie here has it worse than most Enterprise away teams! Usually a security officer can count on getting killed in a clean manner like a motral but quick and painless phaser wound, but poor Bernie has been turned into a sad version of oysters on the half shell by some Etsy monster that I’m sure we’ll meet in the future. Credit for Ensign Bernie goes to Ory B. Read more…
Right on the heels of releasing the new DSi XL, Nintendo made a surprising move: they made the product almost immediately obsolete by announcing the tentatively-named Nintendo 3DS, a portable game console with 3D capabilities– glassesless, no less. The possibilities for such a device are endless, but of course it’s always easier to bring out a new game in an established franchise to launch a console…so here are ten games that absolutely belong on the Nintendo 3DS. Read more…
On Sunday the fun will end for Lost fans, although it’s still not too late to enjoy silly fan videos! I have to say that I’ve been very impressed with this show on a number of levels, but what I find interesting is that it shows that broadcast TV isn’t quite dead yet. I’m also love the fact that a show that isn’t a reality TV show could have made it so big.
Even though he’s reffered to a walking rug there’s always been something so charming about Chewie: I think it’s because Wookies remind us a bit of doggies (it’s the nose I tell you!). So you’d think that by making him a cyclops that Chewbacca wouldn’t have any appeal — yet this adorable Chewbacca the Timid Monster proves otherwise. Standing at only 1.5” tall this little guy designed by TrishCzech won me over. Read more…
Posted by Christian Liendo on May 20, 2010 in Fandom
Cosplay Party 2.0 was a special event held at the Japan Society in New York City last Saturday, May 15th, The event included a screening of Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone. Here are some photographic highlights of the gala: Read more…
This is yet another example of why I love The Empire Strikes Back so much. I’d point out how Shakespearean the film was — being a tragedy and all — but plot aside, it’s inspired so many awesome products. Take this amazing backpack for example. Sure it was sad to see C-3PO strapped to Chewbacca’s back, but whoever thought to turn him into a portable storage device was a genius. The backpack actually comes with light up eyes and the ability to reassemble the droid, should you feel the need. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on May 20, 2010 in Cinema, Fandom
I’m not one for flash mobs, but when it comes to paying cinematic homage to a classic like 1984’s Ghostbusters, then I think I can make an exception. The guys over at Improv Everywhere recently decided to cause a bit of a scene in the New York Public Library on 42nd street, near Bryant Park. As some of you may recall, the library itself was used during the opening sequence of the film. Dressed in bed sheets and off-color Ghostbuster uniforms, the actors managed to score plenty of laughs and a decent applause, though you can tell from the video that a few people weren’t too pleased. I, for one, thought it was pretty funny. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 19, 2010 in Fandom, Star Wars
This fan video stars Luke Starkiller in a faux fifties styled trailer for a 3D version of The Empire Strikes Back. Of course this is very fitting as Lucas owed a great deal of his inspiration to the chapter films of a previous era, although those films were from the 30s and 40s. I like the fact that the editor of this fan video made it a point to go the extra mile and use footage from films from that era instead of just using the Star Wars footage on black and white. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on May 19, 2010 in Animation, Tech
Why is it that Japan gets all the cool phones? I’m serious. Sure we all have our Blackberries and our iPhones, but none of those come with model Gundams, or high resolution cameras. Well, Softbank’s upcoming Gundam Cellphone 945SH G certainly does. In addition to being a Sharp 945SH with a built in OLED display, and 12.1 mega pixel anti-shake autofocus camera — yes, their phones have better cameras than ours — the limited edition phone will be packaged along with a model RX-78-2 Gundam and charger stand. Read more…
Get a load of these upcoming Mojibakeru kanji transformers from Bandai. Each one’s an animal such as a tiger, dragon or dog, that’s capable of transforming into its kanji, the Chinese and Japanese character for which it belongs. I’m not sure why I’ve always loved transformable toys so much, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to buy them all. I should probably note that these are just trading figures, so they’re not made of fancy PVC or anything and they’re certainly not an Autobot or anything, but for $1 how can you go wrong? I haven’t been able to locate a vendor for pre-orders, but you’ll probably be able to pick them up from AmiAmi. Read more…
This is teaser video for the Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing exhibition which will be staged at the Computer Museum in Mountain View, California in January, 2011. For me it’s a special treat to see the likes of Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt in the same video — but it shows you the geek love for those who came before. From what I can see the exhibition will offer a chance to see many gems in one location. Read more…
It’s probably not as warm as the insides of a Tauntaun, but now you can own your very own Wampa rug straight from the icy caverns of Hoth. Sure, it might be synthetic fur, and have claws of vinyl, but what would you expect for a fictional beast? Besides, it’s not like your friends have ever encountered one in person and lived to tell about it. The rugs will start to ship out this August, retailing for $99.99 each. I’m not really sure how fast they’ll sell, but if you want, StarWarsShop.com is currently taking pre-orders — now, if only they’d toss in Leia. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on May 18, 2010 in Videogames
Have you spent the last few years wondering what the big deal was about Portal, but didn’t want to spend your hard-earned cash? Perhaps you just own a Mac, and haven’t been able to join in on the fun. Well, for a limited time, none of that shouldn’t be an issue. In order to celebrate the recent release of Portal for the Mac, Valve has made both the PC and Mac versions of the game available as a free download via Steam. What’s the catch? Well, there is none really. You’ll need a free Steam account, and the offer only runs through May 24th, but that’s about it. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 17, 2010 in Animation
Above: Lady Gaga conquers Japan — love her or hate her, you can’t ignore somebody who has a hit.
I just read yet another blog entry on how illegal fan subtitled shows are killing anime, which I think misses the point. Anime is yet another branch of the entertainment business, and despite how much we fans pride ourselves on how different we are the cruel fact is that the only thing that really matters at the end of the day is that only the hits count. Now some economists will all harp about “the long tail” effect, but the harsh reality is that show business is a popularity contest (just like high school). And even in an industry that has been worse hit by piracy like the music industry you still have the likes of a Lady Gaga who is pulling in the moolah — and is thus a success. Read more…
