Russo- Japanese Anime collobration, First Squad / Первый отряд / ファースト・スクワッド part 2

Remember this fantastical World War 2 themed anime series by joint Russian and Japanese effort?

Finally there is more details and full trailer.


Okay, the German Army occult unit (not too far off since Himmler is very interested in occultism in real life) invoked vengeful spirits from old Eastern Crusade which Germanic order of knights "Teutonic Knights" spearheaded against pagan or Othrodox East European in 15th century. Their efforts were broken in 1410 at Battle of Tannenberg which also symbolizes the emergence of nationalism of Polish since the Polish King lead the opposing side. The battle is depicted in painting above.

In 1942, German Army is on offensive again after stabilized the line from Zhukov counteroffensive in late 1941 near gates of Moscow. This time though the Russian Army is ready for them. In the movie, the Russian vengeful spirits killed in 1941 were back helping Nadya the 14 year old NKVD/STAVKA agent to fight the mythical German Army crusaders.

Sounds like good fun. Someone did remarked to me it looks like Blood+ but with blond swordsgirl killing Nazis this time. LOL.

The movie soon will be premiered in Cannes Du Marche Films at May 13th and Palais C at May 16th and 17th 2009. Made by Studio 4C with cooperation of Molot Production, directed by Yoshiharu Ashino.

K-On! / けいおん！ Mio pantyshot Part2.

Ahem, so Kyoto Animation skimped on the direct assault imagery by giving this symbolism for Mio's exposed pantyshot....



You know I never thought a stripped bowl of steaming hot rice as analogy of pantyshot. Never in my short life. Instead of affirming or deflating fan's expectations, they go for middle solution. Smart but yet perplexing choice of imagery. Seriously.


It is unlikely there will uncensored DVD version, Kyoto Animation is not in dire straits like GONZO to hook audience. So I think this is how they portrayed racy/ecchi scenes in this series (more to come, judging from the manga)

I can imagine new meme coming after Niceboat.

Sino-Japanese soft power war part 2

Recently, Premier Wu Jiabao complained about lack of quality Chinese anime and kid series to counter the pervasive and odious influence from Land of Rising Sun. Apparently he was watching tv with his grandkid and much to his patriotic dismay, there is no quality Chinese cartoon or anime to entertain, instead he has to settle to watch Japanese tainted Ultraman. After the complaint, citizens of China rise up and in chorus agreed with him. They start online campaigning (same method on how Moot was chosen as Time's Most Influential Person) with fiery slogans like "Destroy Japanese Anime!" or other appropriate socialist inspired Chinese battlecry.

Chinese may outproduced Japan in terms of quantity (duh) but even the citizens of Motherland has to settle with foreigner goods for consumption as there is a lot of room for improvement for Chinese produced shows. Ironically, the premier wondered where does all talented Chinese go when this is the country that regularly suppressed free expression at the same time. Go figure.



Another irony is, Taro Aso trying to use anime as bridging tool for diplomacy at the same time.

Central Park Media shuts down

Central Park Media, one of the early pioneer of USA anime scene rolling up and close shop for good today. The organization responsible introducing titles like Legend of Overfiend, Patlabor and Record of Lodoss War to American audience but also known for feeding garbage like M.D Geist and Harmageddon. One of the new casualty of current economic malaise, I wonder if broken but not dead yet ADV USA is going to follow suit too? Already Geneon USA shuts down distribution and BANDAI also withdraws from US market with closure of Animevillage.

Cheers.

Source

Anime bubble burst, Japan's softpower under threat?

From my friend and Sankaku, apparently the thing I have been fearing has happened; the burst of anime bubble which peaked at 2006 (The year of Haruhi Suzumiya). These 2 focused on moe retardation responsible for stagnation of anime storytelling, making anime genre becoming stale as too many predictable and generic animes (Akikan? Asu no Yoichi? Sekirei?) There is only so much harem school girl moe anime one can take before become jaded with the genre. To some extent but not all malaise of anime industry today can be attributed to this.



One just have to look at Kannagi which recently concluded and we can see how moe has distorted and blocked proper storytelling. One sacred rule of moe is purity of essence aka virginity. Woe on those who break this rule, unreasonable fans will rage and punish an otherwise well told story. How to blame studios not to deviate from this formula then? It takes 2 to clap. Kannagi is an interesting example of what I think is good story tries to combine with moe appeal but ends up paying the price since these 2 are incompatible concepts to go along. I know this is a rather controversial view but this is how I see it.

My friend put this as case of point:

"And you can also see this trend with well established titles such as the Sunrise’s Gundam franchise or Tatsunoko’s Macross. Macross Frontier was for me a crappy attempt to cash in on the Macross fame, whereas the old one was an epic space opera followed by hard hitting drama (Zero). Frontier was generic shounen shit with only good soundtrack saving it from being the most shittiest franchise ever created (thankfully for Frontier Macross already had 7 to take that title). Gundam was always the same since Turn A, with only Wing and the first season of Double O having a storyline that can be considered to be able to stand by itself."

Amen to that, brother.

Asahi Shimbun, leading newspaper of Japan also points out that digital fansubbing hurt the industry bad especially overseas. The recent initiative by TV Tokyo and GONZO for example to have simulcast in US and Japan is a backhand acknowledgment on success of fansubbers denting their profit, before this they couldn't give a damn about fansubbers. This have generated positive results, the studios are more aware and move quickly to broadcast quality episodes using streaming etc to combat fansubbing. However is this too late?


Statistically, 308 series were churned out in 2006 represents the peak to 288 in 2008. In same time period 1st quarter of 2009 have 30 series out as compared to 60 in 2006. It is grim situation as more and more studios feel the pinch of economy gloom. One case example is Vallkyria Chornicles animation quality is not so stellar as compared to Tales of Abyss despite being funded by SEGA (they in trouble too). It is symptom of what I believe is lack of $$$ to pay for animation due to current economy pressures.

Cheers.

The way of the future is here now.

Utterly amazing demonstration of MIT Sixth Sense, presented by Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry 1 month ago. To summarize it, you can do the Tom Cruise thing in futuristic sci fi thriller, Minority Report.

In 5 - 10 years time, this will be our daily routine. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the lack of privacy too, for starters.

I am still in awe. Wow.