AltJapan

Big Ma.K.

French comic-book colorist Walter created these faux-vintage custom packages for several of Kow Yokoyama's Machinen Krieger mecha. Here's the "Krachenvogel," Matchbox style:

And here's the "Raptor," in the Aurora vein. I love the detail in this one:

Machinen Krieger, a.k.a. "Ma.K.," is powered-suit porn. Yokoyama's egg-shaped exoskeletons and organic-looking robots are a constant presence in the Japanese sci-fi scene, a weird combo of German "wonder weapon" chic fused with a classic otaku aesthetic. Rumor has it that the president of Nike has a life-sized specimen, similar to this one, on display in his home.

Super $6.99 Robot

If you're one of the poor souls who hasn't had the good fortune of reading Super #1 Robot: Japanese Robot Toys 1972 - 1982 yet, now's your chance, because Amazon's having a great sale at the moment.

I haven't touched on Super #1 Robot much here, as it came out in 2005, several years before I kicked off this blog. It grew out of writings I did for ToyboxDX, particularly research for the Datafiles. It briefly covers the evolution of the Japanese toy industry from producing simple vinyl figures to more complex diecast metal and eventually extraordinarily engineered "fully transforming" toys of the sort that indirectly kicked off the Transformers fad.

As the guy who pretty much just wrote the text for what's a very image-oriented book, I was for the most part along for the ride as Tim Brisko sweated his way through taking and then cleaning up hundreds and hundreds of photos. The book took around two years from Tim's and my original proposal to completion, with both Tim and Robert Duban, who joined us later, criss-crossing the USA to shoot collections in Boston, Seattle, and Los Angeles. Stuff from our own collections was photographed at Tim's home studio in Texas.

Robert played an invaluable role as both an editor of my text and as a "robot sommelier" during shoots, serving up the selections and acting as "toy wrassler" during Tim's jaunts into the wilds of collectordom. (Unlike poor Steve Irwin, Robert suffered many a rocket punch to the chest without injury.) Robert also masterminded the organization of the robots, helped me brainstorm English show and robot names (believe me, there's no official translation for shows like "Super Magical Combining Robo Gingaizer"), and also single-handedly pulled off the feat of making the index. (That we shoehorned a mention of the "Russo-Japanese War" into the index of a book about robot toys is still a point of pride.)

For my part I had it easy in front of the keyboard, sending in drafts for text and captions, with occasional forays into the city to negotiate with people to do the afterword (tracking down former Bullmark and Ark founder Saburo Ishizuki was a real coup for all of us) and trying to fill holes in our collection by searching for rarities at one of Tokyo's many vintage toy shops.

What can I say? That's a lot of drama for the low, low price of $6.99.

Mod Squad

The Kennedy Center's Japan: Culture + Hyperculture exhibition kicks off on February 6th, and I've been invited to moderate the "Robots in Japanese Science Fiction" panel discussion between Fred Schodt (author of the Astro Boy Essays) and Tim Hornyak (author of Loving the Machine). It's going to be held February 9th at 3 p.m. on the Millenium Stage. Best part: admission is free! C'mon down and check it out if you live near D.C. -- and get an eyeful of Jumbo Machinder while you're at it.

Dan Dan Dan

Three attempts by three people at drawing Dangard Ace without any visual reference. Yeah, yeah -- could you really have done any better?

Incidentally: caught the box art for the DVD box sets? Here's Volume 1. And here's Volume 2. Great stuff.

Eye-O-Rama

Supersexy photo taken by Patrick on the set of the NHK show Tokyo Eye. This week's segment is all about building super-detailed dioramas. I invade the lair of Tatsuya Kaneko, master modelbuilder, to learn the art. Check it out on terrestrial digital subchannel 3 in Japan or on NHK World abroad. Click here for air dates and times.

Anime Hotliner

At the sound of the tone, the time will be January 1st, 1983.

And what better way to celebrate than reading the New Years issue of Anime Magazine My Anime (motto, in case you weren't quite with the program: "My Anime For You"). Three uses of the word "anime" in the first handful of words on the cover. It appears to be some sort of fascinating new trend among the youth of Japan.

These "animes" are apparently purchased for viewing on Betamax tapes. Price: over a hundred frickin' dollars.

Famous American rockers support anime, like "THE" Keith Emerson, who provided the score for a little film called "Harmageddon." Text: "Set to open in theaters across Japan this March, the production cast a wide net for talent. Many would-be voice actors competed in the semi-finals of the 'Night Drama House Amateur Voice Talent Contest '82,' held this past November 14th in the Nakano Sunplaza" (ironically, only meters away from where this issue of My Anime was excavated.)

I can't decide if this inexplicably placed ad for Mitsui Bank makes me want to save or spend, spend, spend, but come to think of it I could use a new pair of legwarmers.

"You can also 'enjoy' figures this way!" boasts the caption.

The editorial department slogs through a marathon American Saturday morning cartoon lineup! How did we stack up in comparison to Japan's "anime"? "American cartoons all star... little kids?!"

Sample reviews: "'Pac-Man' is animated by Hanna-Barbera. In the story, the inhabitants of 'Pac-Land' consume mysterious drugs called 'power pills.' Then there's this show called 'Scooby and Scrappy-Doo.' It's about two dogs." Anime, eat your heart out...

Meet the Plamodels

Forget Gunpla. These vintage Nichimo kits from the '70s prove that even glue-sniffin' model builders can ROCK.

"Rin rin" and "Ran Ran," aka Letilia and Katharine Barber, on the package for a pair of tiny guitars. Looks like they're fresh out of the studio session for their 1974 hit Indian Doll of Love:

Yokai-like, faceless rockers take the stage on this aptly named drum kit:

You rank Kenji Sawada's "Tigers" right up there with the Beatles too, I'm sure.

Idol 1.0: Hideki Saijo is an early-Seventies teen sensation who came up together with pal Go Hiromi (of Japanese-language "Livin La Vida Loca" fame). Nevermind the fact he wasn't a sax player. You know him as the dude who did the Japanese version of the Village People's "YMCA."

Eat Me

Smiling in the face of certain oblivion, these greenhouse-raised Tara-no-me shoots await a painful death in boiling water atop our stovetop. They're a type of sansai, or mountain vegetable, of the sort that Hiroko and I hunt for in the mountains when the snows start to melt in spring.

Go! Go! Second Time Yokai

Under the mask, nobody can hear you scream. It's true -- that's the first thing they told us when they handed out our gear.

Good news: Takashi Miike's "Yokai Daisenso," a.k.a. "The Great Yokai War," will be shown on February 17th at the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles (in a double-bill with "Zebraman," no less.)

You know what this means, right? It's your big chance to see Hiroko and I on the big screen. (That's her above. No, not the woman. The frog in the kimono.) We played several extras in the film -- see some more photos right here. Or read the set reports we sent to Patrick here and here.

Designer Dharma

If you've spent any time at all in Japan, or even in a Japanese restaurant, chances are you're familiar with those roly-poly paper-maché dolls known as daruma.

Seen one daruma, seen 'em all -- or so I thought until Hiroko and I stumbled across these insanely customized specimens. They were on sale in the shopping arcade behind Jindai-ji temple in Mitaka on New Year's Day. From left to right, they're an Oni (demon) daruma, a Jack O' daruma, and a kappa (water goblin) daruma. (Click to see 'em stoopid huge.)

It turns out that they were handcrafted by Shin Tsuzuki, a former assistant to manga-ka Suihō Tagawa, creator of the prewar classic Norakuro. Tsuzuki takes regular daruma, sands the features down, adds more paper-maché, and repaints them to create one-of-a-kind customs.

We grabbed the three above, but they were only the tip of the iceberg -- Tsuzuki was on a daruma-customizing bender last year. Check out the yuki-daruma, the sea lion-daruma, the alien-daruma, and my personal favorite, the pixelated mosaic-daruma, apparently the patron saint of Japanese porn companies. Gotta get 'em all!