• the aura battler Sirbine

    Knights follow Shio as he pilots the Sirbine on his way to attack the Black Knight's fortress

    The Tale of Neo Byston Well (1988) is a 3 episode OAV that takes place 700 years after the events of Aura Battler Dunbine (1983). This time the story takes place entirely in Byston Well as no one has access to the Aura Road that was used so much in the first Dunbine story. I first heard about the Dunbine OAV when I was a teenager and have been waiting many years to see it. My enthusiasm was dampened somewhat when I saw that the subtitles, prepared by a group called Freebird, were truly awful. English wasn’t even their second language. My limited understanding of Japanese helped me make sense of the awkward subtitles well enough to feel like I wasn’t missing much of what was being said. Read more…

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  • 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.

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  • 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. Read more…

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  • 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!

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  • Promotional poster outside the mall.

    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! Read more…

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  • Gundam Unicorn anime

    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.

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  • anime, fandom, mecha 20.11.2009 No Comments

    Kawamori Shoji, creator of Macross and Optimus Prime, is interviewed in this new video.

  • fandom, Japan, mecha 30.10.2009 2 Comments

    John Funk has written an interesting piece at The Escapist on mecha in contemporary Japanese culture. It’s worth a read but, as mine did, your mileage may vary. Among other things, the article claims that the Japanese love Gundam more than any other mecha series. I think it’s the author’s own love of Gundam and the fact that Gundam has a larger commercial entity behind it than any other mecha series that is leading this observation. Still, the article has some interesting facts and is well worth your time to read.

  • 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. Read more…

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  • 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. Read more…

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