Sep
10

Gundam Master/Slave Control Suit to pilot Fighting Robots !!

Via Gizmodo
Naoki Maru of Kyoto, Japan may have built one of the more impressive control devices for a robot. Using what he calls a “master-slave” technology built onto a harness, the mechanism captures the movement of the pilot and transmits it to the robot via bluetooth and replicates the movement. It is currently limited to the upper torso for now and movement for the lower half is controlled via a control pad with its balancing compensated by rapid servomotors and sensors. Hit the link to view more pictures and butt-kicking videos of the control suit in action. It won’t be long when rulership of our planet and other space colonies will be determined by battles fought in arenas with huge giant robots (G Gundam anyone ?).

Gizmodo - Girl Pilots Japanese Fighting Robot With Gundam Master/Slave Control Suit

Popularity: 5% [?]

Sep
10

Evangelion Plug Drives

Can’t get enough of the Eva mania at your work place ? Impress your otaku work buddies with this pair of Evangelion inspired flash drives. On sale from 27 September, they come in 2Gb capacities and are priced at 3,980 yen each. After googling around I came across this chibi version of Rei Ayanami USB Drive which is being made by Buffalo. Priced at 3,980 yen for 2Gb as well, you could order them from Buffalo’s web store (site’s in Japanese, but I think its only available for preorder at the moment.) Check out the rest of their products on their website below.

Anime News Network - Evangelion Entry Plug USB Drives in Japan
PCWatch - Evangelion USB drives
Buffalo - Rei Ayanami USB Drive

Popularity: 4% [?]

Sep
5

Off for Vacation

Going off for another short trip, so there’ll be no updates till next week. See you folks again next week.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Sep
4

Dragonball movie details

Via Kotaku

Looks like we’ve scored some screenshots from the trailer of the upcoming Dragonball live action movie that will be released in 2009. I think the general opinion from all the Dragonball fans is that the movie is probably gonna suck, and looking at Piccolo below probably confirms it. The movie was delayed a couple of times previously but looks set for a April 2009 release. Maybe by then they could fix up Piccolo’s skin color with some CG or sorts.

Kotaku - Oh Hollywood, What Did You Do To Dragonball?!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Sep
4

Hobby Chara 2008 Coverages

Hobby Chara 2008 was held over the last weekend. Here are the coverage from various different sites:

Chara Hobby Official Site (Japanese)
DannyChoo’s Gundam Coverage, Mecha Coverage, Figurine Coverage (loads of mouth watering pics)
Akiba Hobby (more on figurine coverage)
Mimibokuro Diary
Hinatatiki
Mainchi News Coverage
Post Channel Blog (too bad some of the shots were blurry)
Akiba Hobby
GA Graphic here, here and here
HobbyStock part 1, part 2

VF-25 sourced from blog.hobbystock.jp
Gundam Astraea Type F sourced from DannyChoo.com

Popularity: 5% [?]

Sep
3

Gunota Headlines closing down

Long time premier Gundam source Gunota Headlines is finally calling it wraps after almost 5 years citing time as a major factor for the closure. Gunota has been my main source of fresh Gundam news for as long as I can remember since they were one of the earliest around with decent English translation and frequent updates. So long Gunota, thanks for all your news all this time.

DannyChoo member CVPhased mentioned that a new Gundam site is up to fill the gap left behind by Gunota. Check it out here: GundamNews.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Sep
3

Wall-E (2008)

Pixar’s latest animated feature, Wall-E, is set in the distant future where Earth has been abandoned by mankind after years of waste generated reached an alarming level and could no longer sustain life. Buy N Large, megacorporation that controls almost every economy on Earth, hatched a plan to offer a five-year space cruise aboard the Axiom for Earth’s citizen while hundreds of waste collection robots are deployed to clean up the Earth awaiting for the cruise’s eventual return. Our hero, Wall-E, happens to be one of those Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class robots, or simply put, mobile garbage compactors.

After hundreds of years of cleaning up, Wall-E soon becomes the last of its kind on this planet and develops a feeling of loneliness. One day, a huge spaceship landed on Earth and deploys Eve, a scouting probe designed to seek out plant life. The two droids soon became acquainted but once Eve acquired what she was programmed to seek out, she was immediately switched to hibernation mode and awaited for her retrieval. The real adventure starts when Wall-E hitched a ride aboard the ship that was sent to retrieve Eve back to the Axiom. The first half of the movie consists of very few line of dialogues save for Wall-E and Eve’s beeps and early attempts at communication, but their expression and mannerism pretty much speak for themselves.

Eve was partly designed by Apple’s lead designer Johnathan Ive, and this probably explains the iPod inspired look of it. Very sleek and clean. Curiously though, her design actually reminds me of those quirky sentry robots from Portal. Could they have been Eve’s early ancestors ?

Wall-E started off with a bleak look at the future of the planet Earth but slowly sway to the lighter side. The story touches on the environmental impact of modern society as a result of mass consumerism. Although not too heavy on the theme, Wall-E remains a light hearted affair suitable for all ages to enjoy. As usual, the animation quality from Pixar is top notch although it is a not as colorful and vivid as their earlier works. The score by Thomas Newton made the movie even more enjoyable and epic at the same time. Wall-E is definitely my recommended feel good movie of the year. Be sure to catch Pixar’s short feature, Presto, before the movie starts too. It’s a laugh riot.

As with all of Pixar’s films, Wall-E is full of easter eggs with some quick references to their previous films, SlashFilm has a collection of it at the following link, let’s see how many you manage to spot.

Director: Andrew Stanton
Music:
Thomas Newman
Peter Gabriel
Cast:
Ben Burtt
Elissa Knight
Jeff Garlin
Fred Willard
John Ratzenberger
Kathy Najimy
Sigourney Weaver

Running Time: 97 mins
Rating: ★★★★★★★★½☆

Disney Pixar - Wall E Official Website

Popularity: 4% [?]

Aug
31

Happy 51st Independance Day and Congratulations to Yong Sein and Wei Meng

Of birthdays, weddings and independance day. Guess this post is a little delayed :P. I’ve been busy with a couple of things for the past few days leading up to 31st of August which is Malaysia’s Independance Day, and it also happens to be my mom’s birthday (Happy Birthday Mom !) and my best friend’s wedding. This was my first time to be invited as part of the bridegroom’s entourage to “retrieve” the bride from her home for the morning wedding ceremony. Traditionally, the groom has to prepare red packets or ang pows, filled with money to be given to the friends of the bride in exchange of “releasing her”. However, nowadays this practice includes a number of obstacles that the groom and his entourage must perform in order to satisfy their demands. We had to down a concoction made of blended ginger, chillies and other unrecognizable ingredients before even allowed to step into the bride’s house. It was really a hilarious moment for all of us as we tackle our way through to retrieve the bride. The ceremony continued with the wedding dinner held at a restaurant where the bridge and groom’s family toasts to the guest as a public recognition of the union.

This is one of those occasions that makes me feel proud to be a Malaysian. A country that is both rich and diverse in culture and heritage. Let us celebrate our Independance Day remembering who we are and preserve the diversity and freedom that we enjoy now for years to come.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Aug
27

Hobby Japan Magazine August 08

Super Robot War has some scans of the August issue of Hobby Japan Magazine. What’s interesting here is that the new Gundam Seravee, successor to Virtue of Gundam 00 has what appears to be a head on its backpack. If you haven’t caught on to Gundam 00, the original Virtue actually conceals the powerful Gundam Nadleeh beneath all of its bulk. This new design probably indicates that either the Saravee contains yet another mighty Gundam underneath it, or it is meant to combine with the other Gundams to form a super Gundam perhaps ? The newer designs doesn’t look too impressive, but Saravee is just too odd for my taste. If the head was cleverly hidden it would have probably look a lot better, but having it exposed like this kinda reminds me of those cute anime backpacks like in the image below :P

Anyway, check out the link to view more scans from the magazine which includes the new VFs from Macross Frontier and many other Gundam merchandise.

Super Robot War - This Month’s Hobby Japan Magazine

Popularity: 4% [?]

Aug
25

Gundam 00 Caramelldansen

A little Caramelldansen to brighten your Monday ! Almost the entire cast from Gundam 00 is featured in this video of them performing Caramelldansen. What’s Caramelldanse? See for yourself :P

Here are their appearance in order:
1. Lockon Stratos & Setsuna F. Seiei
2. Allelujah Haptism & Tieria Erde
3. Christina Sierra & Feldt Grace
4. Sumeragi Lee Noriega
5. Graham Aker & Billy Katagiri
6. Soma Peries & Sergei Smirnov
7. Patrick Colasour & Kathy Mannekin
8. Patrick, Soma, Setsuna & Graham
9. Lockon, Haro & Feldt
10. Marina Ismail
11. Louise Halevy & Saji Crossroad
12. Hallelujah & Allelujah
13. Bridge Bunnies
14. Gundam Meisters

Popularity: 4% [?]

J-Pop Music