Eric had a blast seeing his favorite Japanese band The Pillows live, back in March at Anime Boston. Eric’s cousin Kate recommends the Japanese Pop band The Captains.
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Category: Animé
Malice Mizer
Today is the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. Courtesy of Eric, here’s the 90’s Japanese glam rock band Malice Mizer with what I suppose is a commentary of some sort about Japan’s militaristic past.
(No, that’s not Michael Jackson!)
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Doug’s Anime Pick — Astro Boy
The granddaddy of Japanese animation is a boy. A robot boy. Astro Boy. I have great fondness for the original b&w Astro Boy TV series, and I’m happy that the complete run of the American version of the cartoons is available on two DVD box sets, Astro Boy: Ultra Collector’s Edition. That link goes to Amazon, but if you’re going to buy them go to the “Used & new” section and order from Shawnek. You’ll be glad you did.
Way back here, in the fall of ’06 I highlighted the 60’s humor magazine HELP! Some of cartoonist Robert Crumb’s first published works were in HELP!, including this drawing from his walking tour of Harlem.
If you’re familiar with the American version of Astro Boy’s theme song, here is the Japanese version of the original opening, along with an alternate Japanese intro and an outro before the credits were inserted.
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A new Astro Boy movie, with computer graphics, is in production and is scheduled for release next summer. My interest in Astro Boy is mostly limited to the original series, but I’m still hoping the movie comes out well.
Eric’s Anime Pick — Emma
As promised, here’s more anime. Emma, A Victorian Romance, a 24-part series, isn’t Jane Austen, but it’s not giant robot battles, either.
We’ve watched only the first episode of Emma, but the series looks like a good selection for Eric’s girl cousins. I’ve spliced together a couple of scenes. See? No giant battling robots! 😉
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Eric’s Anime Pick — Grave of the Fireflies
Eric says we’ve depleted his selections of superior Anime, but we’ll be looking through some other titles to see what might be worthy. This one is an oldie we watched before I started blogging. Grave of the Fireflies is from 1988, and it’s one of the most tragic and heart-wrenching movies I’ve ever seen. A teenage boy does everything he can to keep himself and his baby sister alive in Japan during World War II.
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“Are You Enjoy?”– Pillows Autographs
Special blog post by Eric!
Well, the Pillows thankfully were able to do a second autograph session on the Anime Boston con’s final day, when the crowds were far thinner as many failed to return, probably either due to Easter or frustration/fatigue over the madness of the last two days. The con organizers finally managed to do something efficiently: the hundred people who were allowed autographs each got a ticket that guaranteed them one.
There was a short Q&A panel immediately before, where we learned that neither the name “the pillows” nor the “Sweet Irene” mentioned in one of their songs have any real significance. When asked of what they thought of their American fans that can’t understand Japanese, they replied with “Well, we’re fans of all this American music we can’t understand!” And on their frequent use of big sunglasses: “Rock Star!”
It’s rather jarring to see how grizzled Suwao and the others have become in the eight years since the anime FLCL rocketed their popularity around the world–compare the vibrantly youthful, scrubbed-clean faces in the “Ride On Shooting Star” video to the craggy jowls, Mick Jagger hair, and flagrant unshavenness in the picture I took. Clearly this isn’t just the result of the trio having two hours of sleep in almost two days, they look exactly like this in their latest music videos. They’re getting older, the band’s had its twentieth anniversary last year. Though for all I know, this could be an intentional, gradual “image” update to coincide with that!
I bought their spectacular latest album “Wake up!” at double the list price (you have to expect such things buying Japanese imports at cons), and as you can see, it was signed shortly afterwards by all three of them! Interestingly, the only discernible signature is that of vocalist-guitarist-frontman Suwao, first from the right in the photo.
“Are you enjoy?” was an amusing bit of Engrish repeatedly shouted by them at the concert.