Posts Tagged ‘Anime’

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About 2 months ago, word came that we will be helping out with the production for Utada Hikaru’s MTV for “Kiss & Cry“, her latest single. Although Freedom has always been associated with Utada’s music right from the start ( the opening credits feature her song “This is Love” ), the chance to actually work on one her MTVs naturally got me fairly excited, as I am a big fan. A rough cut of the MTV has already been completed, and I was just dying to see it.

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Work on Freedom 5 has just ended, and I finally get a little free time in the studio. The first thing I did was to grab my Tekkon Kinkreet dvd and ask for Ando-san’s autograph, who was the co-director on the film.

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Takeru’s maglev hoverbike from Freedom.

Now…what would one built with Lego look like ?
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A piece of conceptual artwork done for Freedom 4.

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Ayanami Rei from Evangelion graces the September cover of Rolling Stone Japan.

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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.

Located just 15 minutes away by bus from Mitaka 三鷹 and Kichijoji 吉祥寺, ( a bustling shopping town that was the visual basis for Takaramachi in Tekkon Kinkreet ) is Jindaiji 深大寺, an age old shrine village dating back to the Nara period 1200 years ago.

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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.