The blog AltJapan has reported on a momentous find for mecha fans. Anime fan Roger Harkavy has discovered a box that belonged to Imai Company that contains artwork from Artmic Studio. The box contained black and white production drawings for Genesis Climber Mospeada and Super Dimensions Cavalry Southern Cross.  He has made the file available to mecha fans everywhere.  AltJapan has the full report. You will certainly want to download the PDF and take a look at the designs that almost made it into Mospeada. I was fascinated by the rare look into the show Southern Cross was originally meant to be.

I watched Terminator Salvation (2009) last night after waiting for it to come out for rental.  I was pleasantly surprised.  It was a great movie.

After 3 Terminator movies showing the machines going back in time to strike at  the origins of the resistance leader John Conner we finally get to see the other side of the story.  Christian Bale plays a hardened, embittered John Conner fighting desperately against Skynet and its killer machines.  Sam Worthington plays a man copied from the past and sent on an unwitting errand to bring John Conner within striking distance of Skynet’s newest terminator.

Probably my favorite thing about the movie is they placed it at the point in time shortly before Skynet made its first use of the time travel machine to send a new-model terminator back to kill John Conner’s mother (the 1984 movie).  Great action, a long-awaited look at the early stages of the human/machine war and attention to detail made this a great movie.  Do yourself a favor and rent it soon.

My Gundam Unicorn novels arrived! The series has 10 volumes and, unfortunately, they are in Japanese so I can’t read them. I was hoping for mecha profile pages but sadly there are none. Still, the black and white illustrations throughout the novels are really nicely done. Also, each volume has a color illustration or two towards the front.  Can’t wait to get a new scanner and upload the images!

Promotional poster outside the mall.

From October 19th through the 27th in Bangkok, Thailand a large Gundam exhibition was held in the Siam Paragon shopping mall to celebrate Gundam’s 30th anniversary. My father was on the scene to take photos. I wish I could have been there!

The RX-78-2 Gundam helps promote the event.

Gundam 00 and Gundam Unicorn were well-promoted.

A nice exhibit near the entrance gave people an overview of the Gundam anime over the years.

A huge model from Gundam 00 was on display.

It's nice to see cosplayers. However, I find it disturbing that girls look better than guys when cosplaying as the heroes of Gundam 00. Kind of says something about our latest crop of Gundam main characters, eh?

Another cosplayer poses for photos.

Gundam models were on display in large numbers.

And you thought you had a big collection!

A store was set up for the exhibit to make sure everyone had enough models to build.

Gundam fans were working on their models right at the exhibition.

There was plenty of Gundam merchandise on hand to buy. Wish I could have shopped there!

Gundam Unicorn anime

 If you’re anything like me you’re waiting anxiously to hear about the anime for Gundam Unicorn.  It’s been too long since we’ve seen new anime in Gundam’s U.C. universe.  Even longer since we’ve seen something new that happens after the One Year War.

MyAnimeList reports on a Japanese report from Anime!Anime! that indicates Gundam Unicorn won’t air on television.  Bandai Visual has decided to try movie theaters and the Internet to hook new viewers instead of the traditional boobtube.

Netflix has been good to me this week and Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003) showed up in the mail. This is a great movie and gets a hearty “thumbs up” from me. Great special effects, lots of action and Godzilla is well represented.

I was pleased to see that Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. continued where the previous movie left off. The first series of 15 Godzilla movies, the Showa Series (1954-1975), created its own continuity. Even though some of those movies took liberties it isn’t stretching things too far to say they roughly fit into the same setting. Next came the seven movies of the Heisei Series (1984-1995). Although the Heisei series acknowledged the first Godzilla movie it created its own continuity that largely ignored the movies of the Showa Series. The six movies of the Millennium Series (of which Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. is one) decided to skip around. Most of these movies created their own individual continuity and ignored the events of even other movies in the Millennium Series. That was why it was so nice to see Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. pick up where the last one (Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla) left off.

Continuing from the previous movie meant they didn’t have to include long scenes that show an individual’s terror at encountering Godzilla or explain why people are so dedicated to preventing Godzilla’s rampages. The film assumes the audience knows what every Godzilla fan already knows – Godzilla is huge, terrifying and very, very grouchy. This gave more screen time to dealing with Godzilla’s current attack. The benefit? The audience gets long, beautifully done battle scenes with little need to wait for them.

Picking up where the last movie left off meant Kiryu, the latest incarnation of Mechagodzilla, got to appear again. This time the Absolute Zero Cannon couldn’t be repaired in time so a hyper maser was mounted in Kiryu’s chest instead. With reduced firepower Kiryu had to fight even harder. The Kiryu design is brilliant and probably works so well because it looks like a midpoint between the first Mechagodzilla design (1974) and the second (1993).

One of the really fun things about the Godzilla series is the sense of tradition. The series started in 1954 and the large number of films (28 if you strictly count movies where Godzilla appears) is enough to create not only its own mythos but its own traditions. Although the more recent Godzilla movies took the freedom to change some things the homages to the past are a strong part of the movies. This movie included Mothra (1961) in its continuity along with the original Godzilla movie (1954). It also recreated some scenes from Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964).

I was impressed by the special effects of Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. Although I’ve enjoyed the effects of Toho movies ever since the 1960′s they really look great in this film. As late as the 1990′s Toho felt bound by tradition to only use suitmation, miniatures and other “live” effects. With the Millennium Series Toho finally lightened up and started trying CG effects. By the time of Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. they seem to have gained mastery of the new techniques and Godzilla fans are treated to a visual feast that deftly combines live effects and CG for maximum impact. My only complaint with the effects was the decision to make Godzilla “warm up” his radioactive breath with a series of clicks and pops on his back. It made the mighty Godzilla seem like a wind-up toy or an old piece of electrical equipment.

The mysticism and philosophy made a stronger presence in this movie than the previous one. Since this sort of thing is firmly established in the traditions of Godzilla movies I was expecting it. I was pleased to see it was handled better than in previous films. Rather than another wishy-washy nod to environmentalism, the prime minister of Japan says towards the end of the film that the catastrophic events have taught mankind “humility”. Much of the plot revolves around the need to bury the bones of the first Godzilla that are housed within Kiryu’s mechanical body. The strong need for proper burial of the dead is a very Japanese theme and considering the first Godzilla’s remains to be on par with the average person fits well with the Japanese outlook.

If the chance presents itself, don’t miss buying or renting Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.

Well, Gundam fans, it’s out. The latest edition of the Mobile Suit Encyclopedia. This time it’s called Mobile Suite Illustrated 2009. This is at least the 6th edition. The earliest edition I have is the Mobile Suit Encyclopedia which appears to have been published in 1989 and claimed to have 370 mobile suits. After that came the Mobile Suit Encyclopedia Ver. 3.0 (1992) which claimed 559 mobile suits. 1998, 2003 and 2006 saw new editions.

Now we’ve got the 2009 edition that weighs in at 472 pages (200 in color). If you’re a Gundam fan then you can’t convince yourself that this purchase isn’t worth it. It rounds up mobile suit designs from most of the Gundam franchise (certainly all the ones that were animated). Many designs from manga and video games show up too. It’s divided into chapters called Universal Century, Experimental and Event Movie, Another Century, and Games Variation.

At this point, Gundam fans are no doubt discussing how much it too much. It’s nice to have so many mobile suit designs in one place. However, the book is growing so enormous that I think it’s high time they separated out the Universal Century material from the alternate setting material. I’m not recommending this just because the book is growing so thick and heavy. In order to fit so much into one book many images are reduced in size or removed altogether. The majority of mobile suit designs have only small “front” and “back” images. The detail images showing their weapons, special parts and so on are largely discarded.

I’m enjoying the book and recommend it not just to any Gundam fan, but any mecha fan as well. I got my copy from Hobby Link Japan.

I just received my copy of a new Dougram art book called Fang of the Sun Dougram the Comprehensive. In recent years publishers in Japan have been putting out large, comprehensive art books for many 80′s anime series. I’m glad Dougram finally got its turn. In the past I’ve gone looking for Dougram art books but met with little success.

Weighing in at 240 pages (32 in color) this book gathers all art work connected with the 75 episode TV series from 1981. I can’t read the Japanese text but I can see the staff interviews, episode guide and special pieces on aspects of Dougram. The big color maps of the Dougram world are very cool. The first 7 pages are an art gallery of color illustrations but they are reproduced at a rather small size.

If you have any interest in Dougram this would be the book to get. I’ve always wanted to see the show and was excited when I recently saw the first 25 episodes subtitled on the Torrent sites. As most mecha fans know, the first incarnation of the Battletech game in the U.S. took many of its mecha designs right from Dougram (along with the Crusher Joe movie and Macross).

As a long-time mecha fan this book was definitely worth the price for me just to get all the Dougram mecha designs in one place. I got my copy from www.benippon.com.