Friday, February 25, 2011

"Anime" You Shouldn't Watch, But Will

For 53 years Korea had a ban on Japanese Culture. This, of course, included anime, which lead to Korea making their own pseudo-anime. Not that it was bad, in fact quality-wise it was about the same as any animation for its time.  Since anime wasn't allowed in Korea, though, many of its movies and series were "reimagined" versions of other anime and other media.

Then one day, a Hong Kong company, Digiview Entertainment, acquired the rights to a bunch of Korean anime. Producer Joseph Lai took a bunch of them, and spliced an original film together called Space Thunder Kids. A film which supposedly has a plot, but I haven't come across anyone that can really explain it.

Films used to splice Space Thunder Kids together include Savior of the Earth, Space Transformers, Captain of Cosmos, Defenders of Space, Super Mazinger 3, Solar Adventure, and Super Express Mazinger 7 (I might have missed some). All of these movies were cheap knock-offs  of other anime and films.

If you want to watch this movie, you are a brave person.  The movie in it's entirety is up on Youtube, though, so it isn't hard to find at all.  Here is the first part -


For added laughs, there is a Sage and Spoony Review of Space Thunder Kids from a year and a half or so ago.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Shin Chan Spin-off

This news is a bit old, but I just learned of it somewhat recently, and felt like sharing if anyone missed it.



The Crayon Shin-chan television anime series will launch a spinoff superhero comedy anime and manga series called Crayon Shin-chan Shin-Men next month. The staff of the main Crayon Shin-chan anime series will produce the monthly anime episodes, and the manga series will be credited to "Yoshito Usui & UY Studio" — the late creator of Crayon Shin-chan and his studio. The spinoff is part of the larger "Crayon Shin-chan 20th Anniversary Project" which includes this year's relaunch of the original manga and the 20th anime film in spring of 2012. 


But, another reason I wanted to bring this up, is because of a video game clip of what I am assuming is a Shin Men for the DS that I found. 





I have been trying to find out about it, but can't find anything anywhere.  Someone give me the details please! I will not get my hopes up.. I'm assuming it will never see an American release.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

It's GO TIME! Anime SRO is Underway!


SPACE REPOSSESSOR OWEN!

Concept of Owen
It is about time I post a little bit about what this series is about.  As was said in a previous blog post, Space Repossessor Owen is a throwback anime styled cartoon series.

It takes place FAR into the future, well after mankind has left earth, relocated to various parts of the the universe, met/mingled with other intelligent life, and "got freaky" with said life. It focuses on the space repo profession, and stars an up and coming space repo, lead by Owen Lager.

The bulk of the series will be their adventures repossessing various ships and equipment that have had warrants put out for their collection.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Detective Jumps Forever While Versing Lupin the 3rd

Has anyone seen the made for television special Lupin the 3rd vs. Detective Conan? It was broadcast in Japan a couple of years back, so it has been around for a while.  I have just seen it pretty recently, and while I'm not really sure what to think about it -- it has one incredible scene I felt that I should share.


The scene gets really amazing when Conan chases a motorcycle driving Fujiko while on his skateboard. Whoever thought of that jump deserves a pat on the back!

The Art of Opening Credits for an Anime

One very important aspect of anime (and all media, really) is the first impression. It has got to pull the viewer in and make them want to watch it. Otherwise, people are very unforgiving and could give up on it very fast. And what is the very first thing people see to get that first impression? Well, technically it is the cold open, but we aren't talking about that today -- so let's go with the opening credits.

Opening credits are a very important of an anime. A bad opening credit sequence can cause immense disappointment, lose viewers, and some have even caused outrage.  That's right, I'm looking at you 4Kids. And, while this post is way ahead of its time, it's going to be a huge task for us to face. So, for some inspiration, we've been watching some of the better anime openings we could find.

Cowboy Bebop
 

Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt

Pokemon

GTO

What are some other good openings?  Or, for the hell of it, what are some bad openings?

Saturday, February 5, 2011

The Making of an Oldschool Anime

Welcome to the Space Repossessor Owen production blog! SRO is an oldschool anime styled animation series being worked on by various members of the DAPshow Studios crew. I'll go more into the series later, but for right now, I just wanted to get an introduction post up and explain what we will be posting about.

The Space Repossessor Owen Production Blog will explore the process of creating an animation series through out all the steps. Creating various components (characters, storylines, arcs, etc), the process behind this, and any influences / inspirations that helped along the way. We'll also probably post a few things here and there because we find them funny, but that doesn't sound as cool. And, I know this has probably been done before and isn't terribly original or anything, but we felt it would be a cool thing to have to give fans some insight -- and possibly attract some new ones.