Since the teaser photo I posted from LSCC with me chatting to Jonathan Ross at London Super Comic Con - the interview is finally ready and despite much technical difficulties most of it has been salvaged.
I ask Wossy about anime, games, Junko Mizuno and his newest comic book project - it was an honour to speak to my senpai. Thank you to my team who helped make this possible ^_^
Recently I came across the knowledgeable writer and public figure Helen McCarthy, she had a talk about Hyper Japan 2014 Christmas market about her latest book - A Brief History Of Manga, the most concise and detailed book to educate the biggest of noobs.
She gave a brief introduction about anthology anime before the screening of Short Peace at the ICA as part of the touring film festival by the Japan Foundation UK and how this was a chance for directors to do something creative and with a large budget as long as they incorporated a theme or product. this also meant you could have a selection of artists and animators collaborating. She speaks in more depth below in an interview.
For more news about Japanese culture, events, games, anime please follow me on Facebook or twitter ^_^ Aisha Anime
One of the extraordinary things that happened this year was Stan Lee, the creator of many of our favourite heroes such as Spiderman, X-men, Fantastic 4 announced his last UK appearance. Now this made London Film and Comic Con the convention of the year with phenomenal queues to meet the mastermind for photos, autographs and Q&A. One of the things he requested was a group of people as his entourage including the famous cosplayer Ivy Doomkitty.
Ivy Doomkitty is an international Costumer/Cosplayer, Artist, Model, Gamer, based in L.A, USA. Ivy has been attending conventions for many years, before deciding to take the plunge by showing her fandom through cosplay. Ivy was recently featured as a GUEST JUDGE on several episodes of the Syfy Original Series, "Heroes of Cosplay".
She now uses this newfound passion to create her own costumes, currently over 30, and use them to bring to life her favourite characters from gaming and comics as well as creating a positive impact in the cosplay community. She strives to show others in the community that you can do something you love, regardless of gender, skin color, sexual orientation, body shape/size, etc, via her panel on that very subject,"So They Say You Shouldn't Cosplay". Because of this, Ivy has been invited to appear as a Guest, Judge, Panelist, and Host to various conventions and events all over the world.
She also was the Featured Cosplayer on the webseries, "Cospladies", a short documentary on the trials, tribulations, and love of cosplay. Ivy is also a member of the West Coast Avengers/Avengers Initiative, taking part in charity events in Southern California.
Ivy has written, moderated, and participated in panels, as well as judged and hosted Costume Contests. In the past, she has interviewed some incredible talent, including Stan Lee, Lou Ferrigno, Arthur Suydam, Michael Golden, and more.
In the past, she has written comic book reviews, co hosted Cosplay con, in addition to presenting and hosting the costume contest.
I was lucky enough to catch the beautiful model setting up her stall at Anime League's Cosplay desk and ask her a few questions about her time at the con.
This year’s Japan Foundation UK annual touring film programme used a variety of enlightening movies as an introduction to Japanese cinema through the framework of ‘youth’. Showcasing one anime in the mix showing how the adults of tomorrow have been portrayed in Japanese cinema
Colorful was released originally in Japan 2010, this animated feature film is directed by Keiichi Hara. Hara-san was famous for directing hit anime from our childhood such as Doraemon and was the longest running director for Shin-Chan, the anime are important as they were the first to hit the West in Japanese and English dub and make a bridge for more to become recognised worldwide.
This anime is based on a novel of the same title by Eto Mori. Hara-San tells us (in the Q&A) that he saw the script and liked the story and decided to make it into the anime alongside animation studio Ascension. For the beautiful soundtrack he tells us he commissioned a few music producers to come up with a soundtrack that was simple but not boring and chose Kow Otan. Otan was famous for working on lot of big titles in the anime and game world such as Gundam Wing (1995), Outlaw Star (1998), Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz Cross Fire (1998), Cross Fire (2000), The SoulTaker (2001) to9 name a few.
The story revolves around a newly dead soul reaching a train station representing limbo, an Angel named Purapura approaches the soul and explains that he is 'lucky' and will have another chance at life. He is placed in the body of a 14-year-old boy, Makoto Kobayashi, who recently committed suicide. Purapura watches 'Makoto' and advises him with hints to figure out the big sin 'Makoto' did. The soul must figure out what his greatest sin in his former life within a time limit or else the soul will be ejected from the body and Makoto will die forever. Whilst trying to complete this task he is faced with making friends, understanding his family and their dark secrets. His crush at school isn't the cheery and happy go lucky person she makes out to be while creepy a classmate stalks him and he can't figure out why. Will this journey motivate him to want to live again?
This anime is not a typical slice of life, it holds deeper meaning, searching for ones identity and place in life. Also dealing with challenging situations and reacting within ones restraints. A movie with lot a of social behaviors explored, the nice and the grim.
Watch this interview with Hara-San and his take on Colourful, how he felt about the reception it received, how it felt to make popular anime that entered the West. Special thanks to the Japan Foundation for Showing this amazing animation and bringing Hara-San to answer the audiences questions.
For more news on anime, cosplay, games and Japanese culture follow me on Twitter and Facebook.
Over the years, Japan Foundation have become well known for their hands on approach to showcasing Japanese culture by bring over great guests, providing top notch workshops and curating exciting film festivals. On Wednesday 5th March they had none other than Hackney born Japanese business/blogger sensation (and son of famous shoe maker), Danny Choo, give a talk about what he’s been working on at Culture Japan Night London.
Armed with his mascot Mirai Suenaga Smart Doll, (was her Birthday on the 3rd March too) Danny Choo talked about a variety of different things such as the development of the doll, his website and culture japan show, as well as his insights into japanese culture and a few nuggets of information on how business is conducted in japan. During the talk, Danny mentioned that his current main focus is the smart doll project and to expand the functionality of the doll over the coming years. During its continued development, Danny and his team have wracked their brains to come up with a design that not only accommodates the necessary electronics within the limbs but also to make it cost effective to to help reduce the final cost of the doll to the consumer.
Mr Choo and Mirai doll!
Past models of the smart doll can be moved remotely using the controls on a Bluetooth paired Android Smartphone. Choo wants to go a step forward and make a walking, talking smart doll with artificial AI. As many are getting used to the likes of Siri on the iphone, imagine having a doll version of that which can talk and respond to your speech. The Mirai doll will have its own voice, but Danny hopes to make it possible for users to download and install additional “voice packs” utilizing the vocals of famous seiyuu voices which could really excite the Otaku consumer. An interesting facet of the production process of the dolls is that they are aimed at other countries rather than focusing on japan. When asked about the time delay from the manufacture of the dolls in Japan to when it would be available for overseas customers, he answered this was aimed exclusively for the rest of the world not Japan!
Amongst talk of his latest doll projects he talked about anime and licensing from his experiences in interacting with several anime studios. Even when you’re in contact with the staff at a particular company and everything seems fine, things can sometimes turn sour if said company has a problem with how you may be utilizing their IP. Even things like the company not approving of your fan art of their anime could cause talk of lawsuits to be thrown around with shorter than a week’s notice.
Another difference in how the market for anime differs in Japan is that the average Japanese consumer for anime and manga are content with having to pay as much as £350 for a Blu-Ray set for a series, which most people overseas would call extortionate prices since many fans in the UK would expect to pay around £40-60 max for a full season on blu-ray in their local retailer or online. Therefore the Japanese industry rarely feel they need to bother with considering the western anime market when consumers in their home territory are already prepared to pay much higher prices for anime and than those abroad.
In reference to Danny’s appearances at events, the most noteworthy being the Culture Japan Con created by his company, many people in the audience asked if he had any plans to attend UK conventions. To this, he said he’d happily attend if he were invited and they didn’t clash with his other events. When quizzed further about future Culture Japan events, Danny mentioned that the next event is likely to be in Malaysia, where he held the Culture Japan Con last year. So if you are in demand of Mirai merchandise, it would be a great experience to save up your money and go to the next convention abroad perhaps?
At the end of the Q&A Danny happily chatted to people and insisted we all networked with each other and make at least one new friend. This was easy as there were a variety of people in the audience of all ages, including students, business owners and cosplay fans. After a sprint to take all the Mirai poster off the walls, people queued to get photos with Choo and interviews. We even had a few cosplayers in midst of the crowd to stand with Danny and the Mirai doll in all our group photos. Jade (@woodlandbunny), one of he cosplayers in attendance, even came dressed as Mirai Suenaga, accompanied by her doll companion, also dressed as Mirai.
The Parallax Play team got a short and snappy one with Choo about Games, anime and breasticles. Listen to the audio interview here.
This was a great event, free hosted by Japan Foundation, Danny was in high spirits joking around about how London has changed since his last visit four years ago and how the buses have still not improved since. To keep up with the latest info on Danny’s Culture Japan series, the Mirai smartdoll or his snippets of life in japan, check out his site at www.dannychoo.com
To find more details about future events at Japan Foundation go here: www.jpf.org.uk
It was pleased to write about the pros and cons for Cos-pets vs Cos-props in MYM magazine.
I decided to study one of the finest examples of dog cosplay - Volkadav and Dante Kogan (the Samoyed Dog) as Ameratsu from the game Okami.
This was against Jenivere who cosplayed as Sniperwolf from MGS with her prop dog she wheeled around with herself.
Issue33, Jan 22nd 2015 MYM.
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Originally I saw this photo come up on my facebook news feed via animepicks.co.uk and I really wanted to know if it were real or a photoshop job as I loved the Okami game on PS2 and I went as far as tracking the original source which was a deviant art page and well I contacted the guy and here's what he told me. See my interview with Volkadav cosplay here:
