An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla

Tamashii Nations 2009: Kaiju Hyohon

Tamashii Nations 2009: Alt.love

Preview night at the Bandai Tamashii Nations 2009 event in a nutty nutshell. A random company suit voices his opinion of Matt Alt and his ultra-rare Tetsujin 28 Godaikin using a Very Special Finger undecipherable to the foreign eye.

Cat Shit One - The Animated Series - The Trailer

Going to a Go-Go

Hey, I'm interviewing Go Nagai tomorrow for Otaku USA. If you have any questions for Mr. Hypersexual Psychoviolence, please post them in the comments section!

TAF - Best of Show - Cat Shit One: The Animated Series

 

Title: Cat Shit One -  the Animated Series
Production: Studio Anima

Director: Kazuya Sasahara
Original Manga (released in the USA as Apocalypse Meow): Motofumi Kobayashi
Format: 23 min. 12 episodes
Target Viewers: Survival game fans and military fans
Anticipated Customers: Clients who are looking to invest in imaging contents that are on a par with those by PIXAR

Plan Objective: The concept of this work is the development of real and fierce combat by cute and fluffy animals. In these days when people have become too used to seeing people die in movies, we wish to use cute animals as the characters to give viewers a stronger feeling of the misery of the wars that are taking place in this world.

Story: Packy, Botasky and Rats are special operations experts working in a private military company. Every day they are embroiled in combat somewhere around the world. In the first episode, they intend to come to the assistance of a hostage captured by guerrillas demanding the withdrawal of the US Army, but instead become surrounded by a large number of guerrillas.

TAF - "I like Luffy because he's Funny"

TAF - Daryl Surat Edition

 
Which figma from Good Smile is THE HOTT 1? Be it the Duke or bathing Billy Herrington?

TAF - Tim Eldred and Steve Harrison Edition

 

BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT...here's the goddamn Tohokushinsha booth, already! According to the exhibitor's guide, the ONLY thing the company was there to promote was a new anime called REDLINE (not Red Noah, sadly), so I guess they threw together this Drive-In Movie sized Yamato display at the last second just for us...Although as I tried to explain earlier, the name of the game was strictly "Yamato 2 pachinko, or get lost". They had a few of those glossy press kits up for grabs and I quickly stuffed a couple down my pants making "robble robble" noises while the Yuki booth bunnies distracted the shutterbugs.

There were  little meeting tables set up in front of the display, which is weird since here we see two guys who actually prefer to be standing! Man, Japan sure is wacky sometimes! The guy at left could be asking the suit, "What is this...Yamato? Is it dangerous?" or "Where's the toilet?" or maybe this is photographic evidence of the inevitable Pachinko Yamato 3 being laid out like a TAF Wansee Conference. Who can say for sure?

The only other thing I saw that made me think of you hot boys was this glass case featuring a few original Kazuo Komatsubara illustrations including some from 999 and my oddly titled JAL in-flight movie, "Captain Harlock in Arcadia" (above). Good thing you both weren't at the show because I think we would have smashed open the case and then fought over who gets the pic only to accidentally tear it to shreds like total retards.

But yeah, that's it!  Since you guys don't care about women wearing tight yellow female space navigator uniforms you may now exit the building! Unless Steve would like to wander over to the Bandai booth in a fugue stage and present a Byzantine business scheme inspired by his crackpot comments on other people's blogs while Tim might be tempted to stay at the Yamato booth asking questions about the availability of audio drama cassettes from 1983 until the cops hauled him away screaming in a straight-jacket. 'Aint pachinko grand? THE END (?!TheNish?!)

Be Forever Tokyo Anime Fair

Podcast: Hot Tears of Shame -€“ Episode Thirty One

Post-humans, put on yer thinking caps! Here’s the complete audio of my “Otaku Power – Trivia, Desire, and Transformation” lecture as delivered at Temple University Japan Campus on March 13, 2009. Thanks to the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies and the TUJC anime club for inviting me over, making it happen, and for the hot slices afterwards.

Sorry you can’t see the pictures that make up the visual portion of the presentation, but above is the Keeper: a key image from Kaichiro Morikawa’s book “Learning from Akihabara – The Birth of a Personapolis” (Gentosha, 2003).

Download here

Cosmo Wing

Ok, that's the official word on my lecture this Fri/13 at Temple University Japan Campus. I didn't choose that colour or the font for this flyer (which you have to click in order to make it a "biggie"), but being a massive fan of fantasy surrogates myself, I did indeed write my own copy. This event is free and open to the public so show up in your very best Dragonball club shirts and ask a bunch of questions I can't answer about Inu-Yasha.

Please maintain possession of your eggs at all times.

Gate of gates and a parade of prim stewardess entering through the exit. Perfect weather for flying their conspicuous blue eye shadow skies; California sun blasting through the windows to inspect the line of tight French twists passing by. Big white airport burly dude, a tech of some kind, looks a little amused as he closes the doors behind the stews as they bow slightly to approaching all-male pilots, copilots, engineers, and wave motion engine operators. Passengers-to-be look tired and 11 hours into the trip already here at the boarding gate. Only those gabbing to their cell phones smiling seem to even really be here. “Lots of Japanese” a voice behind me describes the scene. “No Chinese, thank god. I can’t even understand them anyways”. A group of chatty old women bearing crinkly plastic bags show up just to spite him. One of the in-flight movies to choose from is the intriguingly titled "Captain Harlock in Arcadia" cropped for widescreen which seems really pointless here but the turbulence never seemed so real as when the Owen Stanley witch is giving it to you at both ends.

Otaku Power - Trivia/Desire/Transformation

Laser Discs

Movie posters

Magazines

Trading cards

Guns

Super Diorama Theater

Yeah, so I'm being let out of my bag long enough to actually be in Tokyo again for a bit starting next week. Lucky me. On the agenda: I'm giving a lecture at Temple University, Japan Campus on 3/13 entitled "Otaku Power - Trivia/Desire and Transformation" (more about that later), bum rushing the Tokyo International Anime Fair, and teaming up with a genki white boy named Matt Alt and our big brothers at Bandai to bring you the Otaku USA interview of your wyldest phantasies. As per usual, hit me up if something spectacular is brewing like...I don't know...TOKYO FASHION WEEK? See you at Draft Two and Points South starting next Tuesday.

Otaku USA magazine (April 2009)

  
BEHOLD! The cover of the new issue of Otaku USA magazine (April 2009)! The contents within; all filled with anime, manga, moe, tokusatsu, j-pop, fujoshi freakouts, and gunpla galore. It goes on sale starting next week, with loyal subscribers - and retainers - receiving their mags soon after.

History will show that this is our 11th issue, and with our second year of publication on the event horizon, we demand to cash in on some of that sweet Dragonball Evolution loot with a cover story on the vastly underrated (no, really) Dragonball GT by Joseph Luster. Then it gets super hardcore – dare we say, “otaku” - as Daryl Surat has a conniption fit over Baccano!, Zac Bentz shakes down the Polysics for some Q&A, Mike Dent and August Ragone jump up and down over Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight, and actual Japanese people Tomohiro Machiyama and Yoshiki “Slasher” Takahashi join our nutty contribs for a staunch roundtable on MOE (perhaps you’ve heard of it)!

Among the heroes who made it happen: Matt Alt, Yunmao Ayakawa, Emily Balistrieri, Casey Brienza, Austell Callwood, J.L. Carrozza, Paul Thomas Chapman, Ed Chavez, Mike Dent, Caleb Dunaway, Trim Eldred, Erin Finnegan, Shaenon Garrity, Clarissa Graffeo, Heidi Kemps, Gilles Poitras, Dave Riley, Chris Schmitt, Mike Toole, Darius Washington, and wildarmsheero.

But in the end it was you that was born to pilot this mighty robot warrior. Now go forth...AND FIGHT!