Was just browsing online and going through several online articles on new exciting developments of giant robot shows going on this year. Especially there’s one upcoming in May.

Gurren Lagann.net recently announced their Gurren Lagann Parallel Works 2 Project are releasing their music videos to the public on 26th May 2010 since their trailer debut as below.

What is it is that it’s a collection all music videos that retell the story of Gurren Lagann in an alternate universe. And they did this previously back in 2008 when they first began the previous project as Gurren Lagann Parallel Works. (hence for the header image I have at the top of this post, which is not the correct reflection for this post btw!! ).  See 2008 trailer below.

According to its site, there are about 7 music videos in the series.  Here their are with their background song titles and characters.

The sense of wonder - Akemi Hayashi

Ore no XXX wa Uchū Hitotsu - Gekidan Inu Curry

Sayonara Dai Gurren - Shouko Nishigaki

Big Building - Ayumu Kotake, Shintarou Douge

Kiyal no Magical Time, Sanpun Mae - Satoru Yamaguchi

Gunmen Symphonia - Shouji Saeki, Shingo Abe

Kitan Zero - Sushio

If you want to find out more, check out the home page of Gurren-Lagann.net.

NB: All images above are sourced from Gurren-Lagann.net. They are not owned by me.

Source:  Gurren Lagann.net, Animenewsnetwork.com,

After reading this post in twitter,  I started to think myself how can the guy in the video really want to take over with the world with this so-called giant robots.   If you’re really planning to take over whole world with giant robots, then start working ahead towards being an actual scientist, rather than be a make-believe giant robot scientist wannabe! :-/

Source: Tonydyson.com, Youtube.com

I know this one’s out for some time now. Hope they’re still selling them…

Gundam sure has its way of celebrating its 30th anniversary in the business so they decided to have this promotional noodle cup featuring Gundam!

Gundam Noodle Cup

And if you check with CartoonLeap’s ‘unpackaging‘ of the noodlle cup, you will see the wonderful colours of yummy noodle treat this cup comes with! All yellow and filled with low-MSG goodness! (I think) :)

Also, I ran into another Youtube video on Japanese ad that’s trying to sell their noodle bowls featuring one of the Gundam Mobile Suit’s original character, Amuro Ray.

See below! The expression on Amuro Ray’s face (after he’s got ‘overwhelmed’ by the sheer presence of the ominous Gundam Noodle bowl) looks priceless! :D

Source: CartoonLeap.com, HobbyBlog

Oh Wow!

It just occurred to me that Tokyo Game Show 2009 happened over the weekend whilst I was away at my friend’s place for fun, food and games amongst with other busy things I’m involved with lately. Looks like I’d better get into the scoop and see what fun I missed…

After watching the video below, I expected nothing less of the game show. Lots, lots of promotional stands on the latest video games on all platforms, developed by various international software companies of the world. Some big ones like Microsoft, Capcom, EB, Activision etc etc. And compared to the experience I had with other cultural expos that revolves travel, wines, food (and anime of course) in NZ, this was massive, off the charts.

It’s definitely a very, very, very (and I do mean) very wide space of a video games ‘playground’, where people of all walks of life come together to frolick themselves to their utmost content for hours.

Here are some of the latest video game trailers you may be interested to view. (Well they are my personal interests to me, because I’m fan of big guys game makers like Capcom, Koei and Konami)

Final Fantasy XIV

Metal Gear Online

Sengoku Musou 3 (by Koei: makers of Dynasty Warriors Series)

Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll (by Koei: Makers of Dynasty Warriors Series)

Tatsunoko vs Capcom Allstars

The last trailer was interesting one because it featured certain characters that have mecha-esque characteristics. One of them was a giant robot called Gold Lightan, a very popular super robot show from the early 80s and he’s selectable fighter in the game (from the looks of it). Anyone who’s got Gold Lightan as a favourite super robot series from those early days? I wish it was. But they never aired it back in Malaysia.

And….

I found out that our anime enthusiast idol ‘legend’, Danny Choo, recently received a photo of a giant Gundam’s head (which was disassembled a few weeks ago) been put on a display at the Tokyo Game Show! See the link below.

http://www.dannychoo.com/fusion/en/5750/TGS+Report+Gundam+Head.html

How tragic it is! For them to do something like that! Unspeakable!

Source: CartoonLeap.com, DannyChoo.com

Now we’ve witnessed the closing (and disassembly) of the 1/1 scale Gundam in Odaiba since the beginning of this month, I began to wonder about the last 30 years of great success Gundam franchise has enjoyed and how special it oughta be expressing to tell everyone in anime industry business that they’re still in good shape for so long.

Personally, I never was a major Gundam fan during the last 29 and ½ years of my human life.  Only more recently,  I get more involved in making myself a Gundam model after buying it off from an anime exhibit.  And I must admit.  I really do like it. :)  I could get used to this.

And because Tomino Yoshiyuki (the godfather of Gundam) convinced me Gundam has that everlasting appeal to kids and adults of all ages could like and having aplenty of fun with them, I decide to find a good video that truly celebrates its 30th anniversary in this line of business both Sunrise and Bandai certainly have enjoyed.

Some days later…

On last Tuesday, I finally did it.  I found this.

This is probably the most comprehensive, most complete video that ever encapsulates every wonderful marvel of Gundam franchise’s achievements over the last three decades.  I couldn’t find anything similar on Youtube channels. Even if I did, they weren’t as commemorative as this.  It goes on explaining about how the show began in the late 70s, and how that was the starting point for all future Gundam shows it’s going to be modelled everytime new series is produced.  It highlights all of its series in a chronological order that were made in the last 30 years and I’m sure many Gundam fans (old and new) out there would find it refreshing and nostalgic to revisit these.  The characters, the plot, the stories, the myths, the Gundam technology… Old and new.  Everything.

With its ever-lasting appeal of  its anime and growing toy market in Japan and the rest of the world, and its endearing iconic status as Japan’s “mascot”, as part of pop culture, the series would sure flourish well for another 30 years.

Looks like I have a lot of catching up to do during that timespan.  This is going to be fun.

Enjoy the video!

Source: Tudou.com

Checked this news link from SRW News blog.

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).

Source: SRW News, Gundam-VS.jp

It was one particular night last Tuesday.  And I was just tweaking my Twitter setup and there’s this twitter follower by the name of  ’The Obedient Robot’.  He’s got a blog of his own apparently.  Clearly, his blog theme is everything but robot inside and out, after I checked his link.

As I scrolled down, I stumbled upon a funny Youtube video about a decepticon that know how to breakdance so well, like any ordinary good breakdancer would normally do!  Check his groovy moves!!

And when you’re done with that, check out this other funny Transformers dance video by the leader of the Autobots! Optimus Prime! A complete parody of the Evolution Dance video (viewed as the greatest Youtube viewing numbers of all time)!

I would just imagine if this one comes available in the Dance Evolution games series…. ^^

Source: TheObedientRobot.blogspot.com, Youtube.com

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.  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.

Bandai producers are set to release its first season of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 series on DVD by 27th October 2009. These DVDs will have 3 feature-length movie videos which were compressed from the 25-episode saga during its first season. The titles of the video volumes are as follows:

These are also available on Blu Ray discs and Sony PSP UMD Video format as well. They’re said to contain many features such as the usual audio documentary tracks, press release videos and anime credits to the production crew of the series. It also includes some new animated sequences and new dialogues that are different to the original TV series.

This is great stuff.

And here’s the Youtube video clip of the Gundam 00 Trailer launched less than a year ago.

Source: Animenewsnetwork.com, Animejapan.jp, AV Watch

A new Evangelion film “Eva 2.0: You can(not) Advance” reached on all cinema complexes in Japan. And so far, the reception of the film has nothing short of expectation for the fans of the 90s anime cult classic. It climbed to the number 1 spot ranking at the Japanese Box Office after its first weekend performance and hundreds or thousands of people reckon it was a great film to watch. Obviously, this is quite a major celebration for the die-hard fans who adores the film as well as the return of their favourite characters, Shinji, Ikari, Asuka, Misato and the others back onto the screen again. Only this time, there are minor differences between the old TV series and the new movie threatre as the new one heightens the quality and clarity of cinematic scenes at such great detail.

Unfortunately, any fans or otakus who don’t live in Japan would be disappointed to miss out everthing unless there are truly desparate wanting to watch it, can travel to the Animotion Film Festival in Brohn, Germany this year. The festival runs from July 21st to 2nd August.

Well…. as if I can make such arrangements to travel all the way there just to watch the film and come back! It wouldn’t be very rational thing to do (although not impossible). I wonder whether this film ever comes out in our New Zealand anime conventions….