Want to be main character in your own manga?

Now this is cool.

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Awesome video of exoskeleton, newest in Japan.

Awesome demo video of power exoskeleton concept from Land of Rising Sun.

More here. 

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A very interesting anime-related tech

I forsee one day, this is will be standard stuff for anime fans around the world.

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I think a lot of anime figure collectors would love to have this now. I can imagine many possibilities with this, good and bad or simply bizzare.

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Official Manga Portal opened in USA

Nice initiative by Japanese publishers to reach North America audience, charging minimal fee for content. I do hope they will expand the effort to my part of world too, soon.

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Hug Yourself?

Hahahah, I can see some otakus will like this.

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Real moving cat ears, anyone?

How about no? I find this too freaky. 2D stays in 2D, 3D stays in 3D. Okay?

Source

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Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society 3D

Ghost in the Shell: State Solid Society 3D? Damn. These people are pushing consumers to get 3D capable TVs.



Apparently remade with 3D technology, shown in Japan on 23rd March this year. Looks nice with new opening sequence. I wonder if Production IG is going to release any new GITS. Just wondering.

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Ultraman Kinect? Wow.

Someone developed a Kinect version which you can playact as Ultraman. Wow. I waiting for someone do super robot stuff like Voltes V or Mazinger soon. Trust me, it is gonna to happen soon.

Kudos to this guy.

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Female android performer. Creepy yet chillingly cool.

Personally I see it as a novelty, I am not too sure if artificial humans can do performing arts to the level than normal humans can be. But it is an interesting scene.

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Manga publishers missing the boat

Guess what, a coalition of publishers in USA and Japan decided enough is enough, they going after manga scan sites such as Mangafox and many, many others. Most of them are based in China or Taiwan (heh not surprised at all) but what is different this time that they also targeting English scanlastion sites too. Woo....scary! To me, it sounds like Japanese manga industry is desperate to pin blame on anything,anyone but themselves in current malaise of manga industry in Japan. Same goes for the US people.

They sound pretty serious in smashing the pirate sites that make mockery of their investments by providing mangas FOC using the Internet as the medium. Sounds familiar? Napster, if anyone remembers. What exasperated me here is these people of the industry seem to be so anti-Internet. Instead learning to use it as a tool of making money, they keep trying to destroy it which it is utterly stupid and wasteful. Why bucking against inevitable juggernaut of civilization? Is their vision so short sighted that they fail to see that using Internet can actually help they make money?

As more and more young generations of manga fans raised on cyberspace and Internet, their preference for information gathering has changed remarkably too. They prefer e-stuff more than tangible, traditional book stuff. Where is the marketers have been looking at all these years? Are they even listening? Their expertise are made of fail so far from what I can see. Many people snorted that books are better but technology has catch up pretty fast and stuff like I-pad or Kindle provided quite comfortable reading experience for users. Things are catching up and old books will be consigned to same place that now houses papyrus scrolls, rocks etc soon, ie: they're history!

Vested interest especially those middle people who made fat money also don't like this new method of delivery. It is no small wonder that they were the most vocal and angriest bunch of people when comes to this oh so delicate issue. After all, they don't give a damn about the fact books cost paper which means trees will be chopped off to feed their business model.

Just offer a chapter of manga at affordable cost like .99 cents or 1-2 bucks and I can be sure that will be a majority of fans do not mind to pay for it. Pay attention to Itunes for example. The latest trend is people are reading mangas from handphones or Ipads. Create some technology or invest in something that make payments easy. Also develop some sort of technology that make the chapters can be downloaded from buyer's HDD 3-4 times before it becomes locked. Or offer the chapters for free but make sure that users click on some ads before they can read it. Anything but try to force manga fans to buy books. Some people don't like the idea of buying volumes of manga that will take up space in their room or house etc (for example, Ranma has 38 freaking volumes!). I balked at the thought that I have to allocate more space in my room for manga housing since space is a precious commodity in living especially in city. Having electronic copy is great boost in space management, honestly. Not every manga fan can afford a big room to host big collection of mangas.

Have these so called captains of industry think of that? Guess not.

My prediction as soon this current storm blow over, the pirates will be up again, offering illegal manga chapters for free at expense of hardworking mangakas. Back to square one. The more you try to grasp it in iron grip, the more it will slip away. Just like water. Pfft!

Sorry about the rant. I just totally disgusted about this.

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Unique mecha

LOL! Interesting idea!

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Thought controlled machine interface

Wooo, I can see future of power armour here! Thought controlled control systems is getting nearer to reality. Gasaraki or Starship Troopers OVA anyone?

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Go, the dancing robot

Awesome dancing robot from Japan.

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Titan the Robot

This is awesome robot suit (there is a performer inside), made this company called Cyberstein Robots. Where people see entertainment, I see the future power armour that can easily converted into combat missions in this one.

Apparently the company is tight lipped about the development of Titan but one rumor is performers were expected to be nimble with console controls to operate the suit. The suit also have power for 30 minutes duration. That is major problem for any aspiring power armour design: power packs.



10 years from now, don't be surprised to see a power suit based on this design.

Hatsune Miku the singing robot

Hatsune Miku, the famous virtual idol that took the world by storm now featured in this video as singing robot. Pretty freaky if you ask me, to be honest. This is another video of her development history from her makers.

What's next? Saber?

Black Rock Shooter anime pilot by Yamakan

The only reason why I knew this because I find out that ex Haruhi diretor Yamamoto Yutaka and the gang (Studio Ordet) will be doing this anime. Black Rock Shooter is a basically Miku Hatsune's opposite, as I was told. Expect fluid animation and very expressive face like Kannagi. Other than that, I have no idea. It looks good for sure.

The main site

HALO Legends and Mamoru Oshii.

Mamoru Oshii, the genius behind Ghost in the Shell movies and many of my favourite series will be helping Shinji Aramaki (Viper's Creed, Appleseed ) to animate history of Spartan Warrior System in HALO anime adaptation. Apparently, some of the biggest guns of anime industry will be involved; Toei, Production I.G, BONES, Studio 4C. There will 7 short stories based on HALO universe in plan to be animated.

Personally, I think gaming is getting bigger than movie in USA. Microsoft is banking on this to offset disappointing Vista OS sales.

This development is hardly surprising as entertainment becomes more immerse friendly and integrated instead of stand offish media.

The way of the future is here now.

Utterly amazing demonstration of MIT Sixth Sense, presented by Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry 1 month ago. To summarize it, you can do the Tom Cruise thing in futuristic sci fi thriller, Minority Report.

In 5 - 10 years time, this will be our daily routine. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the lack of privacy too, for starters.

I am still in awe. Wow.

Future of Manga reading?

I always believe in one day, paperless society is possible and we can stop chopping down trees to make it. This article talks about current products in the market and what is general trend of consumers of manga in USA. I was wondering if same thing is occurring in Japan right now as this article was published. Manga in Japan is very big business and I am not too surprised if the industry is most reluctant to switch to e-manga reading culture that is on the rise on rest of the world.

It will repeat the same problem that Naptster started years ago, giant and clumsy Japanese corporations find themselves outfoxed by small nimble software that enables fans in Japan to read manga electronically and swipe memory cards at drop of the hat to exchange manga datas scanned by people who believed in traditional manga format will endanger world ecology. No doubt the Japanese were moving torwards e-manga which I approved a lot but it is rather at slow pace, signifying more resistance to the change of medium.

Sounds too fantastic? Maybe. But never underestimate prosumers (refer to Revolutionary Wealth by Alvin Toeffler) power to influence market.

Cheers.