Saturday, December 8, 2007
Friday, December 7, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Flying Nun Records
Flying Nun Records is a formerly independent record label in New Zealand. The label was formed in Christchurch in 1981 by music-store proprietor Roger Shepherd in the flurry of new punk rock-inspired labels forming in the early 1980s. The intention was to record the original local music of Christchurch, but soon the label rose to national prominence by championing the emerging music of Dunedin.
- Read more...
...
The label has been home to various styles of music including the much-debated Dunedin Sound, "high-end pop with a twist", lo-fi experimentation, strongly Velvet Underground influenced pop, minimalism, industrial, and rock-electronic crossover.
The Clean - "Tally Ho" (1981)
Bored Games - "Bridesmaid" (1982)
The Chills - "Pink Frost" (1984)
The Bats - "Made Up In Blue" (1986)
See a good Flying Nun documentary here.
Discuss in the forums.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Otaku (1994)
A French documentary on otaku culture, by Jean-Jacques Beineix and Jackie Bastide. 
Discuss in the forums.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Gamespot editor fired over negative review
- Gamespot editor Jeff Gerstmann reviews the game Kane and Lynch: Dead Men for the Xbox 360.
- Eidos, the game's publishers (and heavy purchaser of Gamespot advertising space), takes issue with the negative tone of the review.
- Gerstmann is purportedly fired on the spot. He'd worked at Gamespot for over 10 years.
- Choas erupts across various game-related sectors of the internet (such as here, here, and especially here)
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
FORUMS
The Otaku Kaleidoscope forums are now open.
Take a minute, register, and hang out for a bit, won't you?
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Ted Lyons & His Cubs - "Tumse Hai Dil Ko" (1965)
"A band with the name "Ted Lyons & His Cubs" also appeared in "Gumnaam" (1965) performing the song "Jaan Pehechaan Ho" that Enid is seen dancing to in "Ghost World" (2001). Here, the band wears Beatle wigs and performs the song "Tumse Hai Dil Ko". The music bears more than a slight resemblance to "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by the real Beatles." - IMDb
From the 1965 movie Janwar:
Discuss in the forums.
Nouvelle Vague - "Dance With Me" (2006)
Song is originally by Lords of the New Church (see here); footage is from the Madison dance sequence in Band of Outsiders.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Tetris: The Grand Master
"...after reaching level 500, the falling pieces cease to have an airborne phase, and instead will instantaneously appear at the bottom. This state is referred to by developers of the game as 20G. This change in behavior modifies the gameplay mechanics significantly, to a much more strategic game. When previously players would align the horizontal position while the piece is still airborne, and then drop the pieces, this becomes impossible since the pieces are already at their lowest possible vertical positions when they appear. Instead, players are required to quickly trundle the pieces along the terrain to get them to their intended locations, before they lock down. Similar conditions can be observed in some modern iterations of Tetris, such as Tetris DS." - Read more...
More info here.
Friday, July 13, 2007
There She Is!! (2003)
"...a Flash cartoon series produced by a three-person team and hosted on the Korean website SamBakZa. The cartoons became particularly popular during the Spring of 2004 when it was exposed to American and European audiences, particularly for its classic manhwa-style elements and its high quality of animation, in which the characters move lively and fluidly. The first There She Is!! generated a large amount of positive feedback from its online audience, including fan art, which drove SamBakZa to produce more cartoons in the series.
At the 2004 Anima Mundi animation festival in Brazil, this video won first place in both the Web Animation - Professional Jury and Web Animation - Audience divisions, as well as winning the Special Award Anima Mundi Web." - Read more...
See the follow-up video here.
Akihabara Liberation Demonstration
Think of it more as a kind of "Otaku Pride" parade and you'll have the gist of it. This took place on June 30th:
Watch the other clips of the march here.
Patalliro! (1982)
"The manga on which it is based is one of the much-read works produced for adolescent Japanese girls that features a healthy proportion of gay men and beautiful teenagers aka bishounen (beautiful boys)." - AniDB.net
Note: Both characters shown here are men:
Jem Marionation
A remake of the original 80's animated series using dolls from the corresponding toyline.
Geek Week
Decent show. Though, it does feel a little desperate in the way it's constantly trying to distance itself from the inherent dorkiness of the subject matter.
SFIII: 3rd StrikeTournament: Daigo vs. Justin Wong
The full set of matches, from Evolution 2004:
For those not up to seeing the whole thing, at least watch this part.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Vermilion Pleasure Night
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Harry Partch
Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer and instrument builder. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments he built himself, tuned in 11-limit just intonation.
Partch also designed and built many instruments from raw materials:
(Click to enlarge)
* The Diamond Marimba was a marimba with keys arranged in a physical manefestation of the 11-limit tonality diamond.
* The Quadrangularis Reversum was an inverted Diamond Marimba with auxiliary keys on either side.
* The Bass Marimba and the Marimba Eroica had more traditional linear layouts, and were very low in pitch.
* The Mazda Marimba was made of Mazda light bulbs and named after the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda.
* The Boo was a marimba made of bamboo.
* The Spoils of War and the Gourd Tree with Cone Gongs are among his many percussion instruments assembled from detritus; the "Spoils of War" included a set of tuned artillery shell casings
* The Cloud Chamber Bowls were glass bowls from a cloud chamber, suspended in a frame.
* The Zymo-Xyl (from the Greek words for "fermentation" and "wood") was a xylophone augmented with tuned liquor bottles and hubcaps. (Partch lamented that there was no Greek word for "hubcaps".)
* The Kitharas (named after the Greek kithara) were large upright stringed instruments, tuned by sliding pyrex rods underneath the strings, and played with felt hammers or sticks. Their sound is one of the most unmistakable in Partch's music.
* The Harmonic Canons (from the same root as qanún) were many-stringed zithers with a complex system of bridges.
- Read more...
Thursday, July 5, 2007
YouTube Poop: An Introduction
Now this is quite the bizarre subculture.
Basically you take some random footage (usually of a more obscure/cult-y/meme-y nature), and then proceed to splice it together in the most viscerally stupid and/or comically grotesque way imaginable. Not too different from the TV Sheriff stuff I posted earlier, but whereas those videos were actually quite professional in their own way, these seem to deliberately play off a kind of negative dynamic. You'll... see what I mean.
(NSFW)
Zelda: Triforce of Faceage:
MEEEMEME MAN:
Don't touch mah FOOOOOOORest -preview-:
Zelda: The Mario Pudding Wars:
For a more academic examination of YouTube Poop (yes), go here.
The Arecibo Message (1974)
“The Arecibo message is a radio message that was beamed into space at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo radio telescope on 16 November 1974. It was aimed at the globular star cluster M13 some 25,000 light years away because it was a large and close collection of stars that was available in the sky at the time and place of the ceremony.[1] The message consisted of 1679 binary digits (equivalent to nearly 205 bytes) transmitted at a frequency of 2380 MHz and modulated by shifting the frequency by 10 Hz, with a power of 1000 kWatt. The beam was extremely narrow (giving a power equivalent to 20 trillion Watts if it were omnidirectional) making it the strongest man-made signal ever sent. The entire transmission lasted 169 seconds and was not repeated.” - Read more...
The Unintentional Humor of Bible Black
(NSFW)
From the English-dubbed version:
And here, a more sensitive moment:
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Hokuto no Ken Fan Video
The not-Kenshiro guy looks to be the same character who was also starred in this masterful work.
Kilink
Kilink is Turkey's version of the Italian anti-hero Killing, who was in turn influenced by a similar Italian character named Kriminal. 
Also, as you're about to see in these three 1967 films, Kilink was a sadistic bastard.
(Warning: NSFW for all kinds of reasons.)
Kilink in Istambul:
Kilink vs. The Flying Man:
Kilink: Strip and Kill:
More Kilink info here.
Memory (1964)
An animated short film, privately produced by Osamu Tezuka:
(NSFW: nudity)
Jumping is another Tezuka short worth watching.
RCA Victor Tape Cartridge (1958)
"The RCA Victor tape cartridge (also known as the Magazine Loading Cartridge and SoundTape) was a magnetic tape format designed to offer stereo quarter-inch reel-to-reel tape in a more convenient format for the home market. It was introduced in 1958, following four years of development, at the same time as the stereophonic gramophone record." - Read more...
See one of them in action here.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Super Mario Bros. Special (1986)
"Super Mario Bros. Special is a video game released by Hudson Soft in the spring of 1986. It is the first officially licensed sequel to Super Mario Bros.. Despite the fact it is a direct sequel to the biggest selling game of all time, it is not particularly highly regarded or well-remembered. This is no doubt due to its being developed by a third-party developer and being released only on a primitive Japanese computer platform for a limited time. Nintendo had no part in its actual game development." - Read more...
For the NEC PC-8801:
Watch the rest of this harrowing journey here.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Otaku Economics
The Otaku Group from a Business Perspective: Revaluation of Enthusiastic Consumers - by Ken KITABAYASHI (December 1, 2004)
The otaku group is no longer a niche market. According to a survey conducted by Nomura Research Institute (NRI) that targeted the five major otaku fields (comics, animation, idols, games and PC assembly), the total number of enthusiastic consumers, known as otaku, in Japan is estimated to be 2.85 million with a market size of 290 billion yen. Thus, the existence of the group is becoming increasingly measurable in the consumer market.
A common aspect of these enthusiastic consumers is that their consumption behavior is driven by admiration, sympathy, and pursuit of their "ideals." In addition to their extreme patterns of consumption, the behavioral principle of otaku is also characterized in that they devote themselves, with strong passion for their ideals, to creating fan fictions (fanfics) based on their own peculiar arrangements and interpretations.
Their passion and creativity will be the driving force for bringing about industrial innovation. Businesses should not treat enthusiastic consumers merely as "loyal customers" but rather study their consumption behavior to find seeds of innovation.
Read the full .pdf file here.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Criterion Videogame Collection
Not real, just some generic covers I whipped up one night a couple years ago while pondering the possible existence of such things. 
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Evil Cereal Mascots of the 1960's
Suddenly these delicious cereals look more like delicious psychiatric medications.
(Click to enlarge)
See also: Wilma the Winsome White Whale
Discuss in the forums.
Elmo vs. Vegeta (2007)
From the 2007 Anime North convention:
Same thing, different angle:
And from yet another angle:
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Otaku USA: First Impressions
Good. Really good – probably the first time I seriously got into a magazine in the last decade or more. It also, however, marked the first time I’ve ever had to pay ten bucks for a magazine. So. Here's a bit of a preview for those who have yet to check it out: 
First, some of the better pieces of I've read thus far:
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF TRANSFORMERS - A two-page timeline of the Transformers franchise dating back all the way to 1980 and the days of Micro-Change and Diaclone figures.
FEEL THE COSMO OF GUNPLA!! - Inspiring words on surfing and Gundam models from a curious fellow who calls himself Masked BAKUC.
BANDAI HOBBY CENTER BREAK-IN - A rare, behind-the-scenes look at "the 'Area 51' of the Japanese toy industry."
WONDER FESTIVAL REPORT - Intense coverage from the trenches of what seemed to be a loud, chaotic, sweaty, and highly unpleasant toy convention.
THE LEGEND OF CAPTAIN MAXX - A not-totally-coherent-or-sane interview that somehow left me wanting a Captain Maxx figure of my very own.
JAPANESE TOY STORE DISPLAYS AND CHILDRENS' RIDES - One man's latest otaku acquisitions. Includes a seven-foot Mirrorman figure, as well as pieces of hero-themed amusement park rides (see below). 
As for the magazine's weaker points:
GAME REVIEWS - Game-related features would probably work better (perhaps stuff not unlike this or this, or even this), but either way, coverage of games like MotorStorm and GRAW 2 seems a bit tame compared to some of the more out-there topics tackled elsewhere in the magazine.
DVD WITH TRAILERS AND DUBBED ANIME - The anime definitely needs a Japanese language option, but aside from that it'd just be awesome to have some exclusive video content (con footage, people's junk collections, etc.) that compliments some of the articles from the magazine.
Still – these are ultimately minor grievances. The magazine is bizarre and glorious, and if it met my warped standards of “good” any more than it already does, it probably wouldn’t have made it this far to begin with.
Also, while the newsstand price of $9.99 an issue is indeed a bit steep, $4.99 an issue—which is what it breaks down to if you subscribe—isn't bad at all.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Busou Shinki / GUNPLA Musical Chairs
The rest of this guy's videos can be found here. I especially recommend the Segata Sanshiro compilation.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
The Space Giants / Magma Taishi
Japan's first color tokusatsu TV series (more info here).
From the 70's dubbed version:
And from the original 1966 version:
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Godfrey Ho
From Wikipedia:
“Godfrey Ho (1948–) is a Hong Kong-based movie director. He is best known for his "Ninja" films, a series of 1980s martial arts films made with a cut-and-paste technique. Ho would film footage for one film, and then edit and splice the shots together in a different order, often adding in footage from other films, and then dubbing over the result to create an (almost) coherent finished product. This allowed him to create four or five films with the budget of one, though it is often difficult to discern how much of the finished product he actually filmed himself. According to the IMDB, Ho has directed over 90 films, of which approximately 40 contain the word "ninja" in the title.”
The Ninja Terminator (1985):
Ninja Thunderbolt (1985):
Black Ninja (1987):
The Vampire Raiders (1988) [Maybe NSFW]:
Undefeatable (1994) [Maybe NSFW]:
Sunday, June 3, 2007
"Hare Hare Yukai" [Rockman Ver.]
based on the "Hare Hare Yukai" dance from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya:
Here it is synched up with the show.
"Motteke! Sailor Fuku" [Rockman Ver.]
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Hokuto no Ken (Live Action)
Max Headroom Pirating Incident (1987)
Friday, June 1, 2007
Trent Reznor Interview (1985)
Fecal Matter - "Sound of Dentage" (1985)
This is actually a fan video that combines footage from a 1984 Kurt Cobain home movie with a song from the group's Illiteracy Will Prevail demo.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Mega Man Quadruple Time Attack (2007)
A tool-assisted speed-run in which four different Mega Man games (3, 4, 5, and 6) are completed simultaneously using a single set of button commands.
For answers to questions like why the four games don't appear to be in synch with each other, or how something like this is even possible to begin with (hint for both: lag exploits), check out the authors' extensive commentary here.
Unknown Horrors (2007)
Awesome fan video that takes footage from Giant Space Monster Guilala and Yongary, Monster From the Deep and sets it to "Nothin's Gonna Stand in Our Way" from the Transformers: The Movie soundtrack.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Devil Satan 6 (1986)
From the Japanese TV series Machine Robo: Revenge of Chronos. Released in America as a rainbow-colored GoBots figure called Monsterous. 
More Devil Satan 6 pictures here. More info here and here.
Friday, May 18, 2007
TV Sheriff
Super Cassette Vision Lady's (1985)
(Click to enlarge)
That would be the game Milky Princess in the lower-left corner, in case you were wondering. More info here.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The Seeds - Pushin' Too Hard (1968)
As seen on the Mothers-in-Law. From the episode How Not to Manage a Rock Group, which first aired on April 28, 1968.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Tokyo Story: The Shibuya Gal-Sa
Part 1:
Part 2:
And let's not forget their male counterparts, the Center Guys.
The Cure - Cold / Siamese Twins
"Cold" (Studio Davout, Paris, 1982)
"Siamese Twins" (Riverside TV, 1983)
Crystal King - Daitokai (1979)
Same group that did the theme song to the original Fist of the North Star TV series.
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