Posts Tagged ‘Animation’

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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.

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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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Just received this today, Michael Arias’s Tekkon Kinkreet 2 disc limited edition dvd, which I had also watched in Shinjuku a few months back. The limited edition comes in a thick, sturdy cardboard case, with the main feature labelled Kuro ( black ) and the specials on Shiro ( white ). There are also 2 booklets, ‘Director’s Notes’ and ‘Essence Tekkon Kinkreet Making of’. Everything is in Japanese, except a production note that Plaid wrote.

Update 060907- I managed to haggle Ando-san, co-director of Tekkon Kinkreet for an autograph on this dvd. Read more about it here.

Tekkon is a visual powerfest conjured up by the top talents in the industry, and one viewing is simply not enough to fully appreciate the insane amount of detail and beauty created by the art direction team, headed by Kimura Shinji, who also worked his magic in Steamboy. ( Morita-san once lamented that it was a pity Kimura-san was unable to work with us on Freedom )

For those who can’t get enough of the artwork behind Tekkon, these 2 official art of books, Shiro and Kuro (book covers and purchase links below ) are must buys; there’s so much artwork to show, they couldn’t cramp in one book.

I also have a few rare copies of the above books that are autographed by Kimura Shinji ( art director of Tekkon Kinkreet ) for sale, if you are interested please contact me about details. While stocks last.

You can purchase a set of the Tekkon Kinkreet limited edition dvd here.

Cover art for Freedom 4 dvd, to be released on the 27th of July, with Biz finally getting his own cover. My colleagues and I all agree that he looks rather stylish and cool; which is really amusing once you get to see what he’s up to in this episode.

Check out the other released cover art for Freedom 1, 2, 3 and Previsited.

Takeru from Freedom and Ray from Steamboy greet visitors at the entrance of Sunrise Emotion Animation Studios ( Steamboy Studios ) in Ogikubo, Tokyo. We’ve just moved to this bigger studio last week ( which actually is just a block down the road ), check out this older post.In case you are wondering why that Steamboy cardboard figure look like it was made by a fan, that’s because its really old ( Steamboy took 8 years to complete ), and must have been made during the early stages of production, maybe even before Ray Steam’s character design was finalized.

While most of the the action is happening at the Anime Expo in California with the release of Freedom on HD dvd, back in the studio work goes on for the 6th installment of the television commercial that will go on air later in July, in conjunction with the release Freedom 4. I was just watching the rough cut during the production meeting this afternoon and one of the scenes from the commercial bears resemblence to Utada Hikaru’s Deep River promo clip. Her song “Kiss and Cry” will continue to be used as the theme music.

Takeru graces the lid of a Nissin Cup Noodle, illustrated by Sajiki-san. In Japanese it says “Mobile item get campaign”, to spare you a splitting headache from trying to figure out what that means its basically a promotion for a chance to win some Freedom merchandise by accessing Nissin’s website using your mobile phone. I’ve known this to exist for quite a while now but its the first time I’ve actually bought one that came with the contest form attached.

The earlier campaigns featured the Otomo Katsuhiro illustrated Takeru ( the image I have on my sidebar ) which had Freedom fans eating insane volumes of Cup ramen just to collect it.

Meanwhile at work Freedom 4 is finally completed after slogging 18 hours daily on fine-tunes for the past few days. *Minor spoilers ahead* This episode must be the most hilarious so far with Takeru and Bisu’s misadventures on earth. We’ve also spruced up the opening sequence, I can’t show any images as yet but stay tuned for more updates.