Sunrise is going to bring back one of the great 80s classic mecha anime show back into this modern century.
Armored Trooper Votoms is here! THEY’RE BACK!
A new promotional video of this classic series is out!
And after a while, I was browsing for it on Youtube yesterday… And lo and behold, I found it!
This is fantastic! And with only less than 30 days to go, it’s going to be one heck of an exciting ride to relive the essence of 80s great anime classics!!^^
Reading the latest news feeds from Animenewsnetwork.com, our favourite hero of the great anime classics is experience a ‘major’ fault with his rocket-powered legs which prevents him from skyrocketing at the top of the USA box office charts.
Astro Boy Movie
The US $65-million film by Imagi earned nearly US $18 million after remaining in the cinemas for almost four weeks now. It’s ranked from its 10th place to 13th last week. Think the American audience’s feedback was generally harsh with it? Don’t know. Hard to say. I heard sources from online reviews saying the film has several cliché themes were overused especially (spoilers!) in the middle and end. That could explain why it contributes to its drop. But I doubted it’s got anything to do with the plot’s weakness in telling its own unique story as compared to the original so one wouldn’t expect too much originality in its perfect form, even for the hardcore fans. It’s an adapted film after all.
Find out more info about its US Box office ranks and its comparison with other films.
It sure has been pretty busy week for me. Not much posting going on as I recently got a new job last week since my last job at my last company was made redundant some weeks ago. So plenty of time has been put focus in getting used to my new work environment, learning to get to know your new work colleagues, getting used to having a public transport to get to work (takes about 90 minutes by car, that doesn’t even include the time to find a car park!!!)
Which now brings me back to my attention on what’s been going in the anime world since my absence.
Yes! As you probably know by now, Astro Boy has finally made into the cinemas worldwide just almost three days ago. And in the USA, it sure did get a positive reception after reading this page from SkyNews.
I just read its movie review, done by an American writer, who’s clearly a movie-junkie if you traceback his review source, and (SPOILERS ALERT) I find his final conclusion on Astro Boy being less disingenuous than its orginal TV series run seemed a little harsh to deserve such a low grade. Though I yet to see the film to find his comments are fair justifiable, I would think the movie have a different emphasis on the importance of family bonds and how this film challenges that due to Dr Tenma, father of Astro Boy, rejecting him as his son despite his compassionate efforts in reviving his dead son he used to dearly love(which gives the reason for Astro Boy’s existence in the first place!). At least, that’s what Nicolas Cage mentioned in his comments from this LA Times’ post.
So there are different intangible things people look for when watching this 50-year iconic character on the silverscreens. Whether it’s fun for kids or getting to know the character in depth, I’m sure for all the while, it’s definitely entertaining to watch.
Guess, I have to wait till early January (New Zealand’s release date is 21st Jan) next year to write up my take on this.
It would seem that there’s going to be a huge line of Namco Bandai’s games at the game expo many avid game fans would love to get their hands on, including this one for the Gundam lovers called Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus.
Image copyrighted by SRW News Blog.
Looks mighty impressive. And if you look at its main page, you’ll see it’s just a huge advert page mentioning about its PSP game release by 3rd December 2009, currently retailing at 6279 Yen (USD $69).
While I was browsing around the forum on GearsOnline.net, there’s a link that intrigues me a lot….
It says here that a few years ago, there’s a group of Chinese students in China who’s expended their incredible amount of time and energy dedicated in designing a 1/500 scale Macross SDF-1 battleship. Â See below.
NB: The images are owned by AcToys.net and there’s no way these belong to me in any shape or form. The images are copyrighted by the rightful owner.
I admire their focus and energy in putting all their efforts in making this. Really enthusiastic bunch!
Thanks to the user Rubel Colus for sharing us this link at GearsOnline.net!
Been browsing on this chap’s link for quite some time now.
It’s a pretty good link on everything people want to discover the amazing world on super robot wars franchise, everything from music, models, games and picture covers.
I noticed that some of the pictures uploaded there are the sources of Hobby Japan Magazine, just like this 40th Anniversary cover I got (which I’m still in the process of finding the time to upload photos from the book!)
Hobby Japan Mag - 40th Anniversary Edition
And I’ve been meaning to make a humble request to have his blog as part of my blogroll. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have an email or other possible contacts to get in touch with. And I just added him to my blogroll anyway.
And then what should happen next, if relationship gets successful? Get married?!?
Whoa! Now that’s uber freaky+
A few weeks back, after reading this link at CartoonLeap.com, it’s gotten me into the state of contemplation that begs this serious question. Are we humans really incapable of making love to their own kind, but yet we do this better with our virtual counterpart? With this in mind, I researched the incredible fascination with people in this ´niche´ hobby that they would be keenly open for the possibility of having marriage with their inanimate objects such as this.
Humans could marry robots within the century. And consummate those vows.
“My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots,” artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience. Levy recently completed his Ph.D. work on the subject of human-robot relationships, covering many of the privileges and practices that generally come with marriage as well as outside of it.
At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, “but once you have a story like ‘I had sex with a robot, and it was great!’ appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I’d expect many people to jump on the bandwagon,” Levy said
After reading further on this subject, I find it difficult to envisage how on earth as human beings would want to experience this kind of relationship or platonic love? I mean I am fascinated with robots but not this much to the extent of having to marry one. So wouldn’t this freak you out if someone suggests to you to marry someone of that nature?
It’s been over 25 years since Macross Super Dimension Fortress (SDF) appeared on our tiny television sets, broadcasting after school hours. And technology were not that advanced as compared to today’s.
It’s amazing to note while I was googling through web pages on Macross, I keep thinking back about the sweet melodic voice of the singer-actor who’s the one that made the series such a masterpiece worth the while to remember. It was the same strong reason why and how I got so hooked into super robot and mecha anime since then. The story, the action, the the drama, the planes-turn-to-robot sequences. Everything… I absolutely adore it. And so sure for other fans worldwide as well, including the ones from the unrelated disjointed Robotech series.
Japanese singer, Mari Ijima, the sweet 19 year-old-then girl, who lent such incredible voice when she went for the audition in the set of Macross to sing the main theme of the series as part of the selection process just like what they did with Sakamoto Maaya in Macross Frontier.
If you play from above clip, listening from beginning till the end, I would find it hard not to ever get tranced by its deep, soothing voice of Mari. It’s spellbound. Â In my humble opinion. And that’s the greatest winning formula that sealed the Macross series’ fate as the greatest anime of all time that’s ever produced in anime history. Shoji Kawamori pulled out all the best works into Macross franchise and having Mari dragged in seemed like it was the best investment he’s ever made. Have a look at this 1984 live footage of her singing “Ai Oboete imasuka (Do you remember love)”.
That was Mari in his her late teens before hitting major stardom.
25 years later, this is her now…
Okay. It’s quite an appearance change from her sweet 19 years of age to her today’s present form. She looks though as if she’s keeping up to the fashion trends of modern casual clothing (and she’s even wearing a sports beanie). Guess you’re never too old to wear anything that’s super trendy and fashionable of today, even for Mari. Come to think of it, looking at Mari Ijima in her new video clip, she hardly ever ages at all! Honestly, in general sense without sounding too stereotypical, asian women usually look younger than their actual ages compared to other women in from other races. That means her voice is still keeping strong and fresh as ever!
I say ‘Bravo’ to her! I’m glad she’s moving ahead in times and she’s handling very well. The above video Mari was playing a piano, was held at the Rock and Jazz Live Festival in 2008 where she gave her singing performances on all her songs, mostly in English, since she moved to USA many years ago to learn English. She moved so she could launch her music career in the hopes to find greater fame and fortune thanks to the success of Macross, which was responsible for making her life possible till now.
As soon as I read this RSS link feed from the CartoonLeap.com, I was completely left flabbergasted and stunned. I never would imagine that Hollywood producers would be seriously considering this as the next potential for bringing all the retro kids’ TV programmes onto the big screens.
Well…. For me. They’re not just any kid programme. They’re the super cool programmes that gets people in my generation talking about it for years.
Seriously! We’ve seen so many DC and Marvel comic characters and superheroes being brought to life into Hollywood films in the last 4-5 years as part of Hollywood’s business strategy to entice the demographics from the comic book industry, seen as a niche market (and being successful, nonetheless). And now they’re pursuing this? Retro classic cartoon robots?
Goodness. If there is such thing as a twist of fate in my life’s journey with cartoon robots, I gotta say I’m lucky to know my blog turns out to be a blessing.
Voltron Wall Poster
After watching the lion-combining-into-robot-Voltron sequence (see Youtube clip below) over and over again, nostalgism soon became my best friend. :) Sweet old childhood memories of my former life starting to resurface, and they instantly flashed right before my very own eyes. It had me thinking, “Did those robotic ‘cats’ really did merge into one big robot?” Each of them transform into a limb of an arm, leg and a body. I never thought of it that way before. But back then it was so absolutely cool. Revolutionary even! In that form. Oughta give credit to Go Nagai’s Getter Robo with the combine concept. If this is the beginning of many retro robot shows getting a major revival or a comeback, then there’s gotta be endless excitement with the developments of old-school mecha that will keep old school mecha fan happy-tappy. New mecha fans should get into it as well. They gotta love it.
Which begs me another question in regard of this new project developments Hollywood are planning to do. Some suggest Michael Bay to provide some ‘directorship’ influence on the Voltron film. But to me, I’m thinking why…? Why not somebody else this time? We’ve already seen him making two Transformers film (and now a third one coming. ) So why should he taking another retro-robot movie adaption project again, even though it’s a different title. After all, they are so many talented directors out there in the US showbusiness like Martin Scorcese, Steven Spielberg, Sam Raimi etc.
Sam Raimi? Now that’s my kinda pick for good Voltron movie director. I wish.
After all, Michael shouldn’t have all the fun with this. Let other directors have a go with them.
That would be an awesome idea. Â I mean it may not necessarily be practical to have it every morning just when you want to grab a quick coffee during your ten minute break, but it sure helps a lot just when you have days you just need to be lazy and want someone to do it for you.
Or in this case, it’s something.
This latest wacky invention from Japan has several AI programming nodes up in its circuits which will allow him to do all the steps required when making a great coffee. You can check the Youtube video from his post at Hardwaresphere.com and see how incredibly (in single quote) smart the robot really is when detecting the objects that it needs to make great cup of coffee. It’s utterly amazing to watch!
