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Discovered on the ceiling of a greasy spoon in Kichijoji. What might our stalwart space pirate of a manga-ka have been discussing on the night of 3.28.1983? New projects? Old? Box-office receipts for Final Yamato, which premiered just a week before? Pending lawsuits against The Nish?
To paraphrase Son of Godzilla, "We call him Gimantis. Because he's giant, and, uh, a mantis." That, my friends, is science.
Confession: I plucked the hapless assassin bug from the web of a visibly irritated spider and fed it to Gimantis Jr. instead. Am I going to hell for this?
My latest Tokyo Eye segment has made it online. This time, I cover "art trucks" (a.k.a "Deco-tora" to those in the scene). If you've ever spent any time driving on Japanese highways, you've seen them. They're fabulously decorated cargo and work vehicles festooned in enough lights to rival a Vegas casino combined with spectacularly airbrushed ukiyo-e and kabuki motifs. No nekkid ladies on the mudflaps for these guys.
I'd expected to be thrown into the mix with some real truckers, but like so many other subcultures these days, the otaku are firmly in the driver's seat: the average art truck owner is more likely to be a well-heeled suburban thirtysomething living out dreams of being Bunta Sugawara on the weekends than an actual long-range hauler. So the original drivers who came up with the concept in the '60s gave rise to a series of films in the '70s that essentially define the scene as it exists today. What a tangled web we weave.
FOUND at a suburban Tokyo antiques fair! Disturbing evidence that a certain world-famous mouse who shall not be named has a seedier past than you might think.
There he is, spotted in some weird scene with a yokai monster. Proof of his connections to the occult? You be the judge.
Hmm... "Ano ne no ossan" translates into something like "Mr. You Know Who." And judging by that German army helmet, I don't think it's supposed to be Charlie Chaplin.
Here's what a certain "Duck" looks like when he's not on camera. The eyes... The EYES! We can only guess what sort of wacky antics he and "American Soldier" were up to in occupied Japan.
These are "karuta," cardboard trading cards produced in massive numbers in postwar Japan. They can be used in a variety of playground games, and decades ago, they were as popular as the likes of Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon today. They featured a wide range of imagery, often appropriated totally without permission, and were sold in sheets, which you can see in their original forms here and here. (Dig other American favorites like "Popai" and Tarzan in that second one.)
Karuta are related to a similarly copyright-bending genre of cards called "menko," which tend to be round. (As you can see from this link, they remained popular well into the '80s. That "ET" still gives me the creeps.)
Make it Suntory time, with these amazing Japanese whiskey commercials from the '80s. They just don't make 'em like this anymore. Muchas gracias to my pal Arai-san for cluing me in to these.
First, your daily dose of culture. Woodblock-print designs animated and set to Mahler:
Now they start getting weirder. This one's a circus sideshow, complete with a little person dressed like an angel, a corpulent fire-eater and a knife-thrower hurling blades into a volume of Rimbaud. It's downright Lynchian. This is what the inside of your head looks like after a couple of Suntory Royal highballs.
Best for last. An Anton Gaudi building in Barcelona is inexplicably invaded by a series of kaijin that look like they stepped out of an episode of Kamen Rider. "What truly makes us drunk," intones the apparently oblivious narrator, "is LIFE." Now THAT'S what I call Suntory Time.
Part one of the interview Hiroko and I conducted with director Shinji Aramaki is now available in its entirety here on the Otaku USA magazine website. As a prelude to discussing his film work in part two, here we focus largely on Aramaki's influences and early years as a toy designer for Takara and Artmic.
The late, lamented Artmic is legendary in anime circles, yet remains all but unknown outside of die-hard fans. But if you spent your Saturday mornings glued to the TV in the Eighties, chances are they had more of an impact on your life than you realize. In addition to creating Japanese hits like "Mospeda" and "Bubblegum Crisis," they freelanced their skills to American TV production companies, designing characters, vehicles, and backgrounds for fare including M.A.S.K., the Captain Power game videotapes, DinoSaucers, Pole Position, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Starcom, and The Real Ghostbusters. Now that we live in an era when nearly everyone has some familiarity with anime design motifs, the origins are obvious, but it flew under the radar of most Americans at the time. It's yet another example of the subtle and surprising degree of influence Japanese anime has had on people across the world. And man, if those theme songs don't make you want to bust out your "parachute pants," nothing will.
Part two focuses on Appleseed Ex Machina. Look for it in issue #4 of Otaku USA Magazine, due out in December!
Ultra Q "Garamon" and "Pegira," manufactured by Marusan circa 1967, discovered in a friend's closet and treated to a long-deserved night on the town.
To whoever put this clip up on Google Video: this IS something the God of Biomechanics will let you into heaven for.
Move over, "Ex Machina": the 1988 live-action Appleseed Special Prologue is a sci-fi spectacle to die for. The saxophones! The clumsy-looking, cross-eyed Briareos! The bored-looking blonde gaijin who looks like she's taking a break from "Diff'rent Strokes" to play Deunan! Doin' a drive-by in Odaiba with uzis! Along with the legendary Nutrocker, this is one of the pure, glittering moments of Eighties otakudom. Enjoy it while you can.
Produced as PR for the 1988 Appleseed anime OVA, it's the brainchild of legendary producer Takami Akai, of late forced to resign from Gainax for posting disparaging remarks about anime fans on the Japanese BBS system 2ch (to wit, that it's "like putting his face next to an anus and inhaling deeply.")
Kawaii "working characters" -- and a shout-out for Hello, Please! -- abound in this segment I filmed in Kichijoji for NHK's Tokyo Eye show. Check it out here! And for those of you who prefer YouTube, looks like it's been posted there as well.
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