Posts Tagged ‘Animation’

Book one from the Denno Coil novel series, which I picked up from a book store in Kichijoji on my way to the studio.

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Cover art for Freedom 5 dvd, due for release on the 26th of October. Ao makes her debut cover together with Takeru on the earth modified vehicle.

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With its captivating storyline and jawbreaking animation, Madhouse’s Denno Coil ( 電脳コイル） has been keeping me on a fix ever since its release a few months back. The initial press limited edition dvd 1 ( containing episode 1 & 2, plus a bonus making of disc and storyboard book ) just arrived in the mail yesterday.

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Design for one of two new Freedom posters to be given away as prizes in an upcoming Nissin Cup Noodle Campaign. This is actually a scene appearing in Freedom 4, where Takeru says ” やっぱり外で食ってうまいよな！” – which roughly translates as “It ( Ramen ) just taste better outdoors !” Whatever that means.

Anyway, you probably won’t notice this, but if you are to examine the poster again in detail you might notice that Takeru’s noodle cup is just gargantuan ! Sure, we have 大盛り ( jumbo ) sized cup ramen here in Tokyo, but that’s really pushing it. A correctly sized cup would have looked tiny in Takeru’s hands, so I figured the modellers scaled that up upon request from Nissin.

With the first Rebuilt of Evangelion film hitting theatres in a month’s time the advertising onslaught is on, and what better strategem than to infiltrate the local ubiquitous コンビニ ? ( convenience stalls )

First off we have the Evangelion Doritos chips, followed by the iced milk coffee. Not a bad combination for an afternoon snack. The limited stamp collection was released a little earlier ago. These items were all cursory purchases; in that I didn’t set out specifically hunting for them but simply noticed it by accident, so there must be plenty of other merchandise out there for the EV fan.

Product placement through Anime is commonplace here in Japan, ( Freedom Project is an excellent example ), something which I feel creates considerable vibrancy and dynamism to both parties when executed skilfully. Sometimes “Product Placement” can be an oxymoron, because the very existence of the animation is to sell the product.

Evangelion Stamp Collection available here.

Freedom 4 goes on sale today, so I can finally post some screen caps from the renewed opening sequence :

I must have seen the opening sequence a hundred times over（ both the old and updated one ) through the course of my work here but I still get that adrenaline rush everytime I watch it because its so beautifully done ( by the brilliant folks at Kamikaze Douga 神風動画 ), with the visuals and Utada’s “This is Love” complementing each other perfectly. In this renewed sequence the visuals get an update, with some new content from episode 3 spliced in, as well as Ao’s first appearance.

One of the perks of living in a big metropolis like Tokyo must be the wide and wonderful choice of art exhibitions. Over my 3 years of stay here I have been fortuitous enough to attend some truly breathtaking ones like Mucha and Pixar’s 20 Years of Animation, certainly not exhibitions that strut by your house everyday.

Kazuo Oga’s exhibition at the Tokyo Museum of Comtemporary Art, which I visited with Ros yesterday, is the latest addition to that fine list.

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Freedom’s 6th television commercial starts airing on Japan TV today, so I can show some screencaps from the clip. The theme music is again Utada Hikaru’s “Kiss & Cry”, the single is slated for release later in August. We started working on this about a month ago, shortly after we finished Freedom episode 4. Its the first time the audience get to see Takeru and Bis on earth and the lush greenery is a nice change from the colder colour palette used in Eden.

You can watch the full clip from Freedom’s website here.

And now for a little production trivia. Which part of the animation was 3D and which was 2D ? ( excluding backgrounds, dust effects and water ) Is it…

1) Everything is 3D. Period.
2) Only the vehicle is 3D, the rest are hand drawn.
3) Only the vehicle and the 2 characters are 3D, the bison are hand drawn.
4) Everything is hand drawn.

Anyone ? :]

ps Please read this post for the previous (5th ) Freedom Cup Noodle Commercial.

The first book from the Freedom novel series, which cover plot events happening in Freedom dvd 1 and 2. I’ll probably never get around to read it but for those who wish to immerse in a more detailed and elaborate world than the one featured in the anime series it might be an enjoyable trip. I wonder if you can find this in Kinokuniya Singapore ?

Meanwhile at work one of the production staff members was kind enough to check with me regarding the name I would like to see appear in the credits for the US Freedom dvd. For a while I was afraid they might just do a direct translation from my Japanese Kanji pronunciation（黄永豪）; spelled “Kou Eigou” – but this is totally unrecognizable to anyone who knows me so I naturally opted for my english name “Vong yonghow.” I just hope they spell it right !

Sometimes 15 seconds is all it takes.

Months ago while channel surfing I caught a short trailer for an upcoming TV anime series, nothing but a short 15 sec blurb; 3 characters in a chase scene through some mundane Tokyo neighborhood. It was so short I didn’t even manage to catch the title, but the animation was jaw-dropping; unmistakably feature film quality.

Next day at work the animation folks were already talking about the same trailer I saw. It turned out our neighbour from across the street, Madhouse ( the folks who gave you Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika ), has a new work up their sleeves – Denno Coil.　（電脳コイル）

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