Puccho: A Catchy Cute Candy Commercial

I love the music for this cute advert for Puccho, also check out their website too (the silly Flash animations are worth checking out):

Space Settlement Art

Shown above is the grand prize winner from the NSS Space Settlement 2008 Art Contest. The winning illustration was created by Alexander Preuss, the project was created using over 6,000,000 polygons and 200 megs of textures and took over 60 hours to render. It makes me happy to see the National Space Society running this contest, I know that many of the illustrations that I saw in the 70s inspired me a great deal.

Star Wars Pepper Mill

I’m surprised there’s not a matching Star Wars salt shaker:

Star Wars Pepper Mill

“Two Star Wars pepper mills made of ABS plastic and measuring 11cm (4.33″) tall are on their way to the Japanese market on February 29, 2008. Both hold about 1 oz worth of peppercorns. To crush them, twist R2’s dome and flakes of pepper obediently drop from its bottom. Two variants are on offer – a blue and white R2-D2 and a black and gold R2-Q5.”

Found via Geek Alterts.

Spaceflight Makes Bacteria More Infectious

This article reminded me of the Andromeda Strain:

Spaceflight Can Change Bacteria Into More Infectious Pathogens

“Bacteria that became more dangerous in space may help scientists design better antibiotics on Earth, U.S. researchers said on Monday. They found that a type of Salmonella that causes food poisoning became more virulent after spending 12 days at near-zero gravity in the space shuttle, killing more mice than Earthbound bacteria and killing them more quickly.

Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, might help protect both astronauts and people infected on the ground, said Cheryl Nickerson of the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at Arizona State University.”

Grand Theft Lucky Star

If this game was for sale I’d buy it! From what I can see this is an actual game mod, although the person who posted it has no idea where to get it from. In addition to characters from Lucky Star you can also spot Pikachu and Doraemon.

Found via Japan Probe.

Darth Vader Blues

Careful Luke he’s embraced the commercial side of the music business…

Found via Dvorak.org.

Anime Pulse Interviews Madhouse Studios

The podcast crew of Anime Pulse has scored two amazing interviews with Hisahi Abe and Itagaki Shin of Madhouse Studios (they’ve worked on an amazing range of projects from Millennium Actress to Paprika). In the interviews, the Madhouse staffers discuss various projects that they have worked on as well as their latest one, the anime adaptation of Devil May Cry. You can check out the interviews here:

Itagaki Shin Interview

Abe Hisahi Intervew

I Workin Fas as I Can Captn

I found the Star Trek themed LOL Cat photo here at icanhascheezburger.com. It got me thinking how much the original Star Trek series has had an impact on popular culture. Well that and how much we’ll miss seeing James Montgomery Doohan making a cameo on some future Star Trek movie or series.

Yui Aragaki Attacks a Lemon

The Japanese commercial above is for Mitsuya Cider (which tastes like Sprite but is less suit) and stars none other than Yui Aragaki.

You can see another Aragaki commercial here…

Let the Death Note Backlash Begin…

It’s only been a day or two (although it might as well be 100 years on the net) since the announcement of Death Note coming to Adult Swim. So you’d think that every anime fanboy would be setting up the DVR, but not everyone is pleased with the news:

New Low for Adult Swim

“It looks like Adult Swim will be showing Death Note on October 20th. I thought Adult Swim was redeeming itself by showing Cowboy Bebop again but I guess not. Of course, Adult Swim has been going down the crap shoot for a few years now. Honestly, I only use Adult Swim at night to help me go to sleep. I’m so glad that I don’t get my anime from TV anymore.

Now, I’d like to point how I can see why Adult Swim picked this show. It’s due to the fact that for some odd reason Death Note is very popular and this would only bring more viewers to Adult Swim. But I really don’t see it as all the great. There are a ton of other series they could have chosen from but I guess they will continue to pick crappy series.”

…I have to admit that I’ve been following * cough * one or two shows on the net, but it is always nice to see stuff on my actual television. The fanboys of today are spoiled! Back when I first discovered anime we had to watch it on 12th generation VHS tapes and guess what was going on and then * maybe * if we were very lucky the darn show would come to America on TV years later but edited to death.

By the way the photo shown at the top is the Misa CraftLabel Statue from Death Note which is available here.

60’s & 70’s Asian Pop Record Covers

David Greenfield has an amzing collection of of rare 60’s and 70’s Asian pop singles. He mainly collect Singaporean titles, but also has records from Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Thailand. As a designer I find looking at this treasure trove quite an inspiration:

60’s & 70’s Asian Pop Record Covers

Shown above is a cover featuring Sakura with the songs “Like I Do” and “Sad Movie”.

Found via LinkFilter.net.

Ultimate Ultraman Toy Collection

Shown above are a small sample of Ultraman toys from the 1960s from the amazing website Ultraman Toy Collection. If you’re lucky enough to live in California you can see some of these toys at an upcoming exhibition at the Los Angles Toy, Doll & Amusements Museum.

Lucky Star: The Last Dance!

Shown above is an out take from the latest and last episode of the season of Lucly Star. While it’s a comedy show at heart, I rather enjoyed the sentimental touches of the last episode. I hope that they do a second season, and that the show comes over to the States.

Read more…

DoCoMo 2.0: Super Sentai vs. Godzilla

This romantic commercial for DoCoMo stars Aoi Yuu and her fanboy boyfriend who dreams of attacking Gozilla while dressed up as a Super Sentai character. And here’s a cute video on the making of the commercial:

Read more…

Encyclopedia Horrifica

Joshua Gee is a friend of a friend of mine, and he’s just come out with his new book Encyclopedia Horrifica: The Terrifying TRUTH! About Vampires, Ghosts, Monsters, and More. Joshua will be doing readings at the following locations:

Halloween Adventure
Thursday, October 4, 2007, 6 pm
808 Broadway @ 11th St. Greenwich Village, NYC

The Haunted History of Union County
Sunday, September 30, 2007, 2pm
The Crane-Phillips House
124 North Union Avenue, Cranford, New Jersey

Grand Theft Simpsons

Shown above is a level from the upcoming The Simpsons Game which is based on Grand Theft Auto. I love the fact that instead of just doing a lame port that EA is using the medium of video games to make fun of other video games.

Want to be an Astronaut?

This sort of job would be fanboy dream come true for me:

A chance to really shoot for the stars
NASA looking to hire 10 to 15 new astronauts

“NASA posted a hiring notice for new astronauts Tuesday, seeking for the first time in almost 30 years men and women to fly aboard spacecraft other than the shuttle. The pilots, scientists, engineers and educators that NASA recruits will train primarily for three- to six-month missions aboard the international space station. However, some could be among those who stroll on the surface of the moon as part of NASA’s plan to return human explorers to the lunar surface by 2020 aboard the shuttle fleet’s successor spacecraft.

“Yes, I think it’s quite likely,” said Ellen Ochoa, who supervises NASA’s astronaut corps as the director of flight crew operations at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The space agency’s help-wanted notice for 10 to 15 new space fliers was posted Tuesday on www.usajobs.com, the federal government’s employment Web site.”

The End

Check out this amazing set of classic film “the end” titles at Flickr.

Found via Neatorama and SwissMiss.

My Favorite Anime Pirate: Captain Harlock

To honor o’ Talk Like a Pirate Day I reckoned that I ortin’ ta write about me favorite anime shipmate, which be Space Sea dog Captain Harlock! Harlock (which be also known as Herlock) be th’ first anime series that I watched in Japanese wi’ subtitles in th’ late 70s. Prior t’ that me introduction t’ anime be through dubbed shows like Star Blazers like Speed Racer, but I be lucky as local UHF station called WNJU had a block o’ Japanese programmin’ ever’ weekend. E’en tho ‘t be science fiction, Harlock be a very odd mix o’ spacecraft an’ steampunk design. Needless t’ say I be hooked, in a pre-VCR era I made ‘t a point t’ catch ever’ episode, an’ ‘t be thanks in part t’ that space shipmate that I still love anime today.

Apollo Era Space Suit Replicas

So your a NASA fanboy and you have a spare $10,000 and you need the perfect Apollo era space suit replica, where do you go? Well the website you gotta check out is SpaceToys.com, not only do they have a full line of space suits, but they also sell full scale replicas of various spacecraft like the Apollo Lunar Module and the Mercury Capsule. So who buys this sort of thing? It’s mostly museums and science centers. Although if you’re a fanboy on a lower budget they have tons of other cool items like wall murals, autographed pictures, and a nice selection of model kits.

Found via LinkFilter.

Alex Ross Does Justice to DC

I was going through the current offerings by DC Comics, and it was one lame cover after another! Pretty much everything had that generic look to it until I stumbled on the above cover art for “Justice Society of America #11” by the talented illustrator Alex Ross. I admit that I’ve seen his work before, but i didn’t put a name with a face and style until I saw a promotional video that was done when Ross did some amazing illustrations for the classic anime series Gatchaman.

Ross blew me away because I had grown up on Star Blazers (Space Cruiser Yamato) and although I know that Japanese version of Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman) was cool I just couldn’t get into the very dated 70s look of the show and the lack of cool spacecraft that Yamato was jammed with. But when I discovered what Ross did with the Gatchaman characters I was blown away:

Read more…

Dead in the Now

Seattle based illustrator Corey Sutherland Lewis (also known as The Rey) is showing off a fun looking zombie comic preview on his Live Journal site:

“First two pages of an 8-page movie-trailer-esque preview of the comic– it’s called DEAD IN THE NOW. I’m making the preview for an online comic site, for possible serialization of the whole shabang. I’ll let you all know when the full teaser is up for the world to enjoy.”

…I love the look of what he has so far, I hope he’ll do more with it!

Found via Heidi MacDonald.

An Experimental Tezuka Film from 1962

Before Astro Boy went on the air in 1963 (although it was a well known manga before that), Osamu Tezuka made the above experimental animated film Male in 1962.

The film was made in a hurry to meet the exhibition date and is a Tezuka take on the novel Wagahai wa Neko de Aru (“I am a Cat”) by the Japanese author Natsume Soseki. The novel was written in 1905-1906 (about a hundred years ago!) and is a satire on Japanese society in the time of the Meiji Emperor. In the novel a cat observes his master’s ordinary life, however Tezuka’s twist in the film is that his cat observes an extremely odd situation in which a man kills the woman he loves and then waits for the police to come.

Although Tezuka would go on to experience success with his more commercial work he did continue to make a few more very well done experimental shorts including my favorites Broken Down Film and Jumping.

Confessions of a Blabbermouth

I took a look at the free preview (shown above) and I have to say that Confessions of a Blabbermouth looks like a cool comic in my book:

“When Tasha’s mom brings home an annoying hack novelist boyfriend, Jed, and his deadpan daughter, her dysfunctional family is headed for a complete mental meltdown. But Tasha has her blog, BLABBERMOUTH, as the ultimate weapon — and she’s not afraid to use it. Especially when she starts to suspect that the obnoxious Jed has a guilty secret that goes far beyond his bad prose.”

The artwork is by Aaron Alexovich and the story is by Mike Carey and Louise Carey – and cooler yet is that Louise is Mike’s 15-year-old daughter! I also have to admit the idea of having a blog as central plot device is always a good way to get notice in another blog…

Found via ComicsSnob.