AnimeNation Anime News Blog

CG animator & director Rodrigo Blaas has made his award winning short animated film Alma available online for a limited time this Christmas season. Check it out while you can.

Source: Twitch

The following was provided by a friend presently living in Japan.

Macross Frontier The Movie: The False Songstress wildly exceeded all expectations and established itself as the best mecha theatrical motion picture since 1984’s Macross: Do You Remember, Love. I would have been pleased with a TV footage recap movie with a handful of new cuts, but instead I was presented with a new remake of the TV series with 95% brand-new animation and the remaining 5% coming from small tidbits of in between TV animation which already looked very good. And the animation is spectacular: once again Macross proves it shall always display the most fluid and exciting sexy mecha action in all of animedom. The concert footage of Sheryl and Ranka is unique and extremely vivid. Ranka’s string of promotional events, including a botched one for natto and Akiba in Macross Frontier was very amusing, though I confess some disappointment that Family Mart paid advertising money to have their store be the location of a key scene yet did no real life crossover Macross promotion.

At 130 minutes, the film is long, but it has to strip much of the story and marginalize the supporting cast, choosing to focus heavily on Alto, Sheryl, and Ranka. The moé-parody Zentradi girl really gets the shaft here, as she’s only in two scenes – the first as a background character with no lines and the second looking for her boyfriend on the battlefield. I hope they give her a new scene on the home video version because it doesn’t make sense for her introductory scene to be an emotional one that assumes viewers know and relate to her. Though the film is loud and exciting, I foresee some fans complaining that the only real mecha battles occur at the beginning and end of the film – this film is primarily a character drama with an added mystery of whether or not Sheryl is a spy from Galaxy included to buoy the dramatic tension. But I loved this DYRL x Eva 2.0 and eagerly look forward to its sequel: The Wings of Goodbye.

Fujita Shinichi, who co-wrote the screenplay for director Yuji Shimomura’s 2005 fantasy action film Death Trance, has helmed a 17 minute fantasy action film titled Yassy. Experienced action choreographer and director Shimomura supervised the short’s action sequences. Japanese film distributor Arthit has released the entire short film to YouTube, split into two parts (part one, part two). Arthit also offers the film as a high quality Quicktime stream.

Source: Twitch

In the apparent next evolution of the voice synthisization software popularized by Yamaha’s Vocaloid program, AHS software is set to release its “Voiceroid” software program on December 4th. The program, available in male and female versions, synthsizes speech as spoken by fictional children mascots Tsukuyomi Shota (boy) and Tsukuyomi Ai (girl). Audio samples are available.

Voiceroid Tsukuyomi Shota sample

Voiceroid Tsukuyomi Ai sample

The possibilities for this software are vast, and many of them are morally unnerving.

Our Spanish speaking readers may want to check out María José Morteyrú’s fantasy & anime themed web radio program Guerreros Del Universo.

One of the fictional in-game TV channels in the upcoming Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City video game will roll a satirical add for the anime series “Princess Robot Bubblegum.” Check it out below. The game hits stores this Thursday.

Article provided by Daniel Zelter

The trailer for Watchm… er, Watashi Desu wa, the latest film from director Morita Yoshimitsu, has premiered. The film is a gentle drama about a young woman moving home from Tokyo to rural Hakodate, Hokkaido. Hakodate happens to be one of Japan’s major producer/exporters of squid, so the Hakodate Tourism Board decided to playfully alter the Watashi Desu wa trailer by adding in invading alien squid, spaceships, and giant robots. The edited trailer is the latest video clip in the Hakodate Tourism Board’s Project Ika-R promotional effort to make invading alien squid a regional mascot.

The sci-fi elements in this trailer do not appear in the actual movie. They’ve been edited into the trailer as a joke.

The movie looks much more fun with the squid than without.

Source: Twitch

The ending animation of Sora no Otoshimono episode 2.

Source: Itai News

Cosplayer Peter Kokis dropped us a line about the impressive Transformers Bumblebee costume he created and wore in the June 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade.

What else needs said?

Source: (Cool) Shite on the Tube

Animator John Kricfalusi has added some rough Tezuka inspired doodles to his blog.

Article provided by Daniel Zelter

For those that have been to Tokyo, or those just interested in the ‘land of anime’ culture, here’s some very cool video of Shibuya. Be sure to check out the poster’s other videos by following the link below as well.

Shibuya Final Bargain Sale from James T. Kirk on Vimeo.

The rice farmers of Inakadate, Japan have taken to expressing their artistic creativity, and creating a tremendous tourist attraction, by selectively planting different varieties of rice in patterns that create giant images. This is just neat! The The Daily Mail hosts more photos and further explanation.

While snooping around the net I recently bumped into the Flash animated feline anti-hero Ankoku Cat (officially translated as “Dark Cat”). This amusing series of short web anime about the self-serving heroic villain Dark Cat and his friend Kiki is available in two varieties. The regular Ankoku Cat series has 6 six minute episodes so far while the spin-off Ankoku Cat VS first episode is a little bit shorter and English friendly. The regular series episodes are in untranslated Japanese, but they’re not difficult to follow.

Ankoku Cat episode 1
Ankoku Cat episode 2
Ankoku Cat episode 3
Ankoku Cat episode 4
Ankoku Cat episode 5
Ankoku Cat episode 6

Ankoku Cat VS episode 1