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January 30, 2005
Mechademia work
Whew! I just finished the first draft of my review of Paul Gravett's Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Animation and Fred Patten's Watching Anime, Reading Manga: 25 Years of Essays and Reviews for the first issue of the upcoming anime/manga/gaming journal Mechademia. One project down...
Posted by brianruh at 01:15 AM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2005
Oscar Disappointment
Well, it looks like Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence didn't make the Oscar short list for Best Animated Film. Instead we see The Incredibles (a great film, wholly deserving), Shark Tale (I didn't see it, but it looks kind of blah), and Shrek 2 (okay, but could have been better).
No matter what you may have thought of Innocence, I would think that any fan of animation as a medium would be disappointed by this news. Innocence was one of the few animated films in the list that tried to speak to an adult audience, and its removal signals the fact that animation is still seen as an avenue for comedy, often geared toward children (or a general "all ages" crowd).
I would have loved to have seen Oshii win an Oscar.
Posted by brianruh at 10:02 AM | Comments (1)
January 22, 2005
Ghost Tracker
Back in October the Bloomington Herald Times did a piece on me and my book. I didn't link to it because, for some reason, the Herald Times doesn't let non-subscribers have access to the articles on their website. However, I have since found a digital copy of the article, and it is now reproduced here for your reading enjoyment.
Posted by brianruh at 05:14 PM | Comments (0)
Pokemon Causes Cancer
Posted by brianruh at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2005
Charlotte!
Again I've let my blog updates go by the wayside. But I have the best excuse ever this time. She's over there on the left -- Charlotte, born last Monday.
She's great and I love her, even though she seems to have her days and nights mixed up and keeps Sarah and me awake.
Posted by brianruh at 09:53 AM | Comments (4)
January 10, 2005
Quick Update
Well, Sarah's in labor right now. Long story. But things look like they're on the way...
While you're in the virtual waiting room, you can read this article about me that ran in today's issue of the Muncie Star Press.
Posted by brianruh at 10:44 AM | Comments (3)
January 03, 2005
Developer of "Bionic Trousers" Cites Manga Influence
This article in the Asahi Shimbun talks about the development of a robotic suit it says journalists have dubbed "bionic trousers." Interestingly, the developer of the trousers, Yoshiyuki Sankai, became interested in robotics through manga:
Sankai became attached to robots and cyborgs as an elementary school student thanks to [Shotaro] Ishinomori's Cyborg 009, a cartoon whose protagonist is half-human, half-machine."I knew right away that I wanted to become a researcher working on robotics, and I started right away to experiment," he says.
Posted by brianruh at 09:19 PM | Comments (0)
Miyazaki and Social Change
I was just perusing an entry on WorldChanging this morning titled "Eclectic Tools for Global Youth." The main entry is on a website called Youthxchange, an educational website on sustainable living sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme and UNESCO.
What caught my eye is that there is a page on environmentalism in manga and anime, focusing on Hayao Miyazaki's works. (It looks like they drew from Eri Izawa's earlier online article. However, whoever wrote the Youthxchange site managed to mangle the bit on Doraemon.) The site also includes a link to Nausicaa.net.
So are Miyazaki's films a force for positive social change? Some in UNESCO and UNEP would certainly seem to think so.
Posted by brianruh at 09:25 AM | Comments (0)