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Features & Reviews

26.08.2010 · Features

Do you know Wonder Showcase?

Introducing three talented creators. Read on...

28.07.2010 · Reviews

'Arrietty' is classic Ghibli

Strong showing by director Yonebayashi Hiromasa. Read on...

24.07.2010 · Features

Storywriter Sato Dai is frustrated with Japanese anime

Rips on the industry at academic conference. Read on...

01.07.2010 · Features

Momoi Halko: The voice of moe is surprisingly deep!

Interview excerpts and random thoughts . Read on...

15.06.2010 · Features

Otaku2 Interview: Jenya

The Russian voice actress shares her thoughts. Read on...

Article Archive

08.05. - 'King of Thorn' film suffers from...

05.05. - 'Trigun: Badlands Rumble' is just like...

18.04. - 'Time of Eve' is a deeply moving film

16.02. - 'Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya' near...

07.02. - Temple University Japan offers program...

28.01. - Otaku2 Interview: Kageyama Hironobu

19.01. - Women's magazine An-an features moe

12.01. - Doujinshi: Makufuro

10.12. - The Heart of Thomas event at boys cafe...

04.12. - Eden of the East movie is a shojo...

28.11. - Macross Frontier movie is pop gone flat

24.11. - Macross Frontier The Movie: The False...

31.10. - 'Otacool' in Akihabara

26.10. - Otaku2 Interview: Tokito Ami

25.10. - CharaPa!: Akihabara comes to Roppongi...

18.10. - Hello Kitty is moe... Really

14.10. - Kaiyodo Figure Museum

01.10. - Tamashii Nation Autumn 2009

23.09. - Tezuka Osamu Memorial Museum

11.09. - Mizuki Shigeru Memorial Museum

30.08. - Super Cosplay Fest at Bellbara...

17.08. - Comike 76 coverage

15.08. - Kannagi exhibition in Aoyama

See All Blog Entries

30.07.2010 · by Adrian A. Lozano

Boldly go where no Wonder Festival has gone before!

For the first time in Wonder Festival’s history Kaiyodo was able to distribute Star Trek one-day amateur licenses. A good number of resin kit makers displayed and sold a wide selection of kits that ranged from the original series to Star Trek Nemesis of all things. Japan’s Star Trek Fandom has been around for years and Japan’s Official Fan Club is working hard to keep the franchise in the public eye since the J.J. Abrams reboot was released. Bringing Star Trek to Wonder Festival is one of the best things to come out of the event in the past few years; overseas Star Trek collectors will want to keep an eye out for what’s to come this winter.

A nice surprise was that Gainax’s booth was sporting an old face us old timers are sure to remember GENERAL PODUCTS. Primarily a sales kiosk filled with present day Gainax goods the booth also had event only GENERAL PRODUCTS and DAICON III & IV t-shirts. There just isn’t enough time in the day to see all of the resin kits and PVC figures being sold and exhibited not to mention getting time in over at the Cosplay area. Won Fes is hands down the event of events to attend in Tokyo and usually hell a fun as long as escalators aren’t collapsing above you.

Tags: Figure Wonder Festival 0 Comments

24.07.2010 · by Patrick W. Galbraith

Michael Arias, an American making anime

As part of the Summer Institute of Studies in Japanese Popular Culture, Temple University Japan Campus had a guest lecture by Michael Arias, an American born Japanese film and anime director, producer and visual affects artist. Arias is the first and thus far only American to have directed feature-length Japanese films, including the 2007 anime feature, "Tekkon Kinkreet." He was also the producer of "The Animatrix."

Arias started his career in Hollywood as a special effects artist on such films as "The Abyss" and "Total Recall." He was 20 at the time. His advice for those wanting to repeat his success? "Learn a skill." Arias says he was always a techie sort of guy, and so when asked what he could do, he said he could work the machines that moved the cameras during special effects filming. He also was, as he put it, "a closet model maker," which later became another set of job skills.

Fascinating for me was the fact that Arias was not into anime or manga. What exactly brought him to Japan, you say? "Back to the Future: The Ride." Arias was in the United States working on the special effects for the project, which employed many model makers from Japan. He spoke Japanese and was into model making, which proved helpful in making friends. Special effects guru Douglas Trumbull invited Arias to come with him to Japan to finish "Back to the Future: The Ride" (which now only continues to operate in Japan, apparently).

It was 1990 and the first time in Japan for Arias, who fell in love with the technology. Robots that deliver files around the office, even up elevators to different floors. Those fancy robot toilets. The incredibly advanced 3D computer graphics (how things have changed!). He accepted a job with Imagica and moved to Tokyo in 1991.

Arias told the class how in 1995 he was living in Tokyo with an unemployed graphic designer, who was a real manga fanatic. Arias had some down time, and asked his roommate to introduce him to a great manga. What he got was Matsumoto Taiyo's "Tekkon Kinkreet." He went into it still thinking that comics were about superheroes like in the States, but he came out a changed man.

"I was totally into it," he said. "I carried it around with me for years."

When asked why it became so important for him, Arias said it just resonated. He grew up with a younger brother and could relate to the relationship between the two young protagonists. The setting of the manga reminded him of the area of Tokyo where he was living. The "unmoored and rapidly evolving environment" struck him as somehow true.

"I projected onto it, and it reflected back to me," Arias said.

He decided to make a film out of it, a process that took a decade. He converted a karaoke room in Harajuku into a studio, got friends together and spend one and a half years making a pilot. He later met Matsumoto and got permission to go ahead with the film.

"I felt like we were putting on a school play, or we were at a school festival," Arias recalled, indicating the sense of community and creativity involved.

Studio 4C's Morimoto Koji was directing the pilot, but later dropped out. The money ran out, the landlords started cutting the power and interrupting work, they lost the karaoke room, team members started leaving.

"I was just left with the feeling that the technology was not there, the money was not there," Arias said. "Everyone was burned out."

While working on "The Animatrix," Arias was also working on a script for "Tekkon Kinkreet." His close relationship with Studio 4C made the project possible once again. This time, Tanaka Eiko, cofounder of 4C, said he would produce and Arias could direct it himself.

The project enjoyed a prolonged preproduction period, where Arias did location scouting and tried to recreate a world that was, as Matsumoto put it, a child's toy box turned upside down. He decided to use smaller-sized sheets for the drawings, which made the imperfections and inconsistencies of the image stand out. Images were not framed precisely, and backgrounds tended to be much larger than necessary to allow for free play in the filming.

Arias estimated that the whole movie had something like 1,600 shots. Some animators worked on only a few, others 50 or more. In another interesting move, Arias wanted to have all the people working on the project in the same room. The result was cross pollination, competition, creativity and a tight community. Being in the same room also meant the everything could be managed manually. Arias joked: "Our network was brown manilla envelopes. Our backup was a copy machine. Our asset management system was file cabinets."

Arias pointed out that he changed the ending to the manga, which returned to where the story began in a very cyclical way, and instead inserted the burning tower. The idea was to emphasize change and have a dramatic conclusion. This was also inspired by his experience of the Kobe Earthquake and Aum Shrinkyo terrorist attacks in 1995, and sitting with the scriptwriter watching the images of the burning World Trade Center in New York.

"Tekkon Kinkreet" won the Japan Academy Award for Best Animation in 2008, Japan's Noboro Ofuji award and was selected by Museum of Modern Art curator Barbra London as one of the "Ten Best Films of 2006" in her annual review for "Art Forum" magazine.

Though he jokes that he is the only foreigner "stupid enough" to attempt to direct anime, Arias described the experience rather fondly.

"There are a lot more blood, sweat and tears put into anime than a live-action film," he said. "I was with the crew for three and a half years. We were a tight-knit family. You don't really get that with many live-action films. You have to create each frame, and put more time and energy into it. A good animated film tends to last in a different way. Animation is, I would say, timeless."

He was, however, skeptical about the future of traditional animation. "You can't make it in Hollywood anymore. It is too expensive and not enough people know the craft. Japan is really the only place left where you can still do 2D animation. I wish Japan would invest a little more in its home-grown crafts. Fewer and fewer young people are getting into animation, because the work is hard and it doesn't pay well. The people who become animators now do it less because they want to and more because it is all they can do. They draw."

Animation is still "a boys' club," so they don't meet anyone inside the studio. They are too busy and poor to meet people outside the studio. The result is a lot of frustrated young men.

"The risk is that they burn out," Arias said. "It is impossible to have a family when you are sleeping on the floor of the studio."

He also pointed out the bad working conditions. "Pixar and Blue Sky take care of their people" in a way Japanese studios don't. "Studio Ghibli is a country club compared to most of the production houses."

He continued: "I have grave doubts about the future of anime in Japan, which is really sad, since it is the best place to do traditional animation."

Arias has since directed the live-action feature film "Heaven's Door" (2009) and the "Kokoro no Hane" PV for the sensational idol group AKB 48 (2010). The PV was made by many of the same staff who worked on "Tekkon Kinkreet," and was storyboarded like an anime. It features backgrounds by always excellent Kimura Shinji. The video is far better than it deserves to be (I love AKB, but let's be honest), and just goes to show just how talented Arias really is.

Tags: Anime International 1 Comment

20.07.2010 · by Patrick W. Galbraith

Idols + hamburgers = heaven

I was invited to a publicity event for Denny's "Hamburg Wanted!" campaign. The chain is serving 12 new kinds of hamburg steaks (see menu here), with standout examples like the Fire Demon Lord Hamburg Bowl, the Mix Mix Babinburg & Rice (inspired by Korean soul food), the Big Mountain (two patties and a deep-fried prawn, for those who like their meal in a pile and are tired of Gogo Curry), Beef Calby Yakiniku Negishio Hamburg, Avocado Hamburg 2010 (which looked like a salad), Avocado & Tororo Japanese-style Locomoco Bowl, and so on. Members of the press got to try an assortment of dishes, and they were generally creative and delicious (the idea of combining yakiniku and hamburg steak sounds crazy, but it was my favorite).

But it actually wasn't the free food that brought me down. My long-time acquaintances, Kyan Chiaki and Harada Marirun from the Nakano Fujoshi Sisters, were the idol hosts. The idea is a multi-media viral promotion, which is why they invited bloggers and famous Twitter and Ustream personalities. But that's just the beginning. This is a showdown between Kyan and Harada, where each gets points for finishing hamburg steaks over the next few months. Fans of Kyan and Harada are encouraged to go to Denny's and "challenge" the hamburg steaks, too. For every selection they complete, they are allotted points, which they can give to either Kyan or Harada by using a special Twitter account. Kyan promised those who sent their points to her could expect a personal reply and a picture of her. Harada said that she planned to do some sort of offline meeting with those who assisted her.

This is actually a pretty good use of social media (and Japan's infamous cult of personality) for a promotion, I think.

Further, the "Hamburg Wanted!" campaign stretches out to traditional TV programs, a game on the Mixi community site and special dramas featuring Kyan and Harada, which can be seen on the cell phone.

As an aside, Kyomoto Yuka, also of Nakano Fujoshi Sisters, is also participating, though she did not come to the event (someone held up and showed a giant poster picture of her, which made it kind of feel like a funeral or something) and apparently does not use Twitter. Each of the three girls is partnered with one of the comedic duo Carnelian or a guy named Party Uchiyama.

My only regret about the event, the beginning to a very ambitious multi-media campaign, is that they did not invite idol fans. Most people in the audience seemed like they didn't even know who Kyan and Harada were, which was a waste of star power. Even more so because both of them were wearing Denny's waitress uniforms, looked incredibly cute and were posing for pictures on demand. It's an idol fan's wet dream, and they would have got a lot of milage out of tapping that energy. As it was, only I volunteered to be spoon fed by Kyan. Seriously. I would have begged, but no one else even went for it. They let me take a picture of her holding the bite up, which I include here for those who want the virtual experience. Then they let me pose with both Kyan and Harada. Most fans buy several copies of CDs, go through lotteries and screenings, wait in line and get only a few moments perhaps shaking the hand of a favorite idol. What an opportunity, and no one went for it!

From now on, my personal heaven looks a lot like Denny's.

As an aside, Kyan's favorite selection on the new menu was Melty Cheese Fried Vegetable Hamburg, and Harada chose the Fire Demon Lord. Kyan said that the mixture of cheese and tomato was "godly" (kami desu), and Harada that rater than her mouth, her soul burned with the challenge of the Demon Lord. She said she needed to level up in order to defeat him and restore peace to the war-torn country of Japan. (Are we watching "Sengoku Basara" here or what?)

I am not sure how this works exactly, but if you eat a hamburg steak at Denny's and want to send your points to Kyan via Twitter, the address is #dennys_kyan. For Harada, send to #dennys_marirun, and for Kyomoto, #dennys_kyomo.

Tags: Idols Food 0 Comments

19.07.2010 · by Patrick W. Galbraith

Gundam one-day pass!

I was taking the subway home from Bakurocho, and noticed this sign outside the station master's office. It reads: "This station is sold out of Gundam one-day passes." I later recalled that the subway was doing some sort of tie up with "Gundam 00." However, when I saw this sign, the only thing that came to my mind was, "Wow! They are selling one-day tickets to ride in a Gundam!" Hell, if Amuro can fly the thing, then so can I! All we need to do is read the instruction manual. And get a one-day ticket...

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01.07.2010 · by Patrick W. Galbraith

Idol-ing away the summer...

The other day I headed down to Asakusa to check out Marubell-dou (マルベル堂). I was looking for "promides" of Minami Saori and Moritaka Chisato. Oddly enough, they did not have Moritaka, despite her impeccable cuteness (c'mon, does it get better than "17"?), but they did have Minami. One thing is for sure, the older the performers, the better the stock. Marubell-dou kicks it old school. I have places in Nakano and Akihabara that I prefer for idol goods, but the atmosphere and staff are top notch in Asakusa.

Tags: Idols 0 Comments

07.06.2010 · by Adrian A. Lozano

Sucked into the Black Hole AKA 4chan

We just received an "Anonymous" email informing us of Patrick's debut over at 4chan's Otaku Encyclopedia thread. Guess I'll have to sift through it should it prove to be interesting. Stay tuned.

Tags: Otaku 0 Comments