I was supposed to blog post this yesterday. However, had experienced major problems with my internet broadband due to an major outage around my neighbourhood, so had to leave it till now.
After reading off this Danny Choo’s newsfeed, it worries me for a long while now that Japan’s having one of the lowest birthrates in the world means they’re going to be ‘wiped’ off from this side of the planet, if the government doesn’t do something about it, at this level of urgency. And one of their proposed solution was to manufacture more robots.
Is this right? Is this way forward for Japan’s future of saving its dying population?
Here’s the Youtube documentary video link below to give you a better idea what’s being said…
Macross: Do you remember love(DYLR)?’s founding composer, Kazuhiko Katoh, recently died. He died by committing suicide, hanging himself in his hotel department. Few sources of information suggest any strong reasoning why he’s motivated to kill himself. The only clue left behind by him are his two copies of a will on the table before he hung himself.
They mentioned that this man not only composed the unforgettable theme song, Do you Remember Love?(“Ai , Oboeteimasu ka?”) for the Macross film, but also responsible for launching a Japanese band to tour around UK in the 70s! The first of its kind.
This is the most distressing news indeed.
And many people in MyAnimeList forum were trying to figure out what and why caused his sudden ‘departure’ from this world of anime business he’s in. Especially his involvement with Macross as one of his outstanding achievements during his 20-30 year career!
It makes no utter sense why he had to go.
Do you really think, given his age, and after all what he’s done for Macross, that he oughta take his own life just because he found something ‘uncomforting’ about the will he read on the desk? Surely, the last step to take his own life was a bit too drastic to make a foregone conclusion….
Adding more woes to Japan’s anime industry, one of the prolific anime companies is expected to get delisted from Tokyo Stock Exchange as of July 30, 2009. The news did not suggest a possible receivership could surface from this anytime soon, but rather the company’s trying to hang on tight in this difficult market conditions of the industry. Financial records show total liabilities exceeded total assets for the fiscal year ending March 2008. Though it doesn’t say how much is the difference but from the sounds of things, things have not been improved since their last performance back in March 2008. They were given another chance to turn things around, but it didn’t happen that way. Which also means in the future, all of their anime project works would be poised to closure or ceased including the mecha anime works they did recently; Full Metal Panic and Transformers Cybertron.
This is most disturbing news indeed. And who knows how long can this recession bite before it claims another victim in the anime industry. Gonzo is the subsidiary company of GDH, and GDH also take interests in another sister company of Gonzo that focuses on online gaming services called Gonzo Ronso.
