Many have heard of the Maid Cafes in the otaku shopping district of Akihabara but none like this. Popopure Cafe has food served to hungry otaku by cute little maids but while you chow down on some yummy food, you might notice their big 50" TV with non-stop anime and the assorted anime framed pictures. Definitely artwork you'd rather view compared to the weird European "what-the-hell-am-I-looking-at" so-called artwork littered in the diners and restaurants here. These items are normal in all Maid Cafes except here you can dub your own scenes in an anime.! The name of the anime is "Popo no Bōken" (The Adventures of Popo). Yes, funny name but an awesome idea. It's for only a few minutes and the anime has three character roles to fill in. If there are not enough people with you to play the parts, the maids will take the roles. After you finish dubbing, they give you a complementary DVD with all your performances. Yet again, more otaku news that makes me wish I was not living in New York.
Well, here it is..the first picture of Justin Chatwin as Goku. I don't know what to say about the Live action DBZ movie in the works... I really hope it doesn't suck.
My lovely fiancee Danielle recently showed me the works of the lady you see above; Vanessa Mae. Couldn't go without blogging about this extremely talented violinist. Many of you probably already know her and don't need an intro from me. Her music is a stunning mix of fast violin playing and techno music. People who are familiar with my AMVs know Euro techno is my music of choice (Right now di.fm's Euro Dance stream is blazing in my room.) So I simply love this stuff. Many of you otaku will appreciate this so I placed a video of hers below via youtube and user paganini123. Vanessa worked on the music for Disney's Mulan along with many other gigs. For those otaku who don't know, she also did the Sailor Moon Medley which I bet is now running through your head. Check out her other videos too; unlike many techno song videos which just beg us to make AMVs since they are so horrible, hers are just as artistic as the music played....but an AMV done by me of one of these songs may be a possibility ^_~.
Some of you might be familiar with the Xbox game Blue Dragon; I've yet to play it but many otaku have two strong reasons to play it. First reason is that the game's character designer as you can guess is non other than Akira Toriyama; a quick look at the picture above and you'll easily tell. Secondly, the music composer for this game is the legendary Final Fantasy composer, Nobuo Uematsu. A combination like that really can't go wrong so I'm eager to pick up the game now. As one can expect, there has been an anime series based on the game that's been running in Japan since April 2007 and as of yesterday it was announced that Cartoon Network will run the series with Viz taking the helm...so expect some good voice actors for this one. For all those who are eager to see more from the DBZ creator, this is the chance to. It's set to be on the air here in April 08. More info at the Anime News Network
The list keeps growing on anime titles that are to get the Hollywood makeover. Whether that is good or bad is up to the fans but looks like the next anime to be a live action movie is Akira. What's even more interesting is the person who is going to produce the movie...Leonardo DiCaprio together with Warner Bros. I didn't know he was such a big anime fan... anyways, would have to agree with Danny Choo's take on the series, that of it being very gloomy. Set to come out during the summer of 09, add it to Transformers, Evangelion, Speed Racer, and Dragon Ball as the current list of anime titles turned into Hollywood movies. Expect even more once the American comic movies eventually lose their thunder.
Keeping everyone up to date with the upcoming Dragon Ball movie that comes out in August.. here are some more actors confirmed last month for the movie; still no trailer yet though.
Grandpa Gohan - Randall Duk Kim Carey Fuller - Texas Battle Emi - Shavon Kirksey Agundas - Richard Blake
Ernie Hudson- Popo?
Other than Grandpa Gohan and Popo, I don't even know these characters. It appears that this movie takes place during the end of the Dragon Ball saga when the young Piccolo appears after King Piccolo dies. One scary thing though is the MovieFone description where they messed up by saying that Goku first love is Chi-Chi and then loves Bulma...which is completely wrong in many accounts and lets hope thats not there or there will be many pissed off DBZ fans. The picture above and more descriptions of the movie can be found here at the official blog.
Some of you might have been wondering when I'll update the contest page; well today I did. First off I want to congratulate Christina A. for winning the Hare Hare Yukai Contest. She won the Mikuru Beam figure by Max factory, (one of my favorite figures). Check out the video here. The next contest is up now and this is a bit easier; the goal is to have the best Fate/Stay Night fan art picture. The winner gets the Bome Vol. 22 Rin Tosaka figure. Check out the details here.
Some interesting news from Japan. As of a few days ago, SciencePortal.jp, a top scientific website run by the Japan Science and Technology Agency released a report showing the cost if the military was to actually make a real 59 foot tall functioning gundam. Based on their reports its about 79.5 billion yen or roughly $730 million dollars. Check out the full story and a great chart of the costs at animenewsnetwork.com Well, I guess a just better become a multi billionaire and I'll be set. ^_^;
To keep everyone up to date with the Dragon Ball Z live action movie; today it was announced that Chow Yun-Fat will play Master Roshi in the Dragon Ball Z movie coming out on August 15th 2008. Originally I spoke to about the roles when Goku and Piccolo where announced. Here's a list of the roles that are confirmed if you haven't already heard.
Nothing on Vegeta or others as of yet and from the looks of it, the story line will be the end of the Dragon Ball Saga when Goku marries ChiChi and fights Piccolo in the tournament. So we might not see Vegeta and they haven't called me yet for Future Trunks so we might have to wait on a sequel for that.
The list of anime-based Hollywood movies keeps growing with Speed Racer as promised in the most recent ComicCon. If you haven't seen the sick trailer yet, check it out here. Anime fans have alot to look forward for in 2008 with Speed Racer coming out in May and Dragon Ball in August.
Yet more reasons to go to the famous Akihara Otaku District. It appears as of Anime News Network and AkibaBlog that there will soon be two Mobile Suit Gundam Cosplay bars. Named Federation Forces and Zeon, these cosplay bars will feature mainly female workers dressed like characters from the Universal Century timeline of Zeta Gundam and Gundam ZZ serving cocktails and dishes that look like the famous mobile suits from the series. Any Gundam fan would love to go there by far. Just wish I wasn't stuck here in New York ~_~. For those who can get to Akihara without a 15 hour flight would be pleased to know that they will be open any day now.
It appears that the popularity of Death Note continues to grow in the mainstream media. As of the time of this post, the Death Note anime has been airing on Cartoon Network now here in America and has already come out with two full length movies. In those movies, music has been used by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and now for the upcoming spin-off movie, "L change the WorLd," Kravitz's "I'll Be Waiting" single will be the theme song. L's own spin off movie comes out in Japan in Febuary.
The Manga and anime industry is really on the grow in the past few years. In this month's issue of Wired Magazine you see from the cover and the full story on how manga has taken the graphic novel industry by storm. 6 years ago the graphic novel industry which included comic books from major dealers like Marvel and DC only amounted to $75 Million dollars world wide.
As of today the graphic novel industry has grown to roughly $330 million with 2/3rds ($218 million) coming from manga! Hollywood has in recent years been creating top notch and high grossing movies all based on American comics and its first attempt at a big budget anime film, Transformers, has become a big success. Now there is a DBZ movie in the works and most likely others on the way. The only issue facing this kind of movement is if Hollywood is able to create a story as deep and compelling as many anime titles tend to be. Anime stories tend to have multiple layers to them in terms of character development that both American comics usually stray from and movies simply don't have the time to display.
Either way, as an anime fan I excited to see this industry grow... lets just hope that things stay Japanese and don't get too watered down or americanized as the mainstream accepts anime and manga. Discuss more in the anime forum.
This is a simply amazing cosplay of Samus from everyone's favorite Nintendo game, Metroid. She put loads of detail in this with all the battle damage and she actually looks like Samus! Complements of Dannychoo.com
Just reminding everyone about the Hare Hare Yukai Dance Contest I'm doing. The goal is to mimic the dance done at the end of the episodes The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. As you can easily see on Youtube, people copying this dance has been a craze for a number of months in Japan. Whether you are from Japan or wherever, submit your video's youtube link of you doing this dance and the best ones will be voted on in January (sorry, I had to extend the time). The winner will get to pick one Haruhi Suzumiya figure of their choice from the anime store. I'll probably give some cool stuff for the runners up too. I have one entry already so have fun. Here's the dance below.
Many have heard of the Maid Cafes in the otaku shopping district of Akihabara but none like this. Popopure Cafe has food served to hungry otaku by cute little maids but while you chow down on some yummy food, you might notice their big 50" TV with non-stop anime and the assorted anime framed pictures. Definitely artwork you'd rather view compared to the weird European "what-the-hell-am-I-looking-at" so-called artwork littered in the diners and restaurants here.
