www.James-Strocel.com

Posts Tagged ‘anime’

By all accounts I should be too old for Anime conventions. They are crowded, smelly, and noisy. Not a year goes by without some epic account of organizational ineptitude on the part of the managing staff. My total wait time at registration this year was three and a half hours. The hazards of cosplay are many. You can kill yourself trying to meet a con deadline through accidents with sharp objects,  hotglue and paint fumes, not to mention sleep deprivation. Don’t ever forget the sleep deprivation! That bustling photo you see in this post was taken at 10:30pm! Yet still, year after year, my friends and I manage to show up. Why do we do this to ourselves?

I don’t think the answer has anything to do with meeting friends or a slavish devotion to Japanese cartoons. Sometimes you just need an ordeal. No matter where you are in life, no matter what problems you have, there is nothing like a good shunt of self-inflicted stress to make it all go away. When you’re working on a costume, a music video or a drawing, you aren’t thinking about car payments or where your career is going. You just know that when Saturday rolls around, that labor of love needs to be out the door, no matter what state it’s in. When you see the looks of amazement on the faces of passersby, you know you’ve just spun a little bit of fiction into fact.

These conventions retain a kind of purity because of the fact that only the anime creators are allowed to really make money there. You’re not grasping after abstract concepts like meaning or marketability, you’re just having fun taking something that was in your head and making it a reality. That feeling of knowing “hey, I made that” feeds the soul. Once you’ve tasted it, you’ll go through hell and back to experience it again.

Looking at this trailer, you’d think Harmony Gold had come to their senses and allowed the Macross Frontier Movie to be released stateside. Unfortunately, all it means is that fans are getting a little too good at aftereffects and voice announcement. Still, by most accounts this is better than the actual trailers made for the film in Japan.

This voice acting makes so glad I never bought a PS1. Enjoy!

Found Via Jing

Intrepid anime fan Roger Harkavy recently discovered a hoard of previously unpublished concept art from Artmic studios, creators of Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada (Robotech Masters and New Generation for those who care). It’s got some great examples of early eighties mechanical design. Many of the creative decisions on these series were still being worked out, producing a lot of odd hybrids. This guy up above looks like the folks at Mars Base started experimenting with Invid Technology, or vice versa. You can find the rest of the designs in pdf form here.

Found via Mecha Damashii

John K’s “Stuff” blog raised an interesting question about robots in anime the other day:

I wonder how many we need? What makes one any better than another?

To answer the first question, we need as many as possible. Why? Short answer, because God loves us and wants us to be happy, that’s why! Long answer has something to do with toy companies, business models and other stuff I really don’t care about right now. Robots!

To answer the second question, I believe that each era of anime robot design has its unique advantages and disadvantages:

60′s and 70′s: This represents the hey-day of “Super Robots”, machines that were usually one of a kind that derived their weapons from within their own bodies. The thick lines and clear silhouettes of these guys really look spectacular when they start to go to town the monsters they fight.

80′s: This was a period when cold war military spending was at its height. Many designs from this period borrowed heavily from vehicles like the M1 Abrams tank or the F-14 Tomcat. There are a lot more straight lines and more details put in to give the robots a increased sense of realism. This was also a period for a lot of classic “Real Robot” series, where characters took on a more central role, and the robots were mass produced machines and treated more like set pieces. Purists might criticize these designs for having too many unnecessary details, and that reducing the robots to set pieces just makes these shows into toy commercials. To this I say that details, when used properly, can make a robot look like it could come stomping through your town at any moment. Sacrificing a little bit of design for realism is not a bad thing. As for the point on mass production, I think armies of robots fighting each other is way cooler than just one or two duking it out, don’t you agree?

90′s-present: This is a period of a lot of branching out and introspection. Designs become more organic, reflecting storyline choices by series like Evangelion. A lot of remakes start happening here two. Mars Successor Nadesico is influenced by both the Super Robot and Real Robot sub-genres. There is a danger of robot designs plateauing in quality, either through repeated remakes, or because the CGI tools used to animate them allow designers to add details with reckless abandon, so as to render the mechanical designs unreadable. Fortunately, science is now catching up to science fiction. Now humanoid shaped robots are appearing in real life, perhaps mechanical designers can use them for inspiration for future designs.

When I went to my first anime convention in 2001, I was expecting to see maybe a few card tables of merchandise, perhaps a video room, nothing fancy. What I found was a phenomenon in mid-explosion. There was an entire ballroom dedicated to the dealers room, a music video contest, and a cosplay contest with a fervor a rock concert. Today Sakuracon can pack the Seattle convention Center with over 15,000 attendees. Even though the anime industry is in a slump, the convention continued to grow all over the world. It’s hard to believe they all started out as a twinkle in the eyes of scattered pockets of fans.

The images you see in this post are by lionboogy, a celebrated con photographer and Transformers cosplayer. When he posted these pictures on IRC in 1994, his friend balked at the idea that anime conventions could ever get this big. At the time they would have been right. What changed over the past 15 years to bring us what are essentially mobile theme parks dedicated to anime?

The answer is the personal computer. Anime fans, being interested in futuristic stuff, were quick to use their gadgets to plan their activities. When the Internet came to prominence, and from all over the state or province could find out where to gather. They were even distributing entire anime episodes over the net a full seven years before YouTube hit the scene.

I find it ironic when people talk about technology and the force of the isolation. I found Sakuracon over the Internet, and through it I’ve met very dear friends that I’ve had for almost a decade. Sure, you could use the Internet to sit in your basement all day and play MMOs, but if you’re willing to make full use of the technology they can make your life more real than you ever thought possible.

How many times have you been bored to death by an anime series, only to find out later that you “just need to stick with it” for a few episodes before it “picks up”? There seems to be some prevailing theory in the anime industry that you need to make viewers work for their enjoyment. If you hook people on the first episode, well, that’s just cheap. How will you know your fans will stick with you through the inevitable recap episode?

Take my experience with A Certain Scientific Railgun as an example. The first episode is all about how this school girl Mikoto is so apparently god-like that her sidekick Kuroko has made it her mission to lure her into love hotel. The antagonists, if you could call them that, are such push-overs that it’s embarrassing. Not only do I not care what happens to these characters, this show isn’t going to let anything happen in the first place. But of course, the fourth episode is totally epic. I just have to hang in there.

I still chase the dragon of anime bliss. The next Macross or Slayers could just be one more incomprehensible title away. I’ve given a lot of my time and money to anime. I’ve got a closet full of manga and un-assembled model kits to prove it.  However, now that I’m not a university student with 11:30am classes, my time is kind of at a premium. I just don’t think it’s too much to ask to start enjoying a show as soon as the opening credits roll.

This Voltron Camera shows us how much poorer the world is now without transforming merchandise. Via Topless Robot.

It’s Yamato. It’s Starblazers. It’s one totally awesome trailer from the new 2009 series. What more do you need to know? Via AnimeVice.

Sure it’s depressing, but there’s something refreshing about this scale of financial destruction. Here’s an infographic of the largest bankruptcies in US History. Check out the full chart here. Via BoingBoing.

For those of you wondering what a bubble looks like while it’s being pierced by a BB Gun, wonder no further. Via ImageShack.

While arcade cabinets are mostly a thing of the past in the West, technology seems to be taking an alternate path as this Japanese company has developed a machine that can switch from vertical to horizontal in one easy step. Via GameSetWatch.

Sure, we like to complain about how complicated technology is, but even the most basic amenities that we take for granted today had a learning curve back in their day. Apparently this sign adorned some hotel rooms in the 1870s. A printable version can be found here. Found via BoingBoing Gadgets.

Blood of Bahamut truly displays the elegance of hardware and software pushed to the limit. Honestly, who cares about HD graphics when you can make a DS do this? Via GameTrailers

There is nothing cooler than t-shirts with subtle geek references. A passing glance at one of these Metal Gear T-shirts leads the mundane observer to consider them a product of a rock band or an insipid fashion label. Closer inspection reveals that they are trophies of all the hours you logged trying to get past Sniper Wolf.Via BoingBoing OffWorld

The more minor characters of the Star Wars Saga get their due with this funky ABC design set. Via Topless Robot

Proof that Volks doesn’t just make those creepy dolls you find hanging around anime conventions. Via Neko Magic

You wouldn’t think that Chilliwack would play host to an anime cosplay meetup, but last Saturday, the weather cooperated with the gorgeously designed Rotary Central Community Park in order to showcase the local talent. You can see the full gallery after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »