Not too long ago I reported on Viki.com, the free streaming site that presents international video with crowd sourced subtitles. They had added 80's Astro Boy and Black Jack anime to their service, and it looks like they are not stopping there!
Another huge batch of classic Tezuka anime has been added to Viki, and there is an incredible selection! Not everything is available with English subtitles yet, but you can now watch the following list anime from Tezuka Productions.
(The Ambassador Magma anime is not very good, but hey, it's the thought that counts!)
Let's hope that the streaming rights for more shows can be acquired and that the offerings continue to expand. Princess Knight would be a fantastic addition. Let them know what else you want to see!
Continue reading "Don Dracula, Leo, Melmo, & more now on Viki."...
A great new way to watch Tezuka anime has recently appeared, and it's all 100% free and legal!
Viki, a website with international video entertainment, authorized for streaming with crowd sourced subtitles, is now offering the the complete 80's Astro Boy series, the Black Jack anime, and the sequel series, Black Jack 21.
The 80's Astro Boy has been legally streaming in other forms before, but what makes this special is that this is the Japanese release rather than the English dub. All 52 episodes are accounted for, including he original versions of the first and second episode, which were edited and combined into one episode for the English language broadcast. So, this may be the first time some of you have seen the full origin of Atlas! This was absent from the region 1 DVD release. I haven't gone through it all, but I imagine other episodes may have scenes missing from the English version. These episodes even feature the original Japanese title cards.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of crowd sourced translations, there are some mistakes in the subtitles. One embarrassing instance has the famous villain character call himself "Skank" instead of "Skunk". However, by registering for an account, one gains access to a subtitle editor, and so the translation can be continuously improved upon by the users watching it.
This is one of the bigger developments in Astro-Fandom for quite awhile! Plus, we get Black Jack 21, which has never been streamed with English subtitles before. This is very exciting stuff, and it bodes well for future releases of more Tezuka shows and other classic anime.
This is not Astro Boy, but hey, we like Tetsujin 28 too, right?
Here's a creative series of Japanese commercials for some kind of wireless mobile Internet, featuring a CG version of the world famous anime giant robot created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama.
Here's the video from Comic Nation TV about their trip to the Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum. It features images from their journey getting there and the exterior of the building. Another video, featuring the inside of the building, will be forthcoming later in the month.
Let's end this year in style with a look at this awesome new trailer for the upcoming animated film adaption of Osamu Tezuka's Buddha, featuring brand new music from legendary rock band X-Japan.
Standing in front of previous incarnations, HRP-2 and HRP-3, the 151-centimeter, 39-kilo HRP-4 robot is part of a line of new working humanoids being developed to ease a looming labor shortage in the rapidly greying nation of Japan.
With 34 degrees of freedom in movement, including full arm articulation and simple hand moves including grasping capabilities, HRP-4 could be handy for all kinds of home jobs or factory work. He also seems light on his feet without the battery pack that Honda's Asimo needs to carry.
HRP-4 uses standard parts with a Linux core. It uses AIST's own proprietary control software on an Intel Pentium M CPU.
Thought I would share this great classic opening couch gag from The Simpsons, featuring each member of the family as a famous Japanese character. Homer is Ultraman, Marge is Jun from Gatchaman, Lisa is Sailor Moon, Maggie is Pikachu, and of course, Bart is Astro Boy.
This originally aired on December 14, 2003 as part of the show's 15th season. It was a Christmas themed episode too.
A new Astro Boy video game is set for release on the iPhone. This is a colaboration between Tezuka Productions, Widefos, and SJgames. It's a side scrolling action game that seems akin in many ways to the GameBoy Advance classic Astro Boy Omega Factor. It has a unique art style and looks to feature battles with both Atlas and Pluto. Other famous characters like Dr. Ochanomizu and Inspector Tawashi also make an appearance.
Check out some gameplay footage below!
The game is set for release in 2011 for what will be the 60th anniversary of Astro Boy. It is be available in Korea and Japan first, but other regions including North America and Europe will follow. Stay tuned to ABW for more information on this exciting new game as it develops.
What I thought was going to be an epic encounter wasn't quite as epic as one would think. Here is the extended version of the previously reported commercial featuring famous TV doctor House and Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack.
I was expecting more from this, honestly. It's not as cool as I thought it would be. Existing Footage from the House TV show was cut together with footage of Black Jack. The only really notable thing about it that gives it any sort of authenticity is that the Japanese voice actors are used. In the end we can see that this is not just a promotional tool for the Japanese DVD release of House season 4, but also for the Black Jack OVA.
This tumultuous sequence of battles took place at a robotics event called Robotech (no relation to the cartoon) at the Tokyo Big Site last month. Clearly these bots have taken some major influence from the famous mecha of anime.
As cool as this is, one has to wonder, is it right to force robots to fight each other? Will they become angry and turn against humans someday? Ah, who cares? Robot wrestling rules!
Here is a recent commercial for a brand of chewing gum available in Japan called POs-Ca, made by the famous Gilco company, which is featuring Astro Boy in their marketing campaign.
I guess the idea here is that this chewing this gum will give you mighty teeth. I bet swallowing it is bad idea though, especially if you're a robot.
Found this recent article about the Chinese animation business, which details some of the obstacles the industry has faced and some of the measures taken by the government to promote it's home grown cartoons while limiting the exposure of foreign imports.
Surprisingly, this article does not mention Imagi at all, in spite coming off the heals of recent shake-ups at the company. What is mentioned, however, is a very interesting fact that I was not previously aware of. The 1980's Astro Boy anime was one of the very first foreign produced cartoons granted entry into China. Here's a video I found of the Chinese Astro Boy theme music.
I always knew that Astro was a popular and important character with Chinese people but now it really makes sense. Of course, this was a double edged sword because it opened the floodgates for Japanese animation in China but at the expense of the country's own cartoon business. Now, such things are highly regulated by the government and China's animation industry is trying to catch up.
I love cartoons and I really enjoy going through the rich history of Japanese anime but I know next to nothing about Chinese animation. I would like to learn more and I think that all animation can only benefit from being shared and allowing new cultural influences while still exploring a cultural identity.
Growing pains of China's animation movie
by Wu Chen
BEIJING, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Freelance writer Wang Xin watched James Cameron's new movie Avatar in December during her visit to America. She was moved by the story and amazed by the 3D effects of the half-animated movie.
The film reminded Wang, a 29-year-old cartoon fan, of a Chinese-made animated movie The Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf she watched at the beginning of 2009.
The film told the story of several goats who were fighting their enemy, the Big Big Wolf, who covets fresh mutton for his family.
It cost 6 million yuan to produce and fetched more than 80 million yuan (11.76 million U.S. dollars) at the box office.
In addition to children, many white-collar workers liked the film. "How to marry a husband like the Big Big Wolf" became a hot topic on the Internet.
The singer, Yafeng, made a song about the desire. He explains why the wolf was worthy of love. "I love you more than loving myself... although I'm very hungry, I will let you take the first bite when I catch a goat..."
There were at least eight domestically-produced animated films last year in China, making it a "blowout" year for China's cartoon films according to critics.
Yin Hong, professor and director of the Center for Film and Television Studies of Tsinghua University, said the production scale of China's cartoon industry has been expanded to more than 140,000 minutes of animation this year, which formed the foundation for many films.
He contributes the growth to the continuous efforts of the government, which set up supporting policies to boost domestic animation industry.
In 2000, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) required local TV stations to get approval from the administration and set quotas for imported cartoons to air on TV.
In 2004, it issued another regulation, stipulating that at least 60 percent of cartoon programs aired in any given quarter had to be domestic.
In September 2006, the SARFT banned all foreign cartoons from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Last February it extended the ban to 9 p.m.
Additionally, the Chinese government has made an annual investment of 200 million yuan in the animation industry since 2006.
Last July, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation jointly issued a favorable taxation policy to support the development of comic and animation industry.
It seems the measures have started to pay off.
China currently has some 6,000 companies making cartoons and comics. According to a report from the Ministry of Culture (MOC) last March, the industry now employs more than 200,000 workers and yearly production of animation was up to 130,000 minutes in 2008.
However, besides the lucky "Happy Goat" and the Mainland-Hong Kong co-production McDull, Kung Fu Kindergarten, other animated films, including The Magic Aster, Happy Running, and the 3D Prequel of the Monkey King didn't do so well at box office.
A poll done by the China Youth Daily in November 2008 showed that only 14.2 percent of the nearly 3,000 people polled liked Chinese cartoons the best.
By contrast, 62.4 percent of respondents said their favorite animated films were U.S.-made. Another 45.9 percent favored films from Japan.
Chinese animation germinated in the 1920s with Uproar in the Studio a 12-minute cartoon made in 1926. The first animated feature length film called "Tie Shan Gongzhu," or "Princess Iron Fan," was made in 1941.
Before the 1980s, China made a lot of animated films. Many of them are still thought of as masterpieces today by fans, including The Monkey King, Secrets of the Heavenly Book, and Nezha Conquers the Dragon King. These were adapted from Chinese legends.
The first foreign cartoon introduced to China was Japan's Astro Boy series in 1981. Since then foreign cartoons have flooded into China. Because of their more entertaining stories and better business model, they rapidly took control of the market. That was a low point for the Chinese animation industry.
From 1993 to 2003, China only produced 46,000 minutes of animation. Jin Cheng, a director with the Guangzhou Animation and Cartoon Association, said the main reason for these Chinese films' failure in box office was poor preparation and too much focus on success and money.
"Some animation companies made a film in 9 months. They never paid attention to first-phase layout, not to mention delicate polishing," Jin said.
Many of these films, launched with high expectations and great public relations campaigns, got an indifferent response from the market after hitting the big screen.
To Wang Xin, the movie version of the Plesant Goat was a simple cut-and-paste from its original TV series. "The idea, images, and technology were terrible compared to foreign cartoon movies. The film even didn't have a full storyline," she noted.
She said that today's Chinese-made animation lacks the human touch that earlier Chinese cartoons had.
Many producers prefer to add hot social topics, such as the financial crisis, or popular Internet topics to their movies.
"I feel no sincerity from local animation producers toward their audience," Wang Xin said.
Yin Hong said, under current circumstances, it's reasonable for local producers to avoid competition with their foreign counterparts in terms of technology, special effects and other hard conditions.
"The gap between them is too wide," he said.
Wang Xin blames the gap on the protective policies. "These companies won't make progress without competition. Instead, they will lower the taste of domestic audience as they can only watch low-grade animation. It's a vicious circle," Wang said.
Lu Ming, a cartoonist who publishes his comic books in European countries, said the supporting policy, which regulates how animation producing companies get subsidies according to the time length of their productions, damages the artistic and cultural purchase of producers.
"They became total businessmen, and cartoons were only a tool for them to make money," Lu said.
He used his own experience with his book as an example. Even with well-connected storylines, complicated images, and Chinese cultural relevance, he could not find publishers in the domestic market. He had a stable group of readers in foreign countries.
Yin Hong said at the first stage, the policies did stimulate the expansion of the scale of domestic animation industry, however, the policies only emphasized quantity.
He said the direction should be shifted from competition on cost to competition in quality.
"Instead of getting money from just making out an animation, the producers have to consider more about market response, which will force them pay more attention to improve the animation's quality," he said.
He also said policies should encourage the integration of companies and the development of brand and reputation.
As they develop the quality of domestic animation, they will attract larger audiences. As the market grows, local producers will have more space to focus on creativity, Yin said.
Here's a little musical interlude I just discovered on YouTube that should brighten up your day. It's a piano cover of the end theme from the 1980's Astro Boy anime series. Catchy tune and great job by the pianist!
Brings back great memories for those of us that grew up with the show, doesn't it?
Someone is killing off all the famous TV and film robots and the original Optimus Prime, the classic Astroboy and an 80s Dalek must form an unlikely alliance to try and solve the mystery, live on stage.
Keep on rockin', you crazy Aussies! Thanks to Infinite Hollywood for posting about this originally.
Some video can be found by clicking the continue reading link below, where you can get a look at some of the costumes. I must warn everyone by saying there is some NSFW language.
To look back and celebrate the passing of this very eventfully year, I'm posting this excellent video I found made from bits of the years' movie trailers. Astro Boy is featured quite prominently!
MrTEZUKAFOREVER has been pretty persistent in asking me to share the Anime Music Videos that were edited together and are shared online. Clearly a lot of work and a lot of love for the character goes into something like this. I thought this one, focusing on the 2003 series, was really great. Enjoy!
This site is dedicated to everything Astro Boy, the works of Osamu Tezuka, and other related anime & manga. Whether you're an old-school fan, a newcomer, or anything in between, AstroBoy World is bound to offer something interesting for you.
