|
|
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
 I got an e-mail recently from a reader named Jen who has a young son that is a big Astro Boy fan. Great to know that a new generation of fans is growing out there. Jen is looking to get an Astro Boy hat for her son, specifically requesting the red "Ministry of Science" hat that Toby wears in the movie.
I haven't had any luck in finding such a hat. The only Astro hat I was able to find is this freaky looking one shown below, and that doesn't seem to be available anymore.
So I'm putting out the call for help with the hopes that somebody else out there will know something or be able to find an Astro Boy hat. It can be any hat at all as long as it's related to Astro Boy. I'm sure that Jen and her son will appreciate the help, but I'm also interested in seeing what might be out there just for curiosity's sake. If anyone finds anything, please post it here in the comments section.
Continue reading "Any Hats Out There?"...
 Big news from Vertical Inc., the company responsible for publishing several English-language editions of Osamu Tezuka manga, including Black Jack (volume 13 pictured right), Buddha, and Dororo.
Kodansha, Japan's largest publisher, and Japanese printing company Dai Nippon have made major investments into Vertical. This gives Vertical much greater financial stability and access to even more titles, both manga and otherwise.
It's still business as usual though, and all of their previously announced titles, including Tezuka's Princess Knight, are still on the schedule.The company is being invested in, not completely taken over, so they will keep doing what they have been doing, and we should be able to look forward to more great releases from them in the future.
You can read more detail here on Anime News Network and in an informative interview with marketing director Ed Chavez on Comic Book Resources.
Continue reading "A Vertical Investment."...
Thanks to the Tezuka Osamu Magazine Club and Soba Project, 400 volumes of Osamu Tezuka Manga (that's about 80,000 pages) are now available to read on the Apple iPad.
An subscription fee of 1,050 yen
($13 US) per month will grant users unlimited access to all the available manga in the e-library. There is also a free edition of the latest Weekly Tezuka Osamu Magazine featuring 100 pages selected from Tezuka's various works. Most interesting is a motion manga feature, where the comic pages have been enhanced with animation and voice acting.
Thus far, this is only available in Japanese, though I suspect international versions may follow at some point in the future.
You can read more information on TezukaOsamu.net as well as Mania.com and Asahi.
Continue reading "Tezuka on iPad"...
Reporting on a new exhibition taking place at the RMIT Gallery in Melbourne, Australian newspaper The Age has a new article about the sophisticated themes behind some of the cute characters found in Japanese anime. Here's a sample:
TO MANY, Astro Boy is just a cartoon; a children's show about a robot with rocket-powered legs. But beneath its animated exterior is a surprisingly dark undertone.
Consider the origins of the title character, who, the story goes, was created by the head of Japan's Ministry for Science to replace the son he lost in a car accident. After a brief period of happiness, the grief-stricken bureaucrat realised he would never fill the void in his heart - so he sold his robot franken-child to a cruel circus owner. As you do.
But fortunately, the kindly new head of the Science Ministry spotted Astro performing in the circus and obtained legal guardianship of him, thus discovering he was capable of human emotions. All of which allowed the series to explore artificial intelligence, feelings and what makes us ''real''. You can read the entire "Toying with humanity " article on theage.com.au or by clicking the link below for an archived version.
Toying with humanity
Michael Lallo
February 4, 2011
The cute characters of anime frequently explore dark themes.
TO MANY, Astro Boy is just a cartoon; a children's show about a robot with rocket-powered legs. But beneath its animated exterior is a surprisingly dark undertone.
Consider the origins of the title character, who, the story goes, was created by the head of Japan's Ministry for Science to replace the son he lost in a car accident. After a brief period of happiness, the grief-stricken bureaucrat realised he would never fill the void in his heart - so he sold his robot franken-child to a cruel circus owner. As you do.
But fortunately, the kindly new head of the Science Ministry spotted Astro performing in the circus and obtained legal guardianship of him, thus discovering he was capable of human emotions. All of which allowed the series to explore artificial intelligence, feelings and what makes us ''real''.
Advertisement: Story continues below
''These are not just fluffy cartoons,'' says Evelyn Tsitas, public programs co-ordinator at RMIT Gallery. ''The Western approach sees animation as a kids' thing, but in Japan they use it to explore more adult themes. It's not about telling a pretty story; often, it's about darker themes and emotions.''
Which is why the gallery has just launched two exhibitions: one about Japanese characters such as Astro Boy, Hello Kitty and Pikachu, and another about animated Japanese films - or ''anime'', as they're known - most of which are geared towards adults.
It's clear that cartoon characters occupy a special place in the Japanese psyche. They appear on bank cheques and train tickets, electric shavers and tampons. You can drink Hello Kitty wine and eat Pokemon beef curry. You can even choose from a range of Astro Boy-emblazoned ''boxers, briefs and men's panties''.
''If you look here,'' says Tsitas, waving towards a mocked-up girl's bedroom furnished entirely with Hello Kitty merchandise, ''you'll see some of the most popular products. But you won't just see them in bedrooms - it's perfectly reasonable for office workers to line up dolls and cups with characters on their desks to make them feel happy and comforted.''
Indeed, comfort is the goal of a Hello Kitty-themed maternity hospital in Taiwan, in which everything from the sheets and towels to the walls of the examination room feature the feline motif ''to ease the stress of childbirth''.
In Bangkok, however, a police chief has taken to disciplining his officers by adhering Hello Kitty armbands to their uniforms ''to make them feel guilt and shame''.
But despite her Japanese heritage, Kitty was ''officially'' born in suburban London in 1974. Her favourite word is friendship, she likes goldfish and lollies, brushes her teeth with strawberry toothpaste … and her blood type is A.
Not surprisingly, her hyper-cute tastes - and the fact she has no mouth - have angered critics, who say she's a bad role model for girls.
But according to Sanrio, the company that owns her, ''Hello Kitty speaks from her heart. She's Sanrio's ambassador to the world and isn't bound to any particular language.''
The females in animated Japanese movies, on the other hand, are unequivocally strong. Unlike the pathetic Disney princesses who are in constant need of rescuing, anime women are empowered, says Tsitas. ''They're not waiting for a prince to release them from a spell, they're conquering evil with their magic sword.''
The character exhibition is divided into decades, helping contextualise the creation of each cartoon idol with the key events of the time. For instance, Astro Boy - who turns 60 next year, and whose Japanese name means ''Mighty Atom'' - was conceived in the aftermath of atomic warfare, just as television was taking hold. Information panels also explain the historical roots of modern cartoons.
''The fact [the Japanese] have lots of different gods means they can associate with lots of different characters and good-luck charms,'' Tsitas says. ''And it's interesting how the anime and manga characters, which are often quite expressionless, are different from the Western cartoon characters.
''If you think of a cartoon like Scooby Doo, the animators tell you how to perceive those characters and what emotions they're feeling. Whereas with a lot of the Japanese characters, you can project whatever you want on to them.
''You can make them happy or sad or whatever you want them to be, which is probably one of the reasons they're so endearing.''
Continue reading "Toying with Humanity"...
Be sure to check out The Mike Toole Show for an incredible look at one of Japan's greatest creators, the legendary Shotaro Ishinomori.
Ishinomori created so many of Japan's most famous characters and stories, conquering most every conceivable genre and medium. Most famous among his works is the classic Cyborg 009. Fans of Osamu Tezuka should definitely look into learning more about this incredible artist's body of work. In fact, it was Tezuka himself who discovered Ishinomori's talent and broke him into the professional manga industry.
Here's a sample from the article:
Anyway, a young artist named Shotaro Onodera submitted some samples of his work to Manga Shonen, and it just so happened that Tezuka's famous Astro Boy was running as a special feature in the magazine at the time. Tezuka's editor clued him in to the budding talent, and history was made when Tezuka hired the kid as his assistant and set him to work on the Astro Boy story Electro. The entire experience is laid out in dark horse's Astro Boy volume 15, so seek that out if you want the dirt. Be sure to read the entire column on Anime News Network.
It's unfortunate that so little of Ishinomori's work has been made available to English speakers. The tide has turned in recent years when it comes to Tezuka's manga, so let's hope for the same attention being paid to Ishinomori as well. Check out the English Language version of the IshimoriPro website for more.
Continue reading "Ishinomori's Story"...
The epic revisioning of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy universe by Naoki Urasawa has once again been honored with another award
The PLUTO manga won the the Intergenerational Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France this weekend. This is one of the biggest comics events in the entire world, and France has a huge comic book culture.
The Intergenerational Award is a recently created honor, and it seems appropriate to give such an honor to Pluto, as it is the product of 2 generations of manga artists.
Source: Anime News Network
Continue reading "PLUTO Wins Comics Award in France"...
|
|
|
|
I got an e-mail recently from a reader named Jen who has a young son that is a big Astro Boy fan. Great to know that a new generation of fans is growing out there. Jen is looking to get an Astro Boy hat for her son, specifically requesting the red "Ministry of Science" hat that Toby wears in the movie.
