For last year's Anime Fest, I tried really hard to catch up on my anime fandom. I haven't regularly watched anime since high school, so I tried to cram my brain with Bleach and Claymore and all that mess, and I still felt totally lost once I got to the con.
So this year, I just said, sca-rew it, I'm just going to take pictures whether I know who these people are supposed to be or not. And the results were about the same. If any actual anime fans are reading this, feel free to let me know who's who in the comments. And non-anime Gnerd fans will find a lot of videogame costumes as well, so stick around.
Since there are Stormtroopers at every convention anywhere, let's get that out of the way first.
Video game costumes, perv costumes, and so much more, after the jump...
Saw tons of these screw-head guys, this guy wore it pretty well.
Here's the kendo battle area, where participants were assigned random matches. Pretty cool. I wish they did this sort of thing at Star Wars conventions.
This is pretty awesome and expensive looking.
I recognize these guys, but I don't know from where. Someone help me out. UPDATE: Reader arashi points out the cardboard guy is Danbo from Yatsubato.
Monkey from One Piece. Gnerd contributor Bishop told me that.
Very impressive Robot Chicken costume. Despite not being anime-themed, this was a big hit on the floor.
Fantastic 2-D Mr. Game & Watch.
There were tons of Links, but this was the only one from Smash Brothers, as signified by the Player 1.
Team Fortress 2 costumes seem to be a go-to for any convention these days, but I only saw one at Anime Fest - this Blue Solider.
Bishop told me to get a photo of these guys, but I forgot who they are. Can you tell why I'm not the usual gamer correspondent at Gnerd? Shaddup.
I really like costumes that create an outfit based on a character, instead of just a big plush or cardboard suit. This kid has a pretty good look based on Sonic, right down to the red sneaks.
Here's that weird Negaverse Pikachu and um....I want to say Lapras or like, Celadon...I fail at Pokemon. Sorry everyone. Who is it? UPDATE: Reader hermitx kindly points out this is actually Umbreon and Glaceon, the Dark and Ice evolutions of Eevee. Just for the record, I knew that. I did. On the tip of my godddamn tongue.
A very bashful looking Peach, with Luigi and V lurking in the background.
Girl Luigi and Girl Mario, taking a breather.
Hey look, something else from an anime movie! A gigantic No Face!
Uh oh, Pedobear alert. And this brings us to the "perv" section of our photo essay...
Tons of free hugs guys all over the floor, with frequent success.
The most popular event I saw all day wasn't an officially sanctioned con event; it was this studly cosplayer, standing in the middle of a crowd, posing amorously with other people in costume. That's it, all it takes is one slashy photo op to gather a huge crowd for hours on end. I saw this at the beginning of my day on Saturday, and when I came back about three hours later, the crowd was STILL THERE. However, they were right in the midst of a fake(?) blow-job photo op, and security finally broke it up. Good times!
Just when you thought it was safe to ever leave the house...sexy cubone cosplay. Yeah, so this is blurry, but maybe it's for the best. Once you see something, you can never unsee it.
All at once, Japan is apparently able to engage in PR, government business, possible subtle parody of goverment business, children's toy and entertainment advertising, blog fodder creation, and the warm mainline cultural moment of giving a beloved classy lady her due. Japan has started appointing cartoon characters to its government.
First, there was this:
This robot cat is called Doraemon, and he is happy to have just been appointed Anime Ambassador to the World. He is shaking hands with the Foreign Minister of Japan, Masahiko Komura. Our analog would be Ms. C. Rice*. Seems Masahiko Komura's trying to exchange a knowing look with Nobita, friend of Doraemon, but, from this angle at least, it looks to be unreciprocated.
Then today:
Naturally, Hello Kitty is now the Tourism Ambassador, specializing in China and Hong Kong. According to one article, she will have 11 other goodwill ambassadors to help her do her job, which is probably a good idea. Although of course.... this is a class act whose 2D disembodied head alone has moved millions of units of merchandise in many markets all over the world. I'm kind of surprised she had time to come and collect her certificate. Nice of her to dress traditional though.
*AHR did this mock-up to give an idea of what it would look like if anything like this were to transpire over here in Americaland.
$5, 8:30 @ Starr Street Space, 108 Starr Street, Brooklyn
Want to know what makes a good night out? Polish silent films from the 1920s with live brass band accompaniment. Want to know what makes a great night? Free Newcastle beer. Want to know what makes the greatest night of your life? FREE ICE CREAM. Holy shit.
FREE! 5-11pm @ The Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
There's a crapload of programming going on at this event that's all about celebrating that "Japanese culture" skinny white guys talk about loving so much. There's a cosplay photo contest, a screening of Miyazaki's fantastic Kiki's Delivery Service, art lessons, rock music, a dance party... There isn't much that isn't happening tonight at the Brooklyn Museum, and it's all free thanks to corporate sponsor Target.
FREE! April 4-May 10 @ Clementine Gallery, 623 W. 27th St, Manhattan
Did you enjoy Panter's guest art duties on Omega: The Unknownas much as we did? Well show up to the man's solo show and see what else he's capable of. For instance, did you know he was the head set designer for the surreal Pee Wee's Playhouse? Actually, I bet if you show up at the opening Friday night he'll probably be wandering about (not to mention there'll probably be free booze). Just let me know how loud he chuckles when you ask him to sign your Marvel funny book at his art opening.
If you like to search for cartoons on YouTube, you are familiar with the mind-numbing inanity of AMVs, or Anime Music Videos. AMVs cater to people who enjoy watching cartoons recut to gothy pop songs, or those who get off on pretending their favorite characters are lip-syncing to novelty pop songs. I am no stranger to blinding fandom and the strange things it makes a person devote their time to, but I draw the line at editing cartoons that have already been edited.
Sadly, as this blog continually introduces me to new lows in my threshold for geeky crap, I have to admit the above video (the Best Comedy winner in the 2008 Boston AMV Awards) is really fun. It features a collection of clips by a guy named (sigh) Ranmafan477 who edits an AMV series called The Anime Network, which syncs anime clips with, among other things, Saturday Morning Cartoons intros from the 1990s. And we all know how awesome those are.
The above video was shot at the convention itself, and though the video quality is weak (but watchable), hearing the audience reaction is a blast. Hit the jump for a menu of where the best stuff is. 00:00 - This Chip and Dale parody is boring unless you love Gunsmith Cats. 00:30 - Hilarious, I don't want to give anything away. 00:54 - Darkwing Duck - these Disney Afternoon ones just don't do it for me. Audience loves it. 01:18 - Bit that will only be funny if you have at least a passing familiarty with Inuyasha, which I'm afraid I do. Audience goes nuts. 01:41 - Power Rangers parody that seems redundant. 01:44 - Amazing Death Note/Beetlejuice mashup.
Then there's a bunch of clips from movies and TV synced with anime, which I personally find less engaging, till we get to... 5:12 - A very well-edited take on one of my favorite modern Nicktoons, The Fairly Oddparents.
What was shown in Boston appears to be a "Best Of" reel, but if you want more all six episodes of The Anime Network can be seen on Ranmafan447's YouTube page. Episode Six has a nice high quality version of the Beetlejuice/Death note thing.
The future of American politics is MySpace? Are all the candidates trying to launch indie rock music careers? Winograd and Hais will lecture on how much the intra-net has effected the current campaigns, and will sign copies of their new book. How I long for the day Americans can use Wii votes for elections, and the long silent reclusive nerd voice will be heard.
Science Fiction Lounge, John Woo Anime, and Russian Animation... Tuesday, March 25,
A weird 1920s Russian sci-fi movie with a live sound track by a "first class improviser's quartet". Hit the link to hear samples of the musicians. 10 bucks plus a $10 drink min, reservations are recommended.
7pm (Doors at 6:15) @ The ImaginAsian, 239 East 59th Street, Manhattan
The original Appleseed movie was fun in a confusing, kind of boring way. But at the New York Anime Festival I saw a clip of the opening scene of this "upgraded" version of the film, produced by John Woo, and let's just say it featured flying birds and people shooting guns with two hands. IMPORTANT: RSVP at that link ASAP, you're supposed to do it by 12pm on Monday.
Check out that animation - Miro, right? Budovskiy will talk about the past, present, and possibly future of Russian Animation. Though as far as I'm concerned, this is the last word in Russian animation...
7pm @ The Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, Manhattan
Animated war propaganda is as entertaining as it is unsettling, as anyone who's watched Walt Disney Treasures - On the Front Lines will attest. As a sheltered American, I've rarely had the chance to see propaganda from other countries, and this sample of animated shorts from 1930-40s Japan promises a very different brand of ambiguity-free emotional manipulation. These films will be presented with recently created music and live narration, and the program includes titles such as Momotaro's Sky Adventure and Sankichi the Monkey: The Storm Troopers. $10, $4.50 for students.
This year's crop of Oscar Short Docs and Michel Gondry invites you to (re)make art, after the jump... Saturday, February 16
Do you want to make a lo-fi recreation of your favorite movie, but you need the process to be within a carefully structured environment? You're in luck! As part of a new exhibit of Michel's Gondry's art/promotion for Be Kind Rewind, Gondry will be making over the Deitch gallery in the image of the video store from his film, complete with a backlot with ready-made sets and video equipment so attendees can (re)make their own movies. The videos will then be exhibited in the gallery, so this is your shot at fame, people. Commercial New York Art World Fame! Sunday, February 17
5pm@ The Museum of Modern Art (Titus Theater 1), 11 W. 53rd St, Manhattan
The bane of every Oscar Pool is the Documentary Shorts category. Usually an educated guess amounts to looking up the synopsizes and trying to pick something about the holocaust. But thanks to MOMA, you can now watch the four nominees yourself and either vote your heart or gauge for yourself what those squares in the academy will like. $10 or $6 for students.
The first annual New York Anime Festival took place in Manhattan this past weekend, and Geekanerd was on the scene. While our allegiances lie more on the Western side of comics and cartoons, I dare say you'd be hard pressed to find a serious geek who hasn't at least dabbled in anime's seductive fandom. And speaking of seductive, how about this Wolverine sketch, hmm? While you can find fanart like this by the pound on DeviantArt, this particular sketch is actual concept art by Anzu for the upcoming Del Ray/Marvel manga series starring the X-Men. They're obviously going for the highly-profitable teen girl market, although I don't know that anyone wants their Wolverine looking that pretty.
Crazy cosplayers and more after the jump...
So many kids were dressed as Naruto it hardly seemed worth documenting, and we quickly learned other Naruto-related characters could be spotted by their belt buckle head band thingies. At least 45 percent of the people at the festival had to bewearing them, and if they weren't they were wearing a hat with animal ears.
Many impromptu fights could be witnessed in the halls of the Javits Center, but thankfully no one was killed. Most of the cosplay was obviously anime stuff, but video games were getting some love, too, as evidenced by this shockingly accurate Travis Touchdown (an otaku assassin from the unreleased No More Heroes) and a full on Smash Bros. Brawl:Also, those damn Star Wars nuts show up everywhere, but this one made a strong effort to be relevant to the Japanamaniacs: Awesome! Those expecting to fill their backpacks with free manga and swag were sorely disappointed, as almost all of the booths were occupied by sellers with nothing particularly exciting to promote, and hardly a freebie to be seen. In the last hour of the last day, however, the Central Park Media booth abruptly started throwing their books and DVDs at passerby, quickly attracting a massive, uncontrollable crowd that was probably still there by the time the Javits Center people turned the lights off. I managed to snag one book, and here it is:This is one them there sci-fi romantic comedy mangas, with a plotline that concerns a schoolgirl who is also an alien, and her light-hearted junior high adventures. My favorite story mostly involved the main characters chasing after a mouse. I also enjoyed this disclaimer that came at the end of the book. Way to stop those continuity hounds in their tracks!
Some shots from the the title sequence of the upcoming Domo stop-motion series, to be broadcast on Nicktoons Network.... A gang of Citibank vultures camped out in the middle of the sellers floor, presumably to prey on any desperate otaku who needed a quick credit card to buy another giant sword.
8pm @ The Green Room, 45 Bleecker Street, Manhattan
Now, I'm not necessarily suggesting you actually go to this event, but the geek snob credibility is undeniably through the roof; mad filmmaker Vincent Gallo and Hole's Eric Eriandson perform some sort of pseudo-musical improvised display. It "may be inappropriate for those under 18", so I can only imagine someone will be blowing Gallo on stage. $26 dollars.
6:30pm @ Giant Robot, 437 East 9th Street, Manhattan
An exhibition of illustrations by Adrian Tomine, who'll also be on hand to sign copies of Shortcomings, his quietly brilliant new graphic novel. Seriously, it's the book of the year. Plus this is technically an art opening so, you know. Say it with me now. Free booze.
10am - 6pm @ The Javits Center, 655 West 34th Street, Manhattan
This thing is actually going on all weekend, but there's some particularly neat stuff going on on Sunday. Manga/Sci Fi published Del Ray and Marvel Comics are making a special announcement...Avengers: The Super Deformed Initiative? I'd buy it. Plus Kaiju Big Battel, a Tokyopop special event, the Who Wants To Be A Voice Actor contest/exercise in public humiliation, and....a panel on Japanese Woodblock Prints? Li'l something for everyone...with really specific tastes. $30 for a day pass, $55 for the whole weekend.
I wasn't too interested in this so called "Speed Racer Movie" until Albo told me that order to give the film an anime inspired look, the Wachowski's are shooting/compositing the movie with both the foreground and background of shots in focus, which essentially means this film will have unlimited depth of field, which may well cause a viewer's brain to spark and sizzle like a toaster with a fork in it. Did anyone out there read Infinite Jest? Speed Racer actually be The Entertainment.
Of course I could be wrong, maybe it'll just look real CG'd out. The film's environments are almost entirely green screen, as if you couldn't tell from the above still with those columns that look like a Windows 2000 desktop pattern. More interesting to me is that the character's costumes and hairstyles have been recreated with jarring accuracy, pictures and analysis after the jump...
Original story link via The Beat Look at that hair! They nailed it! These pictures came from a USA Today article, which mentions that Speed's appearance will change throughout the movie, so don't expect him to be wearing that jaunty neckerchief the whole time (damn!). Racer X is looking very Matrix, but I suppose that can't be helped.
This shot is pretty cool, and immediately brings to mind the white-knuckled euphoria of Rainbow Road from Mario Kart. One phrase that keeps popping up in PR for this movie is "car-fu", which is supposedly a very innovative special-effects technique that could not have been created even one second sooner than now because it's just that advanced. I'm guessing it will be kind of like a cross between the Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle Motocross scene and Ben Hur.
The first thing I thought when I saw this still was, hey, they made Squirtle a boy? That's bullshit! But one Wikipedia search later I realized that A) Spritle has always been a boy and B) I've never actually seen a whole episode of Speed Racer. Like many members of my accursed generation, my only understanding of pre-1988 culture comes from pop culture parodies. In the USA Today Article, Christina Ricci mentions that she only knew about Speed Racer because of that Geico commercial. My whole idea of the show comes from this episode of Dexter's Lab...
Although in fairness to me, how is this kid not a girl?
I looked almost exactly like that when I was 4-9 years old, minus the hat and the monkey.
"I demand to live in a fantasy world!", said young, media-saturated consumers across the globe, and Nissan listened. They've responded with the Mixim, a extensively researched concept car aimed at gamers and anime-fans. And regular old comics fans too, judging from that Batmobile steering wheel.
More pics after the jump, plus we uncover a corporate conspiracy.... The Mixim is by Nissan's Tokyo design team, including Korean designer Yoo Eunsun who designed the car's interior. In today's Independent, Eunsun says her influences were Second Life, manga, and...
"....Japanese animation, like the film Ghost In The Shell."
Reeeaaally! This isn't the first instance of corporate synergy between Nissan and Ghost In the Shell; earlier this year, an episode of the Ghost In the Shell anime series featured animated versions of Nissan Concept Cars from 2005.
Every Thursday on Geekanerd, Johnny (our resident Web Game Addict) offers up his pick for the best new game of the week.
Feel like getting your slap on? Well now you can with Rose & Camellia (from Nigoro), a Japanese Anime/Punch Out based slapping game. Now the game is in Japanese, and I don’t know how to read or speak Japanese, but I believe the gist of the story goes like this. You’re a little girl in feudal Japan who needs to slappity-slap all the other women in your quarters. Story aside, Rose & Camellia features beautiful graphics and a wonderful and funny game concept. Check it out! Game Play: The controls are really easy but difficult at first to get the hang of. Every once in a while, an attack button will appear to on the bottom right. Click on it then swing your mouse over the opponent’s face. When your foe is about to attack, an evade button will appear on the bottom left. Click on that then swing your mouse the other way. Once you have successfully evaded a slap, a counter button will appear in the bottom right. This has the same function as the attack button.
Strategies: In playing this, I realized that the most important thing to master is the art of evading and countering. Attacking leaves you open to counterstrikes. If you never attack but just successfully evade and counter, you will have no problem beating the game. When the opponent is close to dying, attacking becomes much easier.
Thanks Johnny! Check back next Thursday for more Geek-Approved Web Games.
Get your hands on the first piece of Will Wright's new masterpiece, and make some creatures that'll put Jim Henson to shame. Well, not really. But you can dream.
Since there are Stormtroopers at every convention anywhere, let's get that out of the way first.
Saw tons of these screw-head guys, this guy wore it pretty well.
Here's the kendo battle area, where participants were assigned random matches. Pretty cool. I wish they did this sort of thing at Star Wars conventions.
This is pretty awesome and expensive looking.
I recognize these guys, but I don't know from where. Someone help me out. UPDATE: Reader arashi points out the cardboard guy is Danbo from Yatsubato.
Monkey from One Piece. Gnerd contributor Bishop told me that.
Very impressive Robot Chicken costume. Despite not being anime-themed, this was a big hit on the floor.
Fantastic 2-D Mr. Game & Watch.
There were tons of Links, but this was the only one from Smash Brothers, as signified by the Player 1.
Team Fortress 2 costumes seem to be a go-to for any convention these days, but I only saw one at Anime Fest - this Blue Solider.
Bishop told me to get a photo of these guys, but I forgot who they are. Can you tell why I'm not the usual gamer correspondent at Gnerd? Shaddup.
I really like costumes that create an outfit based on a character, instead of just a big plush or cardboard suit. This kid has a pretty good look based on Sonic, right down to the red sneaks.
Here's that weird Negaverse Pikachu and um....I want to say Lapras or like, Celadon...I fail at Pokemon. Sorry everyone. Who is it? UPDATE: Reader hermitx kindly points out this is actually Umbreon and Glaceon, the Dark and Ice evolutions of Eevee. Just for the record, I knew that. I did. On the tip of my godddamn tongue.
A very bashful looking Peach, with Luigi and V lurking in the background.
Girl Luigi and Girl Mario, taking a breather.
Hey look, something else from an anime movie! A gigantic No Face!
Uh oh, Pedobear alert. And this brings us to the "perv" section of our photo essay...
Tons of free hugs guys all over the floor, with frequent success.
Just when you thought it was safe to ever leave the house...sexy cubone cosplay. Yeah, so this is blurry, but maybe it's for the best. Once you see something, you can never unsee it.
