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George Lucas was influenced by Akira Kurosawa's samurai movies — so what might Star Wars look like if it were set in feudal Japan? Artist Steve Bialik reimagines everyone from Admiral Ackbar to Boba Fett as a Japanese woodblock print. More »
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Ever wake up and think: "Today I'd like to have my inner ears tied to a seven-story turbine as it vomits the inhabitants of an insane asylum, while my eyes are violated watching a conveyor belt sexually molest itself?" More »
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If the Assault Girls teaser didn't sate your appetite for gun-toting girls battling graboid-like monsters in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the full trailer is here, with more clips of our monster-slaying ladies kicking human and sand-whale ass. More »
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Star Blazers (or Yamato in Japanese) was the gold standard for space opera: crazy fights, ridiculous-but-scary villains, and superweapons like the Wave Motion Gun. So this trailer for a new Yamato movie got me excited... until I watched it. [Fanboy.com] More »
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Super-popular Japanese masked-action show Kamen Rider Ryuki has gotten an American version, courtesy of the CW. Just like the old Power Rangers, it's got American actors mixed with Japanese stunts. We talked to the producers. More »
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Here's an exclusive look at the "Leaping Monster" that terrorizes Tokyo in Big Man Japan, the bizarre superhero movie coming to U.S. theaters on May 15. Click through for the Japanese drawings of the monster. More »
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Five years before Wrath Of Khan came out, the Japanese film Battle In Outer Space featured this amazingly submarine-esque spaceship battle in Jupiter's atmosphere. Stunning (if cheesy) model work and crazy-ass weapons. Rock on! More »
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I'm at a loss as to what's happening in this awesome scene from Electric Dragon 80,000V, the Tetsuo-esque Japanese saga of two electrically powered men who electro-clash their way to oblivion. There's this one guy, who's like a rocker dude, and he uses his electro-powers to play his guitar a lot. And he meets a cyborg-dude, whose face is half-Buddha, half-nature. And they fight and fight, and the half-Buddha dude slices the rocker dude's brain in half, so the rocker dude has to electrocute himself. It makes total sense! [IMDB] More »
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A new, longer trailer has come out for 20th Century Boys, the live-action apocalyptic Japanese movie based on a best-selling manga series. It's moody and disturbing, with a weird masked figure and a scary hand/eye symbol, plus dead bodies and exploding planes... but it doesn't show much of the film's plague-spreading evil robot. Boys, the first installment in a planned trilogy, opens Saturday in Japan. [NipponCinema, via QuietEarth] More »
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We had a chance to see the amazingly eye-blistering @ Murakami exhibit in Los Angeles a couple of months ago before they packed everything up and headed to Brooklyn. The same exhibit is now on display at the Brooklyn Museum until July 13th, and is definitely worth checking out. We nabbed a few moments with Takashi Murakami and found out about his influences, his impressions of the show, and how his brain works when he's creating something. Check out our interview down below. More »
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This trailer for Star Ocean 4, the latest in the successful line of Japanese-style RPGs, shows us just some of the strange interplanetary phenomena we'll visit, and the spaceships we'll use to visit them. And the game's main character has the awesome name of Edge Maverick. Click through for more details. More »
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If you've been wanting to see the John Woo produced cyborg war romance Appleseed: Ex Machina on the big screen, and you happen to live in New York, then this is your lucky day. We're giving away five pairs of tickets for a midnight screening of the movie at IFC Center in NYC for either Friday or Saturday night, take your pick. We've been vocal about our love for the movie, and although the movie will be out on DVD starting next Tuesday, it really takes a huge screen to appreciate the animation. Find out how you can take yourself and a friend (or just put your feet up) inside. More »
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Freddie Highmore of Willy Wonka fame will be lending his voice to the upcoming animated version of Astro Boy set to arrive in theaters next year, and we wonder why they chose a 16-year-old with an English accent to play the titular hero. In the manga, Astro is only nine years old... will audiences buy Highmore as a little robo-boy? At least he has the spiky hair down. [Comic Book Movie] More »
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We've already mentioned the John Woo-produced anime sequel Appleseed: Ex Machina and spoken with director Shinji Aramaki, but Warner Video was on hand at WonderCon, handing out a billion postcards to remind people that it comes out DVD on March 11th. They even had a screening of it on Saturday night during WonderCon, although it faced stiff competition from parties featuring costumed fans and tipsy publicity reps. If you missed that, then peek at the clip below and find out what the world of Appleseed is all about. More »
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If you've been wondering what might happen if you dropped two hits of acid and then wandered into an anime shop, you'll want to check out Takashi Murakami. Yesterday we caught the last day of the months-long © Murakami exhibit at the MOCA in downtown Los Angeles, and saw the bizarre cute/scary creatures in artist/designer Murakami's work, which you may have seen emblazoned on t-shirts, bags, and posters. Next it's moving to New York where it'll open at the Brooklyn Museum in April. Click through to see a preview of what's in store for New Yorkers who visit the exhibit. More »
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A Japanese robot arm that can pick up 120 items per minute off of a moving conveyor belt took top prize at Japan's Robot of the Year awards yesterday, swishing its arm back and forth in a gesture we think we may have seen before. The robo-arm analyzes items before snatching them up and depositing them into paper bags. At any rate, it's only a matter of time until someone mods this into a super-speedy "happy ending" tool. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=338212&view=rss&microfeed=true A shy fanboy buys a weird alien figurine that starts making all his wishes come true, including a supermodel date, in The iDol. But everything comes at a price, and the doll's original owner is coming from outer space to look for it. The iDol looks like another zany Japanese comedy like Squid Wrestler, but it has a surprising source. More »
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The Japanese Slusho! commercial (to promote January's Cloverfield) is boring compared to Serenity's classic Fruity Oaty Bars ad, says John Brownlee at SciFi Scanner. Not only that, but you can find a zillion real ads on Japanese TV that are more surreal and wacky than the Slusho! ad. Honestly, isn't everybody already sick of the Slusho! viral marketing already? [SciFi Scanner] More »
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A special HDTV camera on Japan's lunar probe, SELENE, captured the first ever hi-def image of the Earth sinking over the Moon's horizon, released Nov. 13. You can just see the brown shape of Australia on the top left. And click through for a gallery of cool images of last Friday's spacewalk at the International Space Station. Photo by AP/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and NHK, HO More »
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Never before have we seen a hotel whose rooms let you pretend you're an officer embarking on the maiden voyage of a new starcruiser. If you're in London next month, try out the new Yotel, a Japanese capsule hotel in the Queen's backyard. More »
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