Ultraman now has a new animated short courtesy of the ongoing Japan Animator Expo. Initially airing in 1966, Ultraman takes place in a world where society is under constant attack by giant monsters and aliens. The series has gone on to become a cult favorite, inspiring various manga and spin-off’s.
The new short in question tends towards the lore of the original ‘The Ultraman’ penned by the late Mamoru Uchiyama. Spanning over 9 minutes in length, ‘The Ultraman: Jackal vs. Ultraman’ as it is titled, features appearances of beloved Ultra Brothers designs and classic villain cameos. Packed with the classic action choreography and campiness fans have loved for decades, the new short serves as a truly heartfelt love letter to fans of Ultraman, both old and young.
Japan Animator Expo is the brain child of legendary animators Hideaki Anno and Nobuo Kawakami, who created the program as a means of showcasing the anime industry and the various artistic possibilities within the medium. The website updates almost every Friday.
The new short can be found, with English subtitles, here.
Ping Pong — At face value, we’re presented with a crude yet uniquely animated sports seinen; but after watching the eleven episode series in its entirety, having such a shallow view of this masterpiece is almost offensive.
With a total of five volumes, Ping Pong was originally a seinen manga series serialised by Big Comic Spirits between the years of 1996 – 1997. In 2002, a live action film was created and in 2014 Tatsunoko Productions produced an anime adaptation directed by Masaaki Yuasa which was to air on Fuji TV.
And here’s your big lesson for the day, Ping Pong is a freakin’ blast!
Ping Pong closely follows the story of two childhood friends Peco and Smile. They maintain polarised personalities, but yet through thick and thin, remain together. The two boys are both pupils at Tamura Ping Pong Dojo which is run by a mysterious old lady who shares a bit of the history with the sport. Peco grew up a champion, competing in meets all across Japan as a grade school student; His unrivalled skills came with almost no effort at all. On the other hand, Smile was always sitting on the back-burner being trained and protected by Peco all his life. It was largely because of this, he developed a hero complex where all he wanted was to see Peco succeed in his aspirations of becoming the best.
This is so much more than just an animation about sports. What we’re presented with is a reminder that growing up isn’t just determined by your age, but rather the experiences that entail your life journey. To portray this, we’re given four characters in which we witness grow and develop throughout the anime’s one year timeline. Smile, Peco, Ryuichi and Kong.
Smile grew up enduring many hardships, often being the victim of various instances of both physical and psychological abuse by those around him. He eventually caved, thus entering this cocoon-like state where he felt he was safe from the world. That was, until Peco came along and showed him that the world does have positives — like ping pong. Peco was quick to hone his skills, but refused to utilise them at the risk of getting in the way of Peco’s goals. Smile’s arc closely follows his journey to overcome this through various challenges that life throws at him.
Peco knows nothing but victory; even from childhood he was taking the top place. It was through these victories, that he managed to find fun in the sport. Peco’s arc finds it’s place after he faces defeat for the first time, which to him is a foreign concept. Peco loses all hope and quits completely from the sport; thus finding himself travelling around his home town trying to find a new purpose in life.
Ryuichi is Japan’s best — raised into a life of ping pong, Ryuichi was the bi-product of his grandfathers dream. Much like Peco, he knows nothing but victory; However, the major difference between the two lies in the fact that he was always crafting his own abilities through rigorous training, unlike Peco who utilised sheer skill and a love for the sport. Ryuichi’s arc closely follows the prominent idea of rekindling a spark for something that lost it’s flame long ago.
Kong, an Ex-Chinese Ping Pong Nationalist who was kicked from the team for reasons unexplained — After initially being flown to Japan to help boost the rankings of a local Japanese school, Kong struggles after the realisation that his environment is only going to bring him down, largely due to the absence of anyone with what he considers to be ample skill. He curses the idea of being stuck in Japan, and he quickly formulates a goal to clear through the Japanese nationals so he can return home with a sense of honour. Kong’s journey, using Ping Pong as a means of discovering his own self value once again; must also lead him to realise the value and potential of those around him.
What Ping Pong is trying to represent through these four characters is the journey to discover ones self value and worth, and in doing so coming out all the more mature. What I witnessed was that this was more-so the focus, whilst utilising ping pong as the catalyst to bring it all these stories together. It was because of all this that we were give something so much more than just another anime about sports; rather, we’re given a unique story with many different ways to watch and enjoy it.
I could honestly recommend this anime to a million and one people, but there’s one polarising issue that always seems to lead them away — the animation style. Now, whilst I argue that it’s the animation style that makes it so unique, giving it a clear indication that it really isn’t your generic ’moe’ anime, a lot of people really do get turned away by it. The way I see it is that Ping Pong maintains an animation style that is true to the manga; Some scenes even making use of multiple panels as if the scenario were to be analysed and read. Personally I really don’t find this to be a fault, however, I won’t go out of my way to argue with you if that’s your reasoning for not watching (though I really do advise you do).
So in conclusion, what we’re presented through Ping Pong to me is four unique stories, with two ways to watch them. Observing it from the top layer, we find a group of four unique individuals working towards their goals of becoming the best ping pong competitors out there. But scratch the surface even a little, and you’ll find yourself following a story about maturity, growth, and self realisation. To me in many ways, Ping Pong is definitely a breath of fresh air in the anime industry, and is most certainly worthy of the title as a near-perfect animation.
If you’re interested in checking out Ping Pong and are currently in Australian or New Zealand, you’ll be able to watch it on Anime Lab free of charge: https://www.animelab.com/shows/ping-pong
Over the weekend I was able to attend my first ever Australian convention: SMASH! Sydney Manga and Anime Show, and as someone born and raised in Australia, I was genuinely surprised.
Growing up in Rural Australia was always something different; I felt like I was surely the only person in my town who enjoyed late nights of anime, or staying up until who knows what hour of the night for that latest single to drop by my favourite Japanese band/artist. My town was known as the beef capital of Australia, we specialised in beef, and beef accessories, there really wasn’t much more to it. I guess it was because of where I grew up that I started to see the whole of Australia like this; so when I got news that I was being flown to Sydney to cover this event, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Part of me had extremely low expectations, having just recently come back from Anime Expo in Los Angeles, I knew that it would surely be impossible for SMASH! to live up to that sort of stature; especially something in little old Australia, right?
The Positive and The Negative:
I woke up Saturday Morning and headed off to the Rosehill Gardens Race Course in the New South Wales capital of Sydney for the first day of Smash!. We managed to pick up our tickets in an absolute breeze and were supplied free on-premise parking which made things extremely convenient. I remember distinctly this odd feeling when seeing my first cosplayer of the day; not only were they cosplaying a character I knew, but it was an incredibly good cosplay too.
Once I finally wrapped my head around the concept that I was in Australia and there were other anime fans, I went into the exhibition hall. The first booth I saw was the Madman Entertainment booth, which for those who don’t know, is the official publisher of anime and manga in Australia (Think of Madman as Australia’s version of Viz Media). It was quite an elaborate setup, offering a collection of their various anime, staff in cosplay, freebies for everyone, and they managed to bring the entire Love Live! School Idol Costume Exhibition along with them which was quite interesting. I spoke to the staff at the Madman booth for a while, discussed some things that I believe we would both like to see come to Australia in the future in regards to the scene, and then I continued walking around. I think the second booth I properly visited was the Culture Japan booth; I didn’t manage to meet Danny Choo whilst at Anime Expo, so I was eager to get to see him this time. I was actually surprised that Culture Japan decided to have a presence at the convention; but unfortunately, that’s pretty much where the big name exposure ended.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the little guy being front and center at a convention like this, but when there is genuinely no exposure from the big names in the industry; Fakku!, J-List, etc. I tend to envision a lot of untapped potential. But at the same time I felt like with the lack of those big names, we’re left the fundamental basis of what an anime convention really is; a gathering of fans to celebrate what it is that they really love.
However, no matter how hard I tried to push it to the side, the absence of big name support was something that made staying for even fourteen hours quite difficult, unless you had managed to completely book out your day with doing various activities, you were going to get bored quite easily (Though maybe that’s just me).
When I first committed to going to Smash!, there was one clear thing that had me hooked from the beginning. ‘Anisong x Smash’ which was something completely unheard of to me, Japanese musicians such as kz Livetune, GARNiDELiA, yanaginagi and ‘DJ Hello Kitty’ performing in Australia? There was no way I was going to miss this in the world. Within the first five minutes of seeing the ad for it, I had already printed out my ‘Platinum Class’ tickets which offered me the full package; Autograph Sessions, ‘Premium Viewing Positions’, No Long Queues, and the list went on. To me, this was a sign of something great to come; such big names performing here, surely they’re going to have to put in their all next year to top it, and from there we’ve got a chain reaction of expansion.
I saw a large mix of people at this event, and that’s what had me the most excited. Long gone is the stereotype of middle-aged men being the only people to find enjoyment in this medium. I think this convention was something that really solidified this in my mind; seeing it as somewhere for like-minded people to go out and enjoy themselves, doing what they love most.
So although I still feel as though the anime and manga scene within my rural Australian town is almost null, I now know that Australia is on the brink of something great; and I very much look forward to taking part of it every step of the way.
Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax, the upcoming 2D fighting game based on the characters of Dengeki Bunko’s light novels (Sword Art Online, Durarara!, Oreimo, etc.) will be releasing on the 6th of October in North America, South America and Europe. The game will feature both a physical and digital release in North and South America, and a Digital-only release in Europe. It will be priced at $39.99 for the PlayStation 3 version, and $29.99 for the PlayStation Vita version.
Both the North American and South American versions will include a special launch edition which will feature a ‘Bonus Edition Soundtrack CD’ with songs from notable SEGA composers, including Teruhiko Nakagawa, Naofumi Hataya, Kenichi Tokoi, Jun Senoue, and plenty of others. The CD Soundtrack will only be available for retail pre-orders and a limited number of launch copies. Unfortunately for our European friends, the release will be digital only.
For those of you that haven’t seen the official launch trailer yet, it’s available here:
Having played Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax in both arcades, and on the PlayStation Vita with the Japanese release; I can vouch that whilst it’s a simple fighter which probably won’t ever be seen making its way into the competitive scene, it’s still a fun niche game for fans of both the anime/manga and fighting game genres respectively.
You can expect a Western Release on the 6th of October and we hope to have a full review out to accompany it.
We all know that Japan can be extremely creative when it comes to personifying objects. Some popular ones includes battleships from “Kantai Collection,” swords from “Touken Ranbu,” and coffee beverage characters from “Yukijirushi.”
A couple days ago, Intel decided to personify their products too and held their own contest. It is titled, “Personification Contest by intel” and it will let you vote for your favorite personified character from their website. They are also offering prizes based on users votes, including the actual product of your personification choice!
All you need to do is go to their website, find your favorite character, click on the 投票 (vote) button, and send a blank E-mail. You have until July 31st so you should have plenty of time to choose one but if you can’t narrow it down to just one, you can vote for multiple characters too! Unfortunately you need to have a valid Japanese address to win the product but why not vote for your character to see how popular he or she was by the end of the contest?
Akiba Weekly 