Saturday, July 25, 2009

Nerima Daikon Brothers meets Phineas and Ferb?

I'm currently rewatching Nerima Daikon Brothers, and because I've been watching so much Phineas and Ferb lately (which is a really good show, btw, and you should all check it out), my brain keeps trying to match up the characters. I mean, in a general sense, Phineas would be Hideki, since they're both the instigators of their groups, Ferb would be Ichiro, the quieter, more laid-back one, and Candace would be Mako, mostly because they're both girls, but they are similar personality-wise. And of course Perry would be Pandaikon, which means that Major Monogram would be The Rental Guy, but since that's a Nabeshin cameo, Carl would be a better fit, just because of the hair similarity.
And part of me wants Doofenshmirtz to be Ichiro because I've been spending too much time in the DxP part of the fandom (but they're the most active part!), and Ichiro has his own song about how he feels about the panda (which, in the dub, includes the lines "They say you're an animal/But I say you're a mammal just like me"). But on the other hand, he could also be Yukika, who also falls for the panda, and since she's a gadget detective, that role probably fits him better anyway, except for the fact that she's a policewoman, which is two strikes for him (that is, since he's a card-carrying villain and a man) but that's really par for the course for him, when you think about it.
But going back to Nerima Daikon Brothers, it's been a favorite of mine for a while. I rented it when it first came out, but I only recently got around to buying it (hence the rewatching). It's only twelve episodes long, so one could possibly watch the entire thing in a day, although I'm not doing that. The series follows Hideki, Ichiro, and their cousin Mako as they fight to right the wrongs occurring in Nerima, with the not-exactly-altruistic motive of claiming the evil-doers' money so they can build a dome in their daikon field and give concerts. But what sets this anime apart from the rest is the fact that it is a musical. That's right, every episode features a number of songs, most of them less than a minute (also, the character designs are done by the same guy who did the character designs for Space Pirate Mito, although under a pseudonym). The whole show also spoofs and satires aspects of Japanese life as well as various celebrities (including a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Michael Jackson), so if you do check it out, make sure to get the DVDs released by ADV, which includes liner notes and on-screen ADVidnotes explaining most of the references. On top of that, unlike for most animes, the dub includes translated versions of the songs, most of which fit the spirit of the song, even if they don't exactly match lyrically. Keep in mind, however, a lot of the humor on the show is of an ecchi (that is, slightly perverted) nature. Nothing explicit, but if that kind of thing isn't your cup of tea, then consider yourself forewarned.
As the name of the series implies, there's a certain amount of inspiration pulled from the movie The Blues Brothers. However, since I've never seen that, here's a mashup of the movie's trailer with footage from the anime:

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Gaia - The Lonely Star

Gaia seems to be getting RIG (random item generator) happy as of late, having just released their third one this summer. But I don't mind so much as the ratio of not-store items seems to be higher than usual. Although I'd like to stop getting so many Star and Moon Lanterns. That would be nice.
On a related note, I can't stop playing with my Avatar lately. Seriously, I've been putting together different combinations of the past couple days, and I like to think that the only up there is the best one so far.


Friday, July 10, 2009

In a World...?

Lately I've been watching a lot of movie trailers, older ones in particular. That is, trailers narrated by Don LaFontaine, the undisputed king of voiceovers. He died last year, but during his lifetime, he spent 60 years working as a voiceover artist. Now, the reason that I've been watching so many trailers is because Don LaFontaine is best known for using the phrase "In a world..." in many of them, so much so that it's been parodied time and again, even by LaFontaine himself. And yet, I haven't been able to find a trailer that actually uses that phrase (non-ironically, I mean). Nor have any webpages been able to point me to one. If any of you know of any, please let me know. I'm putting my search on hold for now, but in the mean time, here's a video about Don LaFontaine:



And here's a video of him and four other movie trailer announcers (the only one I recognized was the guy who does the Disney movies):

Monday, July 6, 2009

Late Night Video - My Little Pony AMV

That's right, I'm at it again. After binging on LazyTown AMVs these past couple of days (they're like potato chips, you can't watch just one), I suddenly realized how perfectly one of the Core Seven shorts from Hasbro.com fit with the song "Cooking By the Book" (a song that I always meant to use for a Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime AMV, but never got around to). And it actually came together pretty easily. A lot more easily than my last AMV, anyway. So here it is, the fruits of my evening:

Friday, July 3, 2009

Late Night Video - Space Pirate Mito meets Spaceballs

I first saw this AMV years ago, but considering my recent rewatching of Space Pirate Mito (and my upcoming blogging of the second season), I figured this would be a good one to post:


Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The Princess and the Frog featurettes

Sometime last week, the Disney Channel ran these featurettes on The Princess and the Frog, and someone was nice enough to put them up on Youtube:

Intro:



The Directors:


The Characters:


The Music:


Spotlight on the Prince:


Full scene from the movie:


I gotta say, the more I see of this film, the better it looks. Seriously, I need a copy of the soundtrack now. No word on when it's going to be released, but since the movie is coming out in November, and the soundtrack usually comes out before the movie, I'm guessing that it'll be released sometime in October.