Eureka 7 Movie Psalm of Planets

Famous Studio Bones series is going to get a movie treatment and soon to be in theaters across Japan on this April. From what I can gather from sources, it is not retelling of TV series due to long length of the series (52 episodes). 40 percent of the scenes were new additions (some fans are not happy it is not 100 percent), not recycled stock footage from the TV and it is about 115 - 120 mins length. The plot is different from TV series and the story focused more on relationship between 2 main characters. I will watch this movie despite some mixed feelings about it.

Trailer
Offical website





Original Work: BONES
Director: Tomoki Kyoda
Character Design: Kenichi Yoshida
Animation Director: Tsuneori Saito
Special Effects Director: Yasushi Muraki
Animation Production: BONES

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0/ 東京マグニチュード8.0

New disaster anime series project from Bones cooperating with Cinema Citrus, slated for July 2009 release.

Story about a young woman who is a delivery person and 2 children (one kid and a school girl) trying to survive an aftermath of Richter 8.0 scale Kanto Plain Earthquake (In 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which it is registered at 8.3 Richter scale caused at least 100,000 - 140,000 deaths) that slammed Tokyo in contemporary setting. Director is Masaki Tachibana (Seirei no Moribito, Ghost in the Shell , Eureka 7). Reportedly, the makers based this on theory that a big Kanto Earthquake is overdue and soon to come in 30 years period of time with strength of at least Richter scale of 7.0. They researched previous earthquakes and interviewed survivors in making this series.

A rather novel series from usual fare, I am looking at this with some interest. Sounds like serious anime, not the usual moe harem shit which I mightily approve.



Official Site

Catwalk, Miss Roboto?

She introduced herself as “cybernetic human HRP-4C” at her first press conference, and charmed her audience just as any supermodel would. She smiled, struck seductive poses, and even made mistakes that her inventors attributed to nerves. Except that this head-turner is a fashion-bot, and she’ll make her catwalk debut in Tokyo on March 23.

Oh, there is always first time for everything and frankly speaking this kinda worries me. Where is humanity's place will be, if such idiosyncratic field like fashion catwalk dominated by robots like her/it? The fact I address the conception as "her" besides "it" is indicative of increasing blur between machine and person.

Damn Asimov. By the way, is this considered "moe"?

Source

Domo kun inspired fashion

So one day I check my blog's statistic and I found this very curious link. It made link to my Domo-kun entry so in reciprocation I went to the original site. Lo and behold, I am amused by this photo that is featured in the entry with my link it it.

Awesome.

Original link

Natsu no Arashii / 夏のあらし！

Jin Kobayashi (School Rumble) current work will be serialized in anime by SHAFT (the Shinbo trippy dudes) soon in April 2009.

Taken from Wikipedia on plot:

13 year-old Yasaka is a boy staying at his grandfather's house during his summer vacation. One day he entered a store and met Arashi, a beautiful 16-year old girl working there. After trying to protect her from a man who claims to have been hired by her family to take her back by force, Yasaka ran away with her and now she stays at his grandpa's place with him. It didn't take much time for Yasaka to figure out that his new friend is far from an ordinary girl, as she possesses mysterious powers. The plot thickens when he finds a 60 year old picture of Arashi and another girl named Kaja, and to the surprise of all Kaja suddenly appears, and just like Arashi, her appearance hasn't changed at all since then.


Cast
Sayoko Arashiyama - Ryoko Shiraishi
Hajime Yasaka - Yuko Sanpei
Kaja - Kaori Nazuka
Jun Kamigamo - Chiaki Omigawa
Sayaka - Hitomi Nabatame
Hideo Murata - Hiroki Yasumoto
Yayoi Fushimi - Ai Nonaka
Kanako Yamazaki - Yui Horie

Director: Akiyuki Shinbo

Official Site

Now you have Mr Cop-Out-Ending Kobayashi working with Mr Trippy-Imagery Shinbo on one series. I predict the series will be very visually striking but in the end, shallow. But definitely I give this show a try. Something about it interests me and the chemistry of creative force also excites me. 13 episodes is planned so far. Standard moe tropes apply. But...I do fear the indecisive and cop out ending potential too.

Cheers.

Gender Equality and Softpower in Japanese sociology

One of the most unexpected leading advocate of gender equality in Japan is manga and anime which lots of females working as professionals. Some of them of them even become very renowned artist in this field (notably novelist of ToraDora! Yuyuko Takemiya, CLAMP, Rumiko Takahashi and Kannagi's unfortunate Eri Takenashi) using softpower of their trade to break gender barriers despite hordes of male dominated works populating the domestic industry.

Before 2001, there is no law to protect females from domestic abuse and Japan was ranked 39th in UN 70 nations study of gender equality.

Thanks to various depiction of strong females with strong personality in free expressive anime/manga setting, the myth of ever smiling, submissive Japanese woman is dwindling fast. However, these archetype also have to contend with "moe" mutation hence producing some of the most schizophrenic anime females we seen lately.

There is growing demand for non-typical characterization and international fans might do their part as well.



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