Gundam Museum Proposed in Nagoya City Council
posted on 2010-03-07 08:40 ESTNot-So-Daily Link of the Day: Nagoya City Council Member Toshiyuki Ogawa proposed during a Friday council meeting that a Gundam Museum be built in this central Japanese city. He also proposed that the city should host the 1/1-scale "life-size" Gundam statue that made headlines in Tokyo's Odaiba Island last summer.
Ogawa made these proposals as a way to ensure the viability of the city's Aonami train line and guideway bus system amid ongoing financial difficulties. Under the proposals, the Gundam Museum would be built at the city's planned "Manufacturing Cultural Exchange Area," while the 1/1-scale Gundam statue would be erected at the city's Shidami Science Park; these two areas are served by the Aonami line and guideway bus system. City officials characterized the proposals as not necessarily unrealistic, and they said they would investigate who owns the rights, with whom to negotiate, and other preliminary details.
The Japanese conglomerate Bandai already opened a Gundam Museum within a larger Bandai Museum in Matsudo, a city just east of Tokyo, in 2003. However, Bandai sold the museum's building in 2006, and the Bandai Museum moved to Mibu, a town in Tochigi Prefecture north of Tokyo. Mibu's relocated Omochanomachi Bandai Museum no longer has a Gundam Museum section. However Mibu's museum still houses a 1/1-scale RX-78-2 Gundam bust (from the chest up) from the original museum.
A more famous, full-length statue was built at Tokyo's Odaiba Island to mark the 30th anniversary of the Gundam anime franchise last year. After 4.15 million people visited the 18-meter-tall (about 59-foot-tall) statue in two months, Bandai disassembled the statue and eventually decided to move it to Shizuoka City in central Japan this summer. (Shizuoka is the home of Bandai's main production factory for Gundam model kits.) However, even before the statue arrives at Shizuoka, plans had already being considered to move the statue to yet another city after next year.
Nagoya has been a major manufacturing hub of Japan for generations. It has since been the home of the World Cosplay Summit, an annual event sponsored by the local TV Aichi station.
Source: Chunichi Shimbun
Heroman, Senkō no Night Raid Promos Streamed (Updated)
posted on 2010-03-07 14:08 ESTThe official website for Tamon Ōta's manga version of BONES and Stan Lee's Heroman project has opened with a 90-second trailer of the television anime. The first compiled book volume (pictured at right) of the manga will ship on March 20, while the anime will premiered in Japan on April 1. The story follows a boy named Joey who discovers a toy robot in Center City on the west coast of the United States. The toy becomes Heroman, a giant robot that Joey pilots against the mysterious Scrag beings invading Earth. Womax Media! registered the Heroman.jp domain last month, but the site currently redirects to Disney's Blu-ray/DVD home page in Japan.
The website for the Senkō no Night Raid spy action television anime series is now streaming its fifth and sixth 15-second "documentary commercials." The fifth commercial shows assistant director Naomichi Yamato discussing how to edit a scene from the first episode, while the sixth commercial shows the cast members practicing their Chinese dialogue lines. The series will premiere in Japan on April 5. The story is set in 1931 in Shanghai, where Japan has dispatched Sakurai Kikan, a special military spy organization that has since been buried in history. Jun Matsumoto (Persona -trinity soul-) is directing the animators at A-1 Pictures on this second work in TV Tokyo and Aniplex's Anime no Chikara initiative.
Update: The official website for the Heroman anime has opened with a larger version of the promotional video. (In the linked page, select the bottom menu, and then select the "Movie" option. The website also confirmed that Tetsuya performs the opening theme song "Roulette," while Flow performs the ending theme song "Calling."
Kannagi Creator's Brother Starts Kanpachi Spinoff Manga
posted on 2010-03-07 14:33 ESTManga creator Shinichi Yuhki has confirmed on his website on Sunday that he will be launching a new Kannagi spinoff manga called Kanpachi in the April issue of Ichijinsha's Monthly Comic Rex magazine on Tuesday. Yuhki happens to be the brother of Eri Takenashi, the original creator of Kannagi. Comic Rex serialized Kannagi as well as Yuhki's Uchū Slave Gotōda Risako and Himena Kamena manga.
Takenashi revealed last August that she intends to rest from drawing manga professionally for at least one year. She has been recovering after her debilitating illness and resulting surgery in December of 2008, but she is slowly returning to the routine of normal life. She was able to draw an illustration of Kannagi's lead character Nagi to encourage director Yutaka Yamamoto (Kannagi, Lucky Star, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) last September.
Bandai Entertainment released the anime adaptation of Kannagi in North America last year, and ANN is streaming the anime episodes.
Source: Canned Dogs
Sora no Otoshimono Flying Panties Event Videos Posted (Update 2)
posted on 2010-03-08 00:17 EST 
Not-So-Daily Link of the Day: The Gigazine website has posted a report with photographs and videos from Saturday's Sora Fes! — a festival for homemade model aircraft, including many inspired by the flying panties seen in the Sora no Otoshimono television anime series. In addition to the paid 160 attendees, Sora no Otoshimono anime director Hisashi Saito, Award-winning science-fiction author Housuke Nojiri (Rocket Girls, Usurper of the Sun), Kazuhiko Hachiya (the artist best known for developing OpenSky's life-size jet-assisted glider inspired by Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind), and TBS television announcer Jun Suzuki appeared at the event. During the event's final session, over 100 rubber-band-powered flying-panties models were launched simultaneously.
Last year's animated adaptation of Suu Minazuki's Sora no Otoshimono modern fantasy manga created a stir with its ending animation footage, which featured a flock of flying panties in formation. Nojiri wrote the novel inspiration of the Rocket Girls anime, but he was not directly involved with the Sora no Otoshimono anime. Nevertheless, he was inspired by Sora no Otoshimono to supervise the mass production of model ornithopters (flapping-wing airplanes) shaped like flying panties.
Crunchyroll is streaming the Sora no Otoshimono anime in North America and other regions. Viz Media's Haikasoru imprint published Nojiri's Usurper of the Sun novel last year, and it will publish Nojiri's Rocket Girls novel this July. Bandai Entertainment released the Rocket Girls anime in 2008.
Update: Crunchyroll is no longer streaming the anime. Thanks, bayoab.
Update 2: Nico Nico Douga is hosting another video from the event:
____________________________________________________________________Domo-kun Gets CG Superhero Transformation This Spring
posted on 2010-03-08 07:42 ESTDomo-kun (Domo), NHK's internationally known mascot character, is getting transformed into a superhero character with computer graphics this spring. "BS Digital Domo" is designed to promote the NHK BS broadcast satellite system's full-digital transition. The familiar furry brown mascot will don a sky-blue "full-digital transition suit" complete with a "BS Belt" and stars over his eyes to symbolize the broadcast satellites. The Mainichi Shimbun paper's website posted an image of the promotional campaign's new design.
Whereas the earlier incarnation of Domo was animated with stop-motion techniques, "BS Digital Domo" is being produced with computer graphics. NHK's digital broadcasting campaign site has posted 11 5-second stop-motion shorts as teasers for the transition. (At least five more shorts are planned.)
Director Tsuneo Goda developed the profile of "BS Digital Domo" just as he did for the original Domo-kun character. The vibration- and heat-resistant "full-digital transition suit" offers freedom of movement in space while the gloves give the character 30 times the punching strength of a gorilla. Similarly, his new shoes enables him to run 50 times the speed of a cheetah and jump to the moon. He can fly 100 times the speed of a jet, and he can also hear distant whispers with the "full-digital mike."
The "Taikan! Digital Power ga Yatte Kuru" promotional campaign for the digital transition will be unveiled on March 20, and it will be then be shown on all of NHK's television services on March 29.
New stop-motion Domo shorts were created for the Target chain of department stores in the United States in 2008, and more shorts were created for the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores last year. Tokyopop published an English-language, full-color graphic novel last September. The following month, Goda unveiled the second stop-motion anime feature film for another of his creations, Komaneko, in Japan
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