Reading my news feed here, TV-adapted movie, Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, was announced the award winner of the 15th Asian Film Festival (AFF) in the best animation category in Lyon, France. Knowing that I was there in France on a long holiday, I’m familiar with the fact that sout-eastern parts of France are well-known for many film festival activities, be it cult or independent-related films. Cannes is a good example for its Cannes Film Festival. I never had the chance to travel down there while I was holidaying around the French Riveria. Our tour group were scheduled to stay there for two short days only.
Pity that…
Nevertheless, it was a great experience. I’m sure Lyon would be a great city to travel as well.
While browsing about it online, I found the festival video link that featured all Asian films and amongst one of them is a TV clip from the early episodes of the Evangelion.
After watching the game show video footage, I must say they really know how to throw all the big ‘fireworks’ of all the best games many Japanese video game vendors made ie Square Enix, Koei, Capcom etc, etc. And it’s got a really nice music that blends well with the compilation of the video.
Very nice.
And, towards the last 10 seconds of that video, you will see some giant tank-like robots that come out, pulling out all all the relentless attacks on the enemy battalion, and lots of missiles being launched to target enemy aircrafts. The game is called Front Mission Evolved. It’s said it’s also a RPG-type game that robots can level up, just like your other ordinary Final Fantasy game series. Looks very solid.
Before wrapping things up on this post, I’m going to have to distract you for the moment before you’re done with this…
I just took a glimpse at one of the related Japan’s convention centre video footage, and this one takes us to a special event (held in last August) which showcased robot scientists and engineers made dancing robots getting their grooves on!
Dancing robots!!! Wow! Have a look and be amazed by their ‘acrobatic’ dance moves!
NB: I know it’s gonna a long seven minute wait before you’ll see the ‘goods’. So hope you do have a decent internet broadband at home. Otherwise, it’s just worth the wait to see several hilarious dance moves by these cute mechs! ;)
Just read this post that there was a recent development of making Astro Boy as one of the celebrity wax figure, to be featured at Hong Kong’s Madame Tassaud’s Wax museum. Â And now it’s currently being put on display for the local and international tourists to see. Â What a great way to gather everybody’s attention to relish before its own premiere release on 17th October.
Here’s the extract from the article at E-travelbackboard.com.
“We are thrilled that Astro Boy will soon join the ranks of super stardom at Madame Tussauds Hong Kong. The process of bringing Astro Boy to our attraction has been one of our Studio’s most interesting and challenging projects to date, as his wax figure was created while the animated feature film was still being produced,” said Bret Pidgeon, general manager of Madame Tussauds Hong Kong and Shanghai.
“When Astro Boy was first created in the 1960s, he became an instant hit in Hong Kong, a superhero who has inspired generations of local residents. With such a strong cult following locally and around the world, we are confident that with the launch of Astro Boy’s wax likeness, he will again capture the imaginations of fans and our guests.” The launch of Astro Boy’s wax counterpart will mark the first time that Madame Tussauds Hong Kong has partnered with a film distributor to bring an animated cartoon character to the attraction.
Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Imagi Animation Studios, Francis Kao said, “This is an exhilarating opportunity and partnership for Imagi Animation Studios and Madame Tussauds Hong Kong. By introducing Astro Boy at one of Hong Kong’s top attractions, fans will have a rare opportunity to interact with their hero in person, helping to build buzz about the impending launch of the film. Madame Tussauds Hong Kong is home to a brilliant array of celebrities and we are sure that the adorable Astro Boy will be welcomed by locals and tourists alike.”
Created by the “god of manga” Osamu Tezuka, Astro Boy is the story of a classic superhero. Astro Boy was an original animated television series in the 1960s, and was also re-made in the 1980s and again in 2003.
Just catching up with this. Hong Kong computer animation studio company, IMAGI, just posted a new movie clip from the much-anticipated film (one of Osamu’s Tezuka’s beloved manga creations) Astro Boy in a movie fan site. However, I had trouble viewing its latest movie clip from Moviefone.com so I decided to flip over to Youtube and just “youtubed” for it….
Here’s the clip.
Looks very promising. 3D graphics rendering is certainly top-notch. And boy (no pun intended), is he ever going to face several challenging opponents of all shapes and sizes! The film is said to be released in Japan on October 10. The American release is set for October 23. So my guess is that its worldwide release date would categorically fall on the same date as the American counterpart, just like how they did with Transformers 2 earlier this year.
Oooh… only 4 weeks left to go… How excitingly close is that? :)
Now while you may be eargerly waiting. If you’re living in Japan, there’s a marine complex in Aichi prefecture that’s planning to host an Osamu Tesuka’s convention centre. And it’s not about the entire collection of his best anime works. It’s all about Astro Boy. There’s a 3-metre statue waiting there for the general public to see. The convention is called “Mighty Atom Exhibition in Lagunasia” where you will find all the amazing recreational activities that your family and kids can do everything from buying Astro boy’s merchandise, games, food, festivals, etc etc.
You can find out more about the exhibition on Laguna Gamagori’s website. What’s really interesting about the exhibit is if you look at the map section, there’s huge outline that resembles the dimensions of Astro Boy, proportionately! Each ‘part’ of Astro Boy’s limbs caters different functions and activities for family of all ages.
That’s a real looker.
This exhibit opens on 19th September and closes on 30th November. I’d love to go unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve enough to get me up to other places in Japan other than Tokyo city itself. So if you are living in the land of the rising sun, then what are you waiting for? Go see it!!
NB: On Laguna’s website, there’s also an English language link at the very top right hand side. This link will take you a pdf download page that has information brochures for you to download and read all about the complex before you start making your travel arrangements to get there.
Artist's impression on Robotland to be constructed in Incheon and Masan, South Korea
This is very interesting…
I decided to keep myself a little abreast about these recent developments with Koreans wanting to have more giant robot presence around the country and why they’re interested in doing this.
After two minutes of googling ‘South Korea giant robots‘, I found myself a couple of links from Slashdot and Robot World News to read.  Apparently, South Korea’s Ministry of  Knowledge Economy had this topic in discussion for almost two years.  And they were willing to spending a couple of billions of dollars into their robotics industry as part of their long-term strategy to encourage people of South Korea make excellent use of robotics technology in their daily.  One of the arguments for this support is robots are meant to simplify so many labourious tasks people face so often such as cleaning your house and lawnmowing your back garden.  Or (my favourite) pick up your beer bottles from the fridge and open them for you! :)
But in all seriousness, Â here’s what they said further about their ambitious plans with robot friends in this article.
Call it WestWorld Lives! South Korea officials today said they hope to build two robot theme parks for $1.6 billion by 2013.
On the Korea.com Web site officials said they consider robotics to be one of South Korea’s key growth industries, emphasizing “service robots” that can clean homes and offer up entertainment. The robotics industry has grown about 40% a year since 2003, officials said.
The robot theme parks will be built in Incheon, and Masan, about 250 miles apart, officials said. The parks will feature a number of attractions that let visitors interact with robots and test new products. “The two cities will be developed as meccas for the country’s robot industry, while having amusement park areas, exhibition halls and stadiums where robots can compete in various events,” the ministry said.
Developing such theme parks are not big surprise as South Korea loves its robots. Earlier this year the government of South Korea said it was drawing up a code of ethics to prevent human abuse of robots-and vice versa.
The so-called Robot Ethics Charter will cover standards for robotics users and manufacturers, as well as guidelines on ethical standards to be programmed into robots, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy Perhaps there is a need for all this as the country’s Ministry of Information and Communication is working on plans to put a robot in every South Korean household by 2020. The new charter is part of an effort to establish ground rules for human interaction with robots in the future.
All of this naturally follows the news last week that at least one researcher is predicting that humans will be marrying robots by the year 2050 because of dramatic advances in the machines.
This sure came out at an interesting but unexpected disposition that another country is thinking about building their own mecha…
And this time it’s in South Korea.
I was browsing around for more interesting news and developments on mecha online. Â Thanks to Zotaku.com for this, IÂ ran into his blog post that explains to us how South Korea is going to respond to the recent robot project developments made by Japan.
And their answer is….
Taekwon IV Cover (Korean)
They’re going to come up a bigger robot (what else??!). It’s more than 5 times the height of Gundam in Tokyo (111 m vs 80 m). And it’ll be twice as tall as USA’s Statue of Liberty (111 m vs 46 m). Â Now that’s pretty massive!!!
And they’re planning to open up a ‘robot’ theme park called the “Robot Land”, in Incheon, which is like further southwest of Korea’s capital city, Seoul. Â Here’s the actual main link for it.
Now I realised this is no false claims as I’d thought it would sound. But after seeing a few factual links like this one, I’m starting to think this is going to be a very interesting development coming from a country whose IMO expert knowledge in robot-themed technology and entertainment is not as diverse as Japan’s. And they want to compete as hard as the Japanese counterparts in many things, including this!! I certainly admire for them taking this very seriously since their Government made several large (and costly) considerations to reserve money for building the theme.
What does everybody think? Do you think South Korea would have a good chance of pulling this one off?
