Battle Angel Alita Plot Details

Jon Landau, one of the producers on Avatar, and a producer on James Cameron's Battle Angel Alita film discussed the plot in a recent interview.

Battle Angel Alita is my favorite manga. It's basically the only manga I've read. Besides a couple of one of issues of things like Tenchi Muyo and Eat Man back in the late nineties, the only manga I've read is Alita. I've watched my fair share of anime but never really got bitten by the manga bug.

It was hinted and obvious from the start that they'd be focusing on Motorball for this film. It's the most accessible plot line of the series and would best translate into a straight action film. It's something I see Cameron having a hard time messing up.

Focusing on Motorball, I imagine it will be hard to move on to the rest of the story. Motorball is merely one of the settings for Alita's reawakening and remembering her powers. If they start the "series" with a Motorball movie, everyone will be thinking it's all about Motorball and any future installments may be distorted or never even be produced.

Oh well, I suppose it's not worth worrying over. Even one Alita movie, which I never dreamed I'd see, is a treat.

Google Buzz Issues

Why did Google release Buzz without a closed beta as they traditionally have with their products; such as Gmail, Voice, and Wave?

McG, Murakami, and Dunst are Turning Japanese

Takashi Murakami and McG teamed up to film a cover music video of The Vapors' "Turning Japanese" in Akihabara starring Kirsten Dunst. A fun video and playful enough to not flog the dead horse of "Japan/Akihabara is different and weird!" Dunst turns in a good performance, and is obviously enjoying herself.

I think Murakami's genius is simplified by many observers in the current wash of anime-aesthetic hitting US shores. His visions manage time after time to be more compelling and interesting than the vast majority of commercial cash-ins on the anime boom.

I saw a display of his work at the Little Tokyo branch of the LACMA two years ago. His designs border on the psychadelic but manage to incorporate a bubbly, cute anime/cartoon feel that makes them digestible. I especially enjoyed how he takes the exaggerations of women and sexuality in anime aesthetics to the extreme conclusion. (see: "Hiropon")

Olympic Theme

I'm sure news shows in the US are using powerful, bombastic orchestral songs as their Olympic theme but here in Japan our news shows play this over Olympic montages:

Mechanical Tumor

Part of a Japanese installation art series, a realistic-looking tumor like mass is connected to a PC and inflates to approximate the CPU load of programs and running tasks.

Olympic News Bias?

Watching the Olympics outside of the US I've noticed that the events covered tend to be those in which the country I'm watching from performs the best in.

Androids versus Battle Mechs

My first video blog. I figure I'd try this format as it's less time-intensive. In this post I discuss the commercial and wartime application of robots and why I think the former is more likely to come true in the near future.

(Here is the documentary I reference in the video, provided by my friend nicopolitan.)