Date: 2009-12-22 02:32 Subject: Random Geekishness Security: Public Tags: batman, blogged, comic books, comics, costume, dc comics, dread, friends, games, japan, law, livejournal, music, news, radio, random, rock, star wars, the 1980s, video games

1) An interesting discussion on the Shortpacked! official board has been about the fact that the Diamond Distributor company uses the Batman standard to judge title sales. That is, every title they sell is compared to how well it does against the specific DC comic book titled Batman. One of the readers has suddenly made it his mission to create a comic book and attempt to sell a CentiBatman's worth of copies of it. (As the value of a Batman in copies is somewhat variable there is some luck involved.)

2) News relayed to me by Aaron ps238principal Williams that a British court ruled against Lucasfilm in a copyright case involving the Imperial StormTrooper costume from Star Wars. The judge had declared that the costume was "industrial design" rather than "scuplture" under the legal definitions (the copyright on it had run its course) and become public domain. My immediate thought was on the status of car design--whether the motorcars built before 1995 were suddenly made public domain by this ruling.

3) There are only six or so songs left to vend in my quota for Dread & Terror.

4) All of a sudden somebody is following my LJ via Blogged. I'm supposed to have a Widget working to tell me more about that as part of the LJ, but I haven't figured out how and where to put it up. Welcome, Kikuko...hope you are comfortable here.

5) According to the Japanese site www.saiani.net, the game Armored Core will have an OAV spinoff released sometime in 2010. I'll be watching for this in my usual around-the-blinders fashion.

6) Jon Bon Jovi was on Fresh Air yesterday. He says he absolutely hated the music videos his band made back in the Eighties. I wonder what the boys would have done if they had more creative control back then.

Date: 2009-12-14 20:20 Subject: Let's Put Weird And Weird Together... Security: Public Tags: anime, comments, culture, facebook, fandom, friends, human nature, japan, otaku, pop culture, weirdness

Weird Japan Is Super-Weird--(with apologies to the theme song of Urusei Yatsura) but we love it anyway. Thanks to robotech_master, who posted this on his Facebook.

Date: 2009-12-12 17:41 Subject: Just Because Security: Public Tags: battletech, computer games, games, gaming, heavy gear, japan, robotech, robots, stuff i want, video, video games, wargames, youtube

( A Couple More Embedded Border Break Videos )

Date: 2009-12-06 00:01 Subject: I'm Bord! I'm BORD! I'm Chairman Of The...BORD. Security: Public Tags: anime, backward compatible, battletech, fandom, full frontal nerdity, games, gaming, gundam, heavy gear, japan, otaku, robotech, robots, science-fiction, stuff i want, video, video games, wargames, youtube

( Border Break! )

A new Japanese arcade video game that looks very MMO-ish. With the current state of console games these days, is a MMO like this possible now?

SEGA!

Date: 2009-11-30 00:02 Subject: How Better To Commemorate "Cyber Monday"... Security: Public Tags: action junkies, japan, science-fiction, superheroes, the police, toys, tv, video, weirdness, youtube

( ...Than With Some CYBERCOPS! )

Date: 2009-11-28 15:36 Subject: I Went There To Sell-- Security: Public Tags: anime, business, cd, culture, education, errands, fandom, geoeconomics, japan, language, learning, money, music, otaku, radio, science-fiction, shopping, stuff i want, taiwan

--And wound up buying. I suppose that means the economy might actually rebound.

THERE is a stall at the Kodak Flea Market, one that trades in comic books, action figures and other such memorabilia. What I brought to sell is unimportant.

What I bought is two anime soundtrack CDs: Idol Defense Force Hummingbird and the third part of Legends of the Galactic Heroes TV series. In the process of uploading the content to my computer. It'll take a while; the LOGH soundtrack set is three disks!

The seller has a couple milk crates worth of anime CDs for cheap. Initial D, Ex-Driver, Urusei*Yatsura, Orange Road, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, game soundtracks...

And they're cheap because, as I noticed when I opened the packaging, they're Taiwanese bootlegs. I suppose I get what I pay for.

FP

PS: On the LOGH content...as those of you who are hard-core otaku may know, the overwhelming majority of the music for the show is symphonic classical, which means my decades of listening to local NPR stations' afternoon programs is "paying off"--somewhat. (What do you mean we don't have any Shostakovich in our CD collection?--Guess I have to look it up in the Encyclopedia if I have any hope of spelling that correctly.) I can read kana...but figuring out classical catalog notion when it's rendered in kanji is a challenge. At least all the numbers are "Arabic" Numerals.

Date: 2009-11-25 16:24 Subject: Tough Times For The Anime Industry: Via Wall Street Journal Security: Public Tags: anime, business, childhood, dysfunction, fandom, japan, links, news, nostalgia, otaku, pop culture, tv

Foreign competition, outsourcing, low morale...is this the end of an era?

Date: 2009-11-06 17:05 Subject: Stuff I Find When I Seek Elsethings Security: Public Tags: anime, battletech, books, design, games, gaming, heavy gear, japan, robotech, robots, science-fiction, video, youtube

( Industrial Divinities )

Date: 2009-07-15 00:49 Subject: End of the Streak Security: Public Tags: anime, friends, japan, knoxville, livejournal, models, music, superheroes, the 1980s, tv, weirdness

Yesterday was the first day in a long time that I failed to post a Livejournal entry. Kind of busy today. Knoxville Scale Modelers, running around Knoxville with Aleks, and so on.

As a postscript to the entry about Gatchaman toys:

( Is This A Trailer? Looks Like One )

While at the HobbyTown, they had the '80s Muzak on and I heard Devo's "Peek A Boo" for the first time since it was a hit. I wanted to have the Vending Machine of Awesome present it, but 1) Warner Music is being a snoid about the studio version 2) the studio video isn't exactly "safe for work". Nothing wrong with the song tho'. I want Jeffster to perform it sometime on Chuck's coming season because it practically screams "Intersect"!

Date: 2009-07-12 21:10 Subject: And Once Again My Morale Crumbles Security: Public Tags: anime, fandom, fantasy, gadgets, japan, ninja, science-fiction, stuff i want, the 1970s, toys, tv

The Japanese toy manufacturer Art Storm is set to release a set of diecast vehicle toys based on the hero machines of the classic anime series Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, known better here by the titles Battle of the Planets and G-Force (no relation to the new G-Force movie about espionage gerbils). My interest is in the two fighter jets: the G-1 (belonging to the Gatchaman team leader) and the Red Impulse (belonging to a non-team character whose relation with the team is a plot spoiler). According to the website, they're about 6" long. (Battle of the Planets was one of my favorite shows in my adolescent past.)




They're cool; they're perfect; the better-looking than I could imagine--and they're hella expensive.

I had just healed myself from the heartbreak of the Mellowlink action figure/motorcycle set! Blarg!

Date: 2009-06-17 00:33 Subject: Steel Demons Security: Public Tags: anime, horror, japan, magic, robots, the 1980s, video, youtube

( Hagane No Oni )

The video behind the cut is the climatic action sequence of Hagane No Oni ("Steel Demons"), an anime by the creator of the Iczer series, Dangaio and several other notable anime shows. Two good buddies are forced by circumstance and mecha mojo to take the sides of evil and not-necessarily-evil and duke it out against each other.

I've wanted to see this for about twenty years.

FP

Date: 2009-06-16 14:07 Subject: More, But Is It The Same? I Think Not Security: Public Tags: anime, comedy, humor, japan, macross, remakes, robotech, robots, video, youtube

( The Super-Deformed Version of the Macross TV Series Titles )

This was made in the Nineties for the syndicated re-release of the show.

Date: 2009-06-15 22:40 Subject: Anime Addiction + Research Addiction + YouTube Addiction =... Security: Public Tags: anime, bubble gum crisis, car chase, fandom, japan, research addict, robotech, robots, science-fiction, the 1980s, tv, video, youtube

( Three Title Clips From Anime Of The Awesome Eighties Behind This Cut! )

The Matinee is the title sequence of Super Robot Galatt, which was among the first "Super Deformed" shows and which followed the equally tongue-in-cheek Daitarn-3 in its time-slot. And it's a good idea for a series. In a future Earth in which a world government has banned private ownership of weapons, a mad scientist receives aid from good aliens who want him to arm Earth against an invasion of evil aliens. So he builds some bizarre little robots who look absolutely harmless. But when the bad guys show up, the robots transform to B@d@$$ Mode with the help of their pilots and save the day.

The second of our Triple Spin is Galvion, an obvious thematic stepping stone for Artmic, which went on the following years to make Bubblegum Crisis, Gall Force, and Megazone 2-3.

The nightcap is Dorvack, which could have been another chapter to Robotech if Carl Macek had been paying attention at the time.

More to come, I hope!

Date: 2009-05-12 01:58 Subject: Reminder To Myself Security: Public Tags: airplanes, alternative history, anime, aviation, dvd, japan, movies, science-fiction, video, war, youtube

( Sky Crawlers On DVD To Go On Sale In About Two Weeks )

Date: 2009-04-01 01:57 Subject: Freewill Astrology, Once More Security: Public Tags: astrology, depression, habits, horoscope, japan, love, the future, time, who am i, zodiac

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of April 2, 2009

Some Japanese employees receive three days of "heartache leave" per year from the companies they work for. During those times they can recover from sad experiences or romantic reversals. If it were up to me, every company in every country in the world would annually provide workers with the opposite kind of holiday: ten days of "heart-soaring leave." These would be times devoted to cultivating blessed breakthroughs or celebrating great happiness. If there were such a system in place already, Sagittarius, I bet you'd use some of those heart-soaring days in the coming weeks.

As blue as I feel now, I find that impossibly difficult to believe.

FP

Date: 2009-02-07 00:02 Subject: The World And I Keep Missing Each Other Security: Public Tags: airplanes, anime, dvd, film, japan, movies, shopping, stuff i want

I found out a little while ago that Sky Crawlers is scheduled to hit DVD release in America in three weeks...but I can't find reference to it on Amazon.com, so I wonder if it's really happening.

Date: 2009-01-19 12:53 Subject: 太陽系戦隊 ガルダン Security: Public Tags: anime, battletech, games, gaming, gundam, japan, models, ramen, robotech, robots, the 1980s, time, wargames

...Or "Solar System Squadron Guldan", if your computer doesn't read Japanese.

When the original Mobile Suit Gundam model kits were hot in Japan in 1980, the other manufacturers wanted in on the bandwagon, and this was a knockoff series. But what interests me isn't the main series of kits, but the ones Nissin (yes, the "Oodles of Noodles" company!) marketed as premiums for their chewing gum.



Now, the actual model kits were tiny, crude and somewhat ugly...but they're spawning a "what-if?" idea in my mind. If I were in the design think-tank for these, I'd come up with accessory packs that could fit any and all of them...and then the accessory sprues would be randomly packed along with the robots themselves.

Oh yeah...and these were about the same size as the model kits from established robot anime that inspired the FASA game Battletech. But unlike them, Guldan wasn't from any anime! So no intellectual property conflicts down the road.

I don't necessarily want the Guldan model kits as I have plenty of others around. But it's just a pipe dream I had to share.

Date: 2009-01-12 02:17 Subject: PS To Mospeada Post Security: Public Music: Mine Matsuki -- Yattsukero Tags: anime, guitar, japan, robotech, rock, the 1980s, tv, video, youtube

( Yattsukero )

Date: 2009-01-10 16:21 Subject: GC Mospeada: Love Live Alive Security: Public Tags: anime, japan, music, remakes, robotech, tv, video, youtube

( Posted On YouTube )

Americans and other Westerners know Genesis Climber Mospeada as one of the three shows that made up the import/translation saga Robotech in the middle 1980s...one of the sparks for anime fandom outside Japan. What many anime fans and even a great number of Robotech fans are unaware of is the fact that Mospeada was popular enough in Japan to have the Tatsunoko studio make this tribute video after the show's run. It's mostly a compilation of music videos based on the series, but it also includes new material. Love Live Alive isn't listed in the usual catalogs of OAVs because they generally don't bother with including music video sets.

Belmont/Yellow Dancer/Lancer's destiny after the series has been a point of controversy among Robotech fans because the novelizations took one direction, the comics took another and the role-playing game took yet another. None of them really agree and that's where everybody has problems. Harmony Gold is trying yet again to make a sequel series to Robotech (after two failures and a close call) so perhaps we'll get an answer someday.

Meanwhile, this is all there is.

FP

Date: 2008-06-14 20:57 Subject: Since I Can't Blog About What I Want to Blog About... Security: Public Tags: action force, effects, japan, otaku, science-fiction, superheroes, tv, video, violence, youtube

( You Get Some Powersuit Video Violence )!

Hey! That guy there! One of my favorite action figures...Lucifer/Blazord!

FP