Stephen revisits Xardion to talk a bit about its similarities with an earlier Gainax project, Aim for the Top! Gunbuster.
Category: Briefs
Catch the Dougram Diorama Caravan
In the midst of the gunpla boom, Takara slapped some Dougram decals on a van and toured Japanese hobby shops to promote their model kits and encourage kids to create their own mecha model dioramas.
Daicon III’s 40th Anniversary
The convention that changed anime kicked off on August 22, 1981.
Resin Royalty: Kotobukiya’s Original Kit Catalog of 1991
A quick look through a 30-year-old catalog from garage kit manufacturer Kotobukiya.
Direct-to-Video Model Kit Movies: The S.F.3.D Nutrocker Video
At the end of the gunpla boom, Hobby Japan and Nitto teamed up to release a direct-to-video short film based on Kow Yokoyama’s model kit and photonovel series, S.F.3.d.
Hideaki Anno’s Macross Movie Production Comic
As an up-and-coming young animator, Hideaki Anno worked on big animated films like Nausicaä and Macross: Do You Remember Love? For a brief time in 1984, he had a short comic feature that ran in Comic Box Jr. detailing his production experiences.
The Filming Models of Koichi Ohata’s Genocyber
Unearthed via the DVD-ROM features of an ancient US Manga Corps digital video disc, we speculate on the provenance of the models used for filming on Genocyber.
Mach Vision: A Bubble Era Arcade Game from Sega, Nissan, and Makoto Kobayashi
In the Japanese economic bubble of the late ‘80s, seemingly anything was possible. That’s why it shouldn’t be surprising to hear that Nissan, Sega, and Makoto Kobayashi collaborated on a massive, event-only arcade game that seemingly defied the technical limitations of the era.
Gunpla Doujin: Universal Century 0087
What was a diehard Gundam modeler in 1986 to do if they weren’t satisfied by Bandai’s kits based on the all-new Zeta Gundam? This doujin by Studio Mk-0 offered detailed how-to guides for improving your gunpla
Kaba and the Commercial Art of Katsuhiro Otomo
Renzo revisits the classic Otomo artbook ‘Kaba,’ highlighting the world-renowned director’s work outside of anime and manga.