Nodame: From manga to TV to cafe

A restaurant in Harajuku, Tokyo, has opened a temporary cafe to tie in with Fuji TV's drama series, Nodame Kantabire (Mondays, 9 p.m.), re-creating the heroine's messy room and serving special dishes that appear in the series.

The TV drama is based on a manga series of the same title, which features an aspiring pianist studying at a music college.

Full article is here.

There is no limit when comes to merchandising power of manga in Japan. This is really creative stuff and I am gob smacked by the sheer ingenuity of the whole idea. I wonder what is next in marketing manga based memes.

An article on Germany's case of manga culture

This is one article talks about the story of mangas influencing readers in Germany. It is a good summary and I generally concurred with most the salient points raised in the feature article. As seen in the article pictures, the quality is on par with Japanese artist and I assume the storytelling will be almost as good. However I haven't seen any German styled manga yet, so I reserved my comments on this topic. I do wonder how pervasive manga is in Western Europe.

Source.

Tokyopop Create Your Own Manga

Create your own manga

Now this is an interesting development. I can't wait to see the diffusion of manga culture in US, seeing how far imitation has gone in creating the synergy of the culture in discussion. However, I can be putting too much generalization here, I have no absolute proof about my earlier statement. But it is an interesting project.



Is it possible one day that US going to have their own subset of manga culture that is different from Japan? Megatokyo evolution would seem to suggest that way but nothing is conclusive yet.

Maybe in 10 years time, we shall see a schism between US and Japanese style of manga culture. Something like what happened in Martin Luther and Catholicism.

Speaking of which, DC Comics now targeting teenage females in this article. Could it be they learning from mangas in Japan? I do wonder if they going to include pretty boys in their lineup just like the Shonen offers in Japanese manga titles.

'Paprika' spices up the anime aesthetic

Andrez Bergen / Special to The Daily Yomiuri

Paprika

4 stars out of five

Dir: Satoshi Kon

Voice cast: Megumi Hayashibara, Akio Otsuka, Koichi Yamadera, Toru Furuya, Mitsuo Iwata, Rikako Aikawa

The opening minutes of Paprika introduce the pivotal character of police detective Konakawa (voiced by Akio Otuska), and his recurring nightmare, which revolves around the spliced-and-looped discovery of a homicide victim.

Director Satoshi Kon then undercuts this traumatic vignette with references to a roll call of Hollywood standards, like Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth, Tarzan the Ape Man, Roman Holiday, and Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, all rolled up into one sweet dream sequence.

Full source is here.


I am looking forward to this anime, hoping that it will not as deary as Millennium Actress. The visuals are great but the anime movie lacks the punch to carry it thru the usual film mediocrity ceiling. For me, an anime film must have something more special besides pretty pictures. Same problem goes for GONZO's Agito, Spirits of Origin which suffered from lack of plot coherence despite the poetic beauty of its animation.

It seems to me that basic issue of anime films mostly too art focused, forgetting the story in return. Hence the reason why Miyazaki films doing so well because he did not neglect characters.

Bokko Live Action

Another adaptation of manga into live action movie, starring famous Hong Kong veteran Andy Lau, it talks about exploits of military strategist Mo Ge Li helping a weak nation against a massive invasion by a bullying neighbor country. The live action movie involved massive money about US$ 16 million ( it is a big money for HK cinema) and collaboration of 4 major entities from Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Japan to get the movie ideas into reality. Also known as Battle of Wits, it is scheduled to be released this month to the world. It could be the biggest event movie in Chinese cinema 2006. According to Andy Lau, it is a 10 year project.

In Europe the manga goes by name of Stratege.

Source from IMDB

2nd source.

Cities promoting manga, anime resources

Efforts to attract tourists with manga or animation resources have increased among municipal and town governments across the nation.

In Kyoto, where Kyoto Seika University set up the nation's first faculty of manga in spring, Kyoto International Manga Museum will open in the city's Nakagyo Ward on Saturday.

The new regional strategy of the ancient capital has drawn nationwide attention.

As Kyoto has many cultural assets associated with contemporary animation, including picture scrolls of animals produced from the Heian to Kamakura periods (794-1333), some observers maintain that the city is the birthplace of manga.

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Japan now capitalizing on its soft power, anime and manga culture to get more tourist money. The economy is not doing too well and they looking for new directions to make money. Guess they found a new way to market "Made In Japan" motto to the world now. This is a follow up from the opening of the Kyoto Manga Museum entry, 1 day ago.