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Tokyo Toy Show 2010 Report

Tokyo Toy Show: Steampunk Project Pullips.

Tokyo Toy Show is an annual event where toy makers from Japan demonstrate their latest products. The first two days are for business only, but the weekend is open to the public. For some reason, llamas always seem popular.

My first booth was Groove Inc which has apparently taken over marketing Pullips, a brand of Korean doll, in Japan from Jun Planning. If what I saw at their booth is any indication, they’re doing a great job. The booth manager approached me in English, talked positively about their products and gave me his business card. I was extremely impressed by the professionalism on display here… not to mention the products themselves. My favourites were the new limited edition Steampunk Project dolls, each one based on different doll types. The designs were more than just ticking boxes (“Okay, goggles… top hat… gears… we’re done!”) and detail was incredible.

Hot Toys, on the other hand, were doing the same things they always do. Alien figures, Michael Jackson figures, Mars Attac– wait, who is buying these things? Who has been searching all over for plastic models of Inglourious Basterds’ characters?

A small stand devoted to Hexbug Nanos was hidden in the Bandai booth labyrinth. The bug-like robots, about the size of a thumb, ran around on a tabletop. “Put your hands down!” exhorted the salesperson. “COLLECT THEM!!” If you put your hands flat on the table, the Hexbugs vibrated violently towards you and got stuck between your fingers and you’d amass ten or twenty of the things thrusting into the creases between your fingers.

However, I’ve never bought anything at the Toy Show until today. At the Gentosha Education booth, I watched a demonstration of Doubutsu Shougi (“Animal Shogi“), which has been put together by the Ladies’ Professional Shogi Players of Japan to introduce children to the strategy behind shogi. It’s played on a 4 x 4 board and players control four thick wooden blocks which each have a simple animal picture – a lion, an elephant, a giraffe and a chick, which can be promoted into a cockerel. Despite being aimed at kids, this is a fun strategy game for adults and comes highly recommended.

Finally, here’s a list of Japanese Toy Awards 2010 grand prize winners. I find myself a bit uneasy at the separate categories for girls and boys. I’d suggest they change it to “Toys To Celebrate Domesticity” and “Toys To Celebrate Sports And Engineering” but everyone would be able to see what they did there.

Category	Name	Company	Sale Date	Price in Yen
Access For All Children “Kyouyuu” Award	Korokoro Talking Tomica A I U E O	Takara Tomy	June 2010	6,090
Educational Award	Talking With Anpanman: Picture Dictionary	Sega Toys	April 2010	7,140
Boys’ Toy Award	Ishikawa Ryou’s Exciting Golf	Epoch	July 2010	8,379
Girls’ Toy Award	Shushurun	Pilot	April 2010	2,604
Character Toy Award	Kamen Rider W Transformation Belt DX Double Driver	Bandai	September 2009	6,825
Innovative Toy Award	JIGAZO PUZZLE @rt	Tenyo	September 2010 (provisional)	2,310 (provisional)
High Target Award	Otamatone	Cube	November 2009	2,940

More photographs from Tokyo Toy Fair 2010 (including a llama!) after the jump

Spam From Japan: Dream Live 7th Concert Review

Are these the actions of a man who had ALL THE TENIMYU HE COULD HANDLE?

Dream Live is what you get when you cross Wimbledon with a host club and a certain song from the Lonely Island (video, NSFW). It’s the revue version of Musical Tennis no Oujisama and takes place between plot arcs of the regular musicals in which a junior high tennis team attempt to win the nationals. Dream Live 7th was the climactic run in a seven year-long ‘first season’ and took place in Yokohama Arena in front of around 17,000 fans.

I got to Yokohama on Friday night having dashed across Tokyo from work. I was the only person there in work clothes, with everyone else in either pretty floral dresses or Dream Live T-shirts that they queued for hours to buy. Some had coordinated tennis-themed clothing with their friends.

In the lobby they had smaller booths selling the concert basics that even non-fans want to buy. I say ‘non-fans’, but there aren’t really any here. Tickets are tough to get — you call up a special number and get a lottery number, then ring back a couple of days later to find they don’t have any tickets for you. You go to a convenience store at 10 am on a Sunday morning (there will already be a girl in a pretty floral dress in front of you) and button-mash the ticket machine for 20 minutes until it stops giving you a busy signal and tells you all the regular tickets are sold out. Then your friends take pity on you (they also happen to have won 12 tickets in the lottery) and sell you one of theirs.

Today, there’s just me and my loose tie and jacket, bag full of papers on education and stuff. I only want a penlight (the limited edition sold out) and a program. Unlike theatre programs in Britain which often have a list of scenes plus song titles, these just have lots of photographs and short interviews with the stars. At the booths outside, you can buy sets of photos of every actor appearing for 600 yen each, plus posters and T-shirts. The queue will take several hours to get through, depending on the weather.

The stadium is smoky and the stage is already decked out in blue, yellow and pink rainbows and green disco lights. There’s an announcement about not filming and turning off mobile phones made by the actors who play the ichinen trio. Musicals often get actors to do this standard announcement in character in the hopes people will pay attention. Like airplane safety, you plan to follow as best as you can, but it doesn’t stop it from being part of the scenery.

The lights go out and all the penlights come on and start swaying. They’re mostly blue, because that’s both Team Seigaku and Team Hyoutei’s colour… and also the most commonly available penlight colour. They wave in time to the music and it’s like being on Pandora. Echizen Ryouma, I seeeeee you.

The giant screen above the main stage lights up and shows images of the actors dressed in their tennis gear. The screams are piercing and people are going crazy for certain characters and teams. Speaking as someone who’s never come from the mere sight of a guy in a tennis outfit, I felt more out of place than ever. The girls next to me were jumping up and down and screaming themselves hoarse over Yagyuu.

A full song list can be found here on the Tenipuri_Myu community on Livejournal. They included some of my favourites, including “V.I.C.T.O.R.Y.” and “Aoku Moeru Honoo”.

Next, there was a staged video segment of rehearsals, which let me baffled. Some of people around me were really into some of the actors getting slapped and punished. Compared to previous Dream Lives, there were more songs and fewer skits and fancy costumes. There were more references to the actors-as-actors, rather than their characters.

Then came the First Cast. The actors that portrayed Seigaku in the very first run of the musical. Perhaps… I am a fan after all. I’ve never seen these guys as their characters live, although I will admit to being a fan of Tuti (Tsuchiya Yuuichi) when he acts as Gin in Rock Musical Bleach. Their appearance means different things to different people. It’s been seven years since Tenimyu first started and for many people this is their last chance to see the cast that started it for them. For others it’s a chance to see the cast that came before that they’ve never seen live.

They sang the iconic “Kore ga Seigaku Regularjin na no da” and a character medley from the first musical. When they did the talk segment, they seemed strangely plastic and younger than I remembered. There must have been a hell of a lot of make-up involved and possibly a bit of stage fright. The first time, they spent the entire segment having Kimeru saying other character’s catchphrases. He could’ve sung “You Got Game?” in that time instead. Second time around was much better and involved Inui’s juice.

After more songs is another talk segment with actors who portrayed characters in previous musical. At the first show I attended, this was fairly awkward. Most of them weren’t quite sure what they were doing there or what was expected. Of the first group, I was only really interested in Toyanaga Toshiyuki, but mainly because of his work as a voice actor. The second group I saw included Miyano Mamoru (another voice actor) and everyone had much more to say.

The concert finished off with two ending themes — “F.G.K.S” and “On My Way”. It occurred to me that they hadn’t sang “Season” yet, which was recently voted the most popular song from the Tenimyu franchise on the official site. Ueshima-sensei (the dance mastermind behind choreography) came out and announced it as the last song. Deep down, I have to admit that is the kind of trivia only fans can remember.

If you liked this review, you can check out my review of the second Kuroshitsuji musical or see my list of the top ten anime musicals and stage shows.

Spam From Japan: Design Festa (Spring 2010)

While the Kuroshitsuji musical has the best-dressed audience, Design Festa attendees are the most original. A number of them were wearing their original creations, many of them using kimono fabric.

I arrived at 10:30am at the Big Sight knowing that it opened at around 11:00am. With my experience attending Comiket and the Tokyo International Anime Fair, I figured that that would get me inside the quickest. I needn’t have worried, since there was only a tiny queue. Many of the booth staff were still setting up at that time as well, so it wasn’t like I missed anything. You might as well arrive at a little past opening.

There was a huge variety of Stuff available to buy. At first glance, grandma-style Victoriana seemed to outstrip the goth Victoriana, but the latter was still there. One shop specialised in black gothic dresses with straps featuring crucified bunny rabbits.

I was amazed at the number of satirical T-shirts featuring un-PC depictions of Kim Jong-Il and other political figures, which I really don’t see much in Japan. There were torn shirts made from non-torn shirts, ordinary-looking jeans and patched together animal headpieces. I also saw a cool rabbit gasmark; but wear it once and you’re awesome, wear it twice and you’re that guy with the rabbit gasmask. There were also bars of home-made soap for sale, which intrigued me. I looked into it once and found I’d have to look for a lye (sodium hydroxide) supplier in Japan. That couldn’t be easy.

In the end, I bought two postcards by Akito, who seems to be inspired by H. R. Giger and anime. I would have loved to be able to buy artbooks from any of the booths or, even better, a collection from a selection of booths (yes, I realise that’s impossible). I don’t have anywhere to put the stuff on sale, or it’s not something I would wear or use, but it was so awesome I wanted to keep it to look at anyway. Photographs for that end (which are fine at most booths) seem mean-spirited.

Click on any of the photographs to enlarge.

Live painting area:

Booths:

(My friends declared the giant plant-thing to be ‘kawaii’ and ‘cute’. What do you think?)

Dolls:

More Booths:

(One of the booths specialised in making plastic keyrings with everyday objects subjected to a type of Japanese bondage called ‘kinbaku’. I thought this was awesome, but not everyone agreed!)

There were two stages. One was bigger, indoors and had more mainstream acts. The other was outdoors, tending towards goth/punk/indie and was like a tiny Glastonbury festival. This was what kept me at Design Festa from the very start until closing. The atmosphere was amazing. The bar next to the stage had the worst beer I’ve ever had, while the French-style hotdog stand tasted great and used real sausages.

Bands:

(Jack and Sally, plus two of Kojinshugi Gekijo.)

Psydoll, one of my favourites:

N.S.D.P, who seemed to have lots of female fans:

ENIGMATIC DRIVE did alt. jazz. I wouldn’t have said jazz was really my thing, but it was a great feeling at the end of the day to hear those notes echo into the sky as it got darker.

More than anything, I was left with a strong desire to create something or design something or just… DO something. Well at least I have a blog, I guess.

Spam From Japan: Kuroshitsuji Musical Review (2010)

Musical Kuroshitsuji -The Most Beautiful DEATH in The World- Sen no Tamashii to Ochita Shinigami

Cast:
Sebastian Michaelis: Matsushita Yuuya (松下優也)
Ciel Phantomhive: Nishii Yukito (西井幸人) 　
Eric Slingby: Saeki Taisuke (佐伯太輔)
Alan Humpfries: Matsumoto Shin’ya (松本慎也)
Grell Sutcliff: Uehara Takuya (植原卓也)
William T. Spears: Nagaoka Takuya (永岡卓也)
Ronald Knox: Yousuke Crawford (ヨウスケ・クロフォード)
Baldroy: Iwasaki Dai (岩﨑大)
Finnian: Minami Shouta (南翔太)
Mey-Rin: Igari Atsuko (猪狩敦子)
Undertaker: Izumi Shuuhei (和泉宗兵)
Viscount Druitt: Fujita Ray (藤田玲)
Fred Abberline: Ise Naohiro (伊勢直弘)
Sharpe Hanks: Aoki Shigeto (青木隆敏)

Full Title: ミュージカル黒執事 -The Most Beautiful DEATH in The World- 千の魂と堕ちた死神
Transliterated: Musical Kuroshitsuji -The Most Beautiful DEATH in The World- Sen no Tamashii to Ochita Shinigami
Translated: Musical Kuroshitsuji -The Most Beautiful DEATH in The World- One Thousand Souls and a Fallen Shinigami
For obvious reasons, it will be referred to as ‘Kuromyu’ from now on.

WARNING: Spoilers for Musical Kuroshitsuji 2. Also assumes that you’ll be buying the DVD regardless of reviews, so favours description over the usual things found in reviews.

It was easy to tell who was going to see Kuromyu amongst those milling around Akasaka on a bright spring morning. They wore entirely black, many of them in Victorian-style capes and lacy dresses. Without a doubt, the best-dressed audience I’ve seen.

The musical starts without fanfare. The lights don’t go out or dim. I was sitting at the back reading a manga (“Number” by Tsubaki Kaori-sensei. Varies between awesome and awkward…) and when I looked up there were people on stage. No warning. Nothing. This scene continues as a silent human chess game with each team dressed entirely in either black or white.

I was lucky my manga wasn’t sufficiently engrossing, because soon a cloth-covered cage was wheeled into the centre of the stage and the whole theatre went pitch black. Ciel intones “God? There’s no God here.” So begins the musical; Ciel is in the cage in the centre and Sebastian appears above him, wearing a cape. This was funnier than it had any right to be.

The first song belongs to Sebastian and rightfully so. In the previous musical, they started with ordinary dialogue (rather than the dramatic monologue used here) and the three servants had the first song. It made for a strange start.

I was torn over one of the next scenes. It begins in the world of shinigami, with some of them clocking off work having taken the night shift and some arriving for the morning. All of the shinigami (Eric Slingby, Alan Humpfries, William T. Spears and Ronald Knox, plus extras) are there, except for Grell. William calls her out, referring to her as ‘he’. Grell appears stage left, announcing that’s she’s a ‘she’, not a ‘he’.

This temporarily ruined my image of William (‘temporarily’, because a few seconds later I decided a musical was hardly canon.). I saw him as a guy who plays by the rules and is constantly aware of his hourly rate. Now he’s a “human” resources nightmare and an arsehole. Ah, Kuromyu. You make it canon that a character is definitely transgender (which anyone reading the manga would know) and then you make it clear that she doesn’t deserve any respect within that canon.

This is also anime!Grell. I thought Takuya’s performance was spot-on in the previous musical, but now there’s too much of everything that was good before. Like Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. It didn’t help that the first performance I saw was being filmed for the DVD, so everyone was even more over-the-top than usual.

The next sequence is a kind of eighties industrial dance about the Shinigami Haken. If it were a person, I’d hit it. It was awesome. They briefly reprised it for the curtain call too. Alan and Eric are properly introduced next and assigned to each other as partners in a case concerning a serial killer. They are long-time friends. Best friends. Really, really close friends, okay?

Skipping ahead a little, Ciel and Sebastian go to see Undertaker. There’s more fanservice than there ever was in the manga, but it’s less out of place when people are already bursting into song. This concept is nicely illustrated in this scene, when Undertaker says he’s not interested in laughing anymore, he wants to love. Since this is the jumping off point for an enka song and dance routine, I can’t complain. I don’t know if anyone reading this is familiar with enka, but today it’s linked with a romantic image of Showa Era Japan and songs about first love and drinking sake. It’s like the Hollywood golden age in terms of iconic figures and old-time sex symbols. So that’s the background to Sebastian’s song. It’s an act of pure fanservice, which is completely appropriate here.

Musical Kuroshitsuji -The Most Beautiful DEATH in The World- Sen no Tamashii to Ochita Shinigami

Ciel doesn’t appear much in this scene or any others really, but it’s nice that his kindergarten let him out early so he could take part.

In the next scene, I can only assume Sebastian and Grell slept together. It’s morning and Grell emerges dramatically from her bedroom panting that she had a hot night of passion while Sebastian seems unconvinced he slept with her. The second time I saw it, the build-up was even more suggestive… there were ropes (but Sebastian still seemed unimpressed in the morning). At breakfast, Sebastian announces Eric is the killer. Eric attacks and Grell hands Sebastian her Deathscythe. Eric escapes.

Viscount Druitt’s big song is next. He’s kidnapped two women and wants them to behave like pretty birds for him. They comply… in a fantasy sequence in which he sings a rock anthem and they chirrup, temporarily freed from their restraints. It was in bad taste, but I laughed. Eric shows up and Druitt realises he’s the real killer.

The first half concludes with Ciel ordering Sebastian to kill Eric.

The second half is a cross-dressing epic featuring Ciel’s much-loved pink and white dress. The reason? Druitt has organised a party to which only women and children are invited. Men are allowed only if accompanied by a woman. Sebastian teases Ciel and says that if he insists he’s not a kid, he’s going to have to go dressed as a woman. That’s… an original excuse. Grell will accompany Alan, which I thought was a nice touch, but then Alan appears in a dress too. Sebastian says it suits him better and Grell gets jealous.

Moving ahead a couple of scenes again, Alan and Eric are reunited. Eric reveals that he is trying to collect one thousand souls because it will cure Alan’s illness. They talk about flower keywords and the word assigned to the flower ‘erica’ is ‘loneliness’. They put down their shinigami glasses and leave together. Alan will not be able to see Eric’s sins anymore and says they are still partners.

It doesn’t end well for the two best friends. Eric has only one soul left to collect, so he attempts to kill Ciel. I’m sure you can guess who he kills instead.

Cue the cinematic record, with Eric and Alan reliving their past as very good friends. Eric is distraught and Sebastian kills him. With that, snow (and glitter) falls down, each flake a soul Eric collected.

The final song is ‘Hallucination’, sung as Ciel sleeps. It’s not so much a Kuroshitsuji song as a Matsushita Yuuya song. The final speech is by Sebastian, which goes something like this:

“I have little interest in collecting one thousand souls. I want only one. That would be yours, bocchan. According to our contract. After all… I’m a devil of a butler.”

Really? Let’s rephrase it: “I have no interest in amassing one thousand sandwiches, I just want one… this delicious cheese and ham one. For the next fifty years, I will wait solely for this sandwich.”

Curtain call one: Sebastian picked up Ciel in his arms and carried him off, so William picked up Ronald too.
Curtain call two: Sebastian lifted Ciel onto his back. William and Ronald copied it, with William adjusting his glasses magnificently as he rode Ronald out. I like William’s actor very much indeed.

Overall, I loved this musical, but I had some serious (albeit brief) problems with it. It seems to be moving further towards the anime version than the last musical and I hope that trend won’t continue. There were some memorable songs, particularly the Shinigami Haken one and the main theme. If you want a more blow-by-blow account from Spacecat, click here (you’ll have to scroll). Or you can read my list of the top ten anime musicals

King of Thorn Movie Review

King of Thorn Anime Movie Review

Cast:
Kasumi Ishiki: Hanazawa Kana
Marco Owen: Morikawa Toshiyuki
Shizuku Ishiki: Sendai Eri
Katherine Turner: Oohara Sayaka
Timothy “Tim” Laisenbach: Yajima Akiko
Ron Portman: Nomura Kenji
Peter Stevens: Miki Shin’ichirou
Ivan Coral Vega: Isobe Tsutomu
Alessandro Peccino: Hirota Kousei
Laura Owen: Kawasumi Ayako
Alice: Kuno Misaki
Walter: Fujita Yoshinori

The following review has mild spoilers for Ibara no Ou: King of Thorn. I enjoyed the movie, but major spoilers will kill it for you. Go see it first.

I came away from Ibara no Ou: King of Thorn feeling elated, like I’d seen something amazing. This was primarily due to the movie’s climactic ‘genre twist’ that previously had many fans giving up on the manga. Essentially, the thing that sold it for me was the reason why other people didn’t like the original work.

The anime begins as creepy science-fiction survival horror. In the first scene (as shown in the trailer), a woman plunges to her death from a New York skyscraper and smashes into the pavement, having been turned to stone. There then follows a massive infodump in the form of TV news footage describing the so-called Medusa Virus’ spread across the world.

The action then moves to Scotland, where busloads of people infected with the Medusa Virus are travelling to a cryonics lab run by a cult called Venus Gate in the hope of finding a cure. What could possibly go wrong?

When these people wake up from their induced sleep, they find monstrous bats nesting in the cryonic pod chamber and thorny vines grown up around the pods. The monsters quickly dispose of the generic characters, leaving behind those with distinctive character designs. The survivors decide to fight their way out.

Up until halfway through it was generic survival horror with the main characters alternately fighting and running away from monsters. In fact, it’s so generic that you can predict who will die and in what order with this handy chart. Consider the African-American man (Ron) and the little boy (Tim). Do you know which will die and how soon? No? Then clearly you don’t watch many horror movies.

What stops this section from being a step-down from standard Hollywood horror (which at least knows its genre well enough to try to subvert it) are the hints that Something Deeper Is Going On. One of the first clues is that the female lead’s name is Ishiki, meaning awareness or consciousness. Furthermore, the male lead has visions of her surrounded by thorns which seem to be connected to her. Oh, and she’s a twin. That’s suspicious in its own right. We also know the lab is run by a cult. Those genre-savvy enough to be bored by the paint-by-numbers handling of the first half will probably realise there’s more to the plot.

I’ll leave the review here. The revelations soon start piling up, throwing everything that went before it in a new light. Just about everything in the first act, even the annoying reporter trying to interview people as they entered cold sleep, was a Chekhovian gun waiting to go off later. That’s why I left the cinema feeling the way I did. I love massive, complicated mindscrews and this did it well. But the ending is key and to describe it would be to ruin it. You’ll have to sit through the generic horror to get the payoff and that’s just the way it is. If you really must know, the Wikipedia page for the manga will point you in the right direction.

The movie is almost certainly heading overseas (America, at least). There’s an English version of the official site and a great deal of the onscreen writing is in English. But if the wait makes you feel bad, just remember we don’t get Iron Man 2 until June 11th.

Spam From Japan: Bakuon Film Festival

Bakuon Film Festival

The Bakuon Film Festival is held in Tokyo (Kichijouji) and runs from May 28th to June 12th. Amongst many other films are two cult classics: Akira and Tetsuo, The Iron Man (Just 「鉄男」 in Japanese).

Akira is one of the first anime movies many Western fans saw. It has a strong soundtrack, cool motorbikes and an iconic showdown where the two main characters scream each other’s names. A whole chunk of pop culture reference is missing from your life if you haven’t seen this.

As for Tetsuo… I don’t really have a genre for you. Is ‘metal fetishist’ a genre? I’m not sure I can stomach seeing this again on the big screen, but there will be plenty of people out there who will.

There are a few other movies that look worth seeing, although I’ve haven’t seen them myself – Yomigaeri no Chi is one that stands out. You can find the full list of screening times and movie information at the official site.

Trigun: Badlands Rumble Movie Review

Trigun: The Movie

This review contains spoilers for Trigun: Badlands Rumble.

Back in the day, if you wanted fansubs, you had to look up providers in a big database which would show you which fans had what series and whether they’d ship internationally. You’d then send off your money to somewhere in America and about a month later, no more than eight VHS tapes would arrive in your mailbox.

That’s how it was and we liked it that way, dammit. It’s also how I discovered Trigun.

I’d heard the hype first (that’s how we knew what to order), but I was still surprised how much I liked it. I’m not usually a fan of the main character(s) in a series, particularly if they’re the good guys. But Vash was fun and whimsical with a dark side. He’s probably one of the more complex characters in anime and it’s difficult to get a grip on his personality.

Fast-forward ten years; I’ve moved to Japan and am now sitting in a charmingly shabby third-floor cinema in Shinjuku, waiting for the new Trigun: Badlands Rumble movie to start. Funny how life works.

The movie starts with Vash getting between a legendary bank robber named Gasback and his cronies, because he can’t stand any kind of violence.

Twenty years later, rumours suggest Gasback plans to target Makka City and so the mayor assembles the most unsavoury characters he can find to protect it. Milly Thompson and Meryl Strife are in town in their professional capacity as insurance auditors, and try to drive Vash out of the city, but he only wants to flirt ~~with~~ at Amelia.

When Gasback finally arrives, however, Wolfwood is amongst his entourage and it’s revealed Amelia’s plans to kill Gasback are based on more than just a desire to collect the bounty on his head.

[Note: Gasback, Amelia and Makka are my own romanisations. They may well prove to be wrong when official translations are released.]

They’ve kept the original seiyuu from the anime and, so it seems in some scenes, some of the ineptness of the animation between the key cels. That’s not really a criticism. Computer modelling is used extensively, but not in a way that made me think it didn’t fit with the rest of the anime, as I’ve seen in the past. The backgrounds are well-drawn and they often used interesting angles to tell the story. The character designs for even incidental characters are bright and varied.

Despite all this, I didn’t like it in the same way I did the anime series, despite the movie staying within the anime timeline. The key problem is the relationship between Amelia and Vash. They meet when he rescues her; he falls in love immediately and proceeds to follow her everywhere. He follows her from her hotel room into the streets and when she kicks him away, he nuzzles her legs. It’s too much.

The best scene is without Vash, when Wolfwood (wearing Vash’s glasses) and Amelia take the fight to Gasback. It just seems that Vash is always there to undermine what would otherwise be a strong character.

Is this movie at fault, or is it my memory…?

Cast:
Vash The Stampede: Onosaka Masaya
Nicholas D Wolfwood: Hayami Sho
Meryl Stryfe: Tsuru Hitomi
Milly Thompson: Yukino Satsuki
Amelia: Sakamoto Maaya
Gasback: Isobe Tsutomu

Official site

Cinemas:
Tokyo: Cinema Sunshine (Ikebukuro) and Shinjuku Musashino-Kan (Shinjuku).
For cinemas showing Trigun outside Tokyo, please click here

SD Gundam Seiyuu Event

Today, I headed to Akihabara to check out the recently opened Gundam Cafe. While walking round the streets near Denki-Gai, I noticed a huge Gundam head and big television screens showing SD Gundam. Since I like flashing lights, I crossed the road for a closer look.

It turned out to be a promo event for SD Gundam Capsule Fighter Online. The strange thing was, that once people had taken photos of the giant head (from the 1/1 scale Odaiba Gundam) and the women dressed as pilots, they wandered off again. I, however, joined the queue to see what would happen.

A couple of minutes later, I got to try out the new online game (for PC). I’m not used to these things, so it took a while to understand the controls and I would never claim to have mastered them. In fact, if it wasn’t for the tutorial letting me win, I’d never have got through it all. It was mildly entertaining and I felt that playing the game well required genuine skill rather than the button-mashing I’ve seen in some games.

Afterwards, I had to fill in a questionnaire. It confused me for a while since it was a list of statements about the game and the available battle modes and asked me to circle ‘yes’ or ‘no’. At the end, there was a little ‘hint’ that said the event staff didn’t like to hear the word ‘no’. Having read that, I circled ‘yes’ for every statement with impunity. On the back were more detailed questions about how many hours I spend gaming and things like that. So mostly they’re just creating awareness amongst people they feel are already their target market, I guess.

I handed in my clipboard and was ushered into tent where more machines were set up and I could play against other people. This was more fun than the tutorial, but more frustrating too. I kept dying and having to respawn repeatedly. Nice graphics, fun to play, but I need to be better at the controls first.

Giant Gundam head.

By then, it was time for the seiyuu talkshow. The guests were Abe Atsushi and Okamoto Nobuhiko, who play Male [Gundam] Operator A and Male [Gundam] Operator B. One is supposed to be cool and energetic, the other mysterious and sexy. At one point, the female MC asked the five or so women in the front row (and the only girls in the vicinity) which one was their type. One woman put her hand up for both, but otherwise, none of them said a word. Maybe they were shy, or maybe they just wanted to pilot their own Gundam like the guys in the room and hadn’t given any thought to their ‘type’.

They played some sound samples from the game and it was amusing seeing Okamoto react to his character’s giggle at the end of his welcome speech. They were then asked to read the same speech out live. I always love seeing seiyuu at work like this and it’s clear Okamoto is very good at controlling his breathing to do voices like the one he uses for the game. The first time, both seiyuu took it seriously, but when they had to do their death speeches, they hammed it up. Lots of fun.

They both went on to play each other in the actual game, which shut down twice in the middle of play. Abe was pretty quiet most of the time, with Okamoto speaking more-or-less like a pilot. There were cheers whenever he pulled off a combo move. They were both really good at the game, so I guess they either practiced or it’s fairly simple if you do enough online gaming.

Gundam Cafe

Afterwards, I resumed my attempt to find the Gundam Cafe (Official Site, Map). The oversimplified map on the official site told me it was around the large area in front of the station. Very useful for Akiba types, I imagine, but not much use to me.

When I finally found it, the store front was a far cry from the almost-empty pavement I’d seen on the internet. There were swarms of people, some choosing to queue and some choosing to take a photo and leave.

A quick look told me that customers fell broadly into two categories — male-female couples and solo male otaku. I was alone and had just come from an SD Gundam online game seiyuu event, so feel free to draw your own conclusions.

I asked the guy holding the “This Is The End Of The Queue” sign about the length of the wait time. He told me it would be about two hours, but reminded me it was open until 11pm. I thanked him and left. In two hours I could go all the way to Sendai and drink at Gundam Shot Bar Zion again.

Spam From Japan: Tokyo International Anime Fair 2010

Just back from the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2010 (TAF2010) and can’t wait to tell you about the promo videos I saw.

The highlight of the event for me was definitely the five minute preview for GARO The Movie 3D Red Requiem [Official site]. I think I’ve seen a few posters for the TV series at previous anime trade events, but I know very little about the story. Not that I needed to. The preview moved briskly from scene to scene and was full of magical sigils in 3D and giant robots with beautifully detailed mechanics. Even the title was done using 3D kanji, with the brush strokes seeming to flare out into the audience. Looks way better than Avatar and I’d bet it cost a fraction of the price. It’ll be out in autumn 2010, so watch out for it.

I also saw two more 3D-ised anime trailers; Blassreiter and Last Exile at GONZO’s [Official site] booth. Neither of these were intended for the 3D market and it shows, although less often than you would think. During fight scenes, it looks fantastic, although 3D should make directors rethink what kind of shots and what point of view they’ll use. However, when cel-like animation is used, it tends to have black lines surrounding the characters and buildings and so looks more like a bumpy cardboard jutting out of the screen. Fix this and we’re cool, okay?

The trailer for Space Pirate Captain Harlock [Official press release] made its premiere, along with GAIKING. I must admit, I didn’t realise Harlock wasn’t played by a real actor at first. Lest you think me completely stupid, let me point out he appears mostly in shadow. The rest of his surroundings looked as real as any Hollywood movie (as in Star Trek and, again, Avatar). The coolest point was that many of the designs and costumes in Captain Harlock are ridiculous. I refer to the ship with the huge skull on it, of course, amongst many other smaller details. But in this, it breaks through the clouds in all its stupid glory and looks real. Can a flag fly atop a spaceship in a vacuum? I think not, but it does in this animation and it is cool. My only annoyance was the American voiceover. I can’t really justify this. All I can do is point out that I love a number of American cartoons, but I don’t like dubs even when they are considered the default in Japan. Or, perhaps, particularly when they are the default in Japan.

Another trailer premiere was for Togainu no Chi [Official site] anime. Nitro Plus claimed they would show a trailer for a new, top secret anime project at the Tokyo Anime Fair, but everyone figured out what it would be pretty quick and they admitted it a day later. It’s supposed to be BL (yaoi), but the trailer showed more over-the-top cool fighting than the usual BL trappings, so I’m interested in seeing how it turns out. There needs to be fewer generic BL merchandising machines and more plot-based dramas where the guys involved happen to be gay. If they can work in some explosions, spaceships shaped like skulls and 3D battles, that would be great.

The Kuroshitsuji II trailer [Official site] was another TAF2010 exclusive. First off, I love the manga and despise the anime. And now, we have a rip-off of an anime I didn’t like in the first place. Despite this… I didn’t hate it. I also couldn’t hear it well because of all the other sounds going on around the booth, so maybe I’ll start hating it properly later. Anyway, the first thing I liked about it was that there was a spider eating a butterfly, emphasising that the evil butler (Claude) will eventually eat the boy’s (Trancy’s) soul. Good. Let’s get that out there. The second point was that it was so excessively stupid that it went right round the dial to become cool again. In one iconic(?) scene, Claude throws his glasses up in the air, uses the standard cutlery-as-weapons schtick, then looks upwards so his glasses to fall back in place. In other points of note, the entire reason Claude is named Claude is so he can be called Kuro. I guess that means there’s some significance in that Trancy abbreviates to Tora, or ‘tiger’ in Japanese. Also in the trailer are three identical servants and a maid with a bandaged eye. Finally, it’s stated that it takes place in the latter half of the 19th century, but I don’t know if it puts it before or after Sebastian and Ciel.

I also saw a preview for Rainbow [Official site] which is a drama set in a prison for juvenile boys in 1955 and stars Oguri Shun. I love hearing about anime that covers new topics. I even had a quick read of the manga that had been left out in the viewing room and it seemed a fascinating, gritty historical piece. The anime (as much as they showed us), didn’t do it justice. It was much cuter and had a voiceover plus an info dump where each boy in turn fights their cellmate ‘sempai’ and their name is read out. Still looks sufficiently interesting though.

Other trailers I saw were for Trigun Badlands Rumble [Official site]., Ibara no Ou (King of Thorn) [Official site] and Red Line [Official site].

The main reason I went on Sunday rather than Saturday was because I managed to get a ticket to a special invite-only event for Arakawa Under The Bridge [Official site]. This was a total waste of time. Described as a ‘baton touch’ event between Hanamaru Youchien (Hanamaru Kindergarten) and Arakawa Under The Bridge, but very few people had seen the previous anime as, like me, they’d applied for tickets from the Arakawa site. So when the Hanamaru panda came out and danced for us, we really didn’t care. Then they brought out a man in a kappa suit to represent Arakawa Under The Bridge. The panda and kappa had a bit of a tussle, then they showed us the video for the OP and ED themes and video messages from four of the seiyuu. I just… what the hell were they thinking? I would have been happy if this was done as a regular booth event, but with all that applying for tickets and queuing, I expected something special.

Advice for attendees
You don’t have to buy a ticket in advance, but it will cost less money. Tickets on the day cost 1000 yen.
You can start queuing to enter the Big Site without a ticket, but buy a ticket inside the building as soon as you are able.
It’s fairly cold outside, but warm inside. Dress appropriately.
There are no cosplayers (apart from booth staff) at this event.
If you have a child who is elementary school age or younger, you are entitled to use the family entrance and jump the queues. Ask a member of staff for details.
As with Comiket, plan a route that will take you past all the booths.

Spam From Japan: Gundam Shot Bar Zion (Sendai)

Gundam Shot Bar Zion in Sendai is relatively far from both the station and the main shopping and eating district. We found it by accident after a friend of ours was searching for a restaurant from her travel guide that serves duck noodles and is closed for all major dining periods (Sundays, evenings, etc…).

Zion is what you might find on an off-world colony if the bar owner was into figure-collecting. The second floor bar is dimly-lit and the walls are lined with Gundam of varying sizes and a video of the original series plays on one of the walls.

The bartender welcomed us warmly and, when we admitted that we needed to leave to catch our train back to Tokyo in twenty minutes, told us what he could prepare from the menu in that time. Apparently food is compulsory, probably due to licensing laws. We had “Dopp GZ no Cockpit de Edamame”, which were edamame beans served decorated with figures, including one of Garma Zabi. We didn’t get to keep them; you have to order a special dessert for that.

Our point cards (to be upgraded the next time we visit the bar) identified us as ‘civilians’ in the Gundam universe and I’m keeping it even if I’m not sure if I’ll return to Miyagi Prefecture.

The menu has a number of cocktails unique to the Sendai bar. I chose “Jet Stream Attack” which was a fairly ordinary cola mix (I think… the recipes are secret). My partner got “Akahana,” a grapefruit-based drink served in a cocktail glass and named after an insignificant-but-iconic Zeon guy from the original Gundam who had a red nose. The bartender thought this was a pretty cool choice. And when our drinks arrived, he insisted that, instead of ‘kampai!’ we shout ‘Sieg Zion!’

When we left, said bartender saluted us. It was a wonderful, friendly experience that I would recommend to anyone visiting Sendai, even if you don’t know much about Gundam. I have no idea if the Tokyo bar is as good.

《ガンダムショットバー　ＺＩＯＮ》
仙台市青葉区大町２-４-１　グランドソレイユ２Ｆ
Gundam Shot Bar ZION
Sendai-shi Aoba-ku Oomachi 2-4-1 Grand Soleil 2F

Map

Spam From Japan

Live from Tokyo

Tokyo Toy Show 2010 Report

Spam From Japan: Dream Live 7th Concert Review

Spam From Japan: Design Festa (Spring 2010)

Spam From Japan: Kuroshitsuji Musical Review (2010)

King of Thorn Movie Review

Spam From Japan: Bakuon Film Festival

Trigun: Badlands Rumble Movie Review

SD Gundam Seiyuu Event

Spam From Japan: Tokyo International Anime Fair 2010

Spam From Japan: Gundam Shot Bar Zion (Sendai)

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