New Ghost in the Shell anime

Ghost in the shell fan art

Noticed in the Verge

As spotted by io9, Netflix announced that a new Ghost in the Shell anime is coming — Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 which will be directed by Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed), and Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex). Netflix doesn’t reveal any additional details, other than to say that it will be released sometime in 2020.

FLCL / Fooly Cooly

Cosplay FLCL

I’ve pretty much backed up all my dvds to my storage array which is great and been watching some of the odder stuff. A good friend Lucas who now lives in Toronto (miss him) bought me FLCL on DVD a while back and I loved it.

So when I watched it again last weekend, I forgot how good this Anime is. Its only 6 episodes but there so involved and a joy to watch. Here’s a brief overview…

FLCL, also known as Furi Kuri or Fooly Cooly, is a fast paced and confusing Japanese animated series. The story begins when an energetic alien girl drives up on a Vespa and hits an unsuspecting adolescent boy over the head with a left-handed bass guitar.

This crazy hyperactive style can easily be misinterpreted, causing strongly opposing opinions of the show’s value. There are many metaphorical plots and hidden meanings underneath its surface. The series is a pun in itself with suggestive and sexual metaphors. The strange situations and dialogue reflect the confusion and awkwardness of puberty (as well as society in general). FLCL is an exercise in unconventional, self-alluding anime.

The plot takes on an unconventional love story, using comedic elements to bridge the story together including satires of John Woo and South Park, not to mention allusions to other anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Lupin III and Gundam. Essentially the series is a coming-of-age story.

If you look carefully you will find most of it on Youtube, but its worth buying or getting in a much higher rez. The cinematic direction is great and up there with some of the best animation I’ve seen.

The Smartphone…

The Smartphone segment

So over the Christmas period I've been at my parents house and they read the Mirror. I was flicking through the Sunday Mirror's pull out magazine called life and came across six pages of anime about new technology from the Far East. Its a reasonable piece and the illustrations are done by Anime artist Kanako Damerum.

One of the pages talked about the smartphone and showed off the Sharp W-Zero3. Which can scan business cards, includes a 3inch VGA touchscreen and Qwerty keypad. Wifi, 256meg of on board storage and MicroSD expansion. I was a little puzzled, my current phone does all that (I discovered Worldcard Mobile only yesterday). Yes I'm not rocking with a VGA screen (I had planned to get the glofish x850 which does have a vga screen) and the HTC Kaiser is 19mm instead of 17mm but its not far off.

So what I never quite got around to before was the fact that Smartphones are still quite novel in a lot of circles. I pulled out my Kaiser in the pub with some friend during a night out and they were like “what the heck is that? is that a computer or something?” I wasn't do it for effect but I did have it with the keyboard and tilt on (i was answering a couple of texts). I guess add the bluetooth headset blinking in my shirt pocket and they thought I'd gone all futuristic or something. But whats fun about the Windows mobile phones is that HTC make them pretty cheap. So you can get a windows mobile phone for the same price as a LG, Nokia or Motorola. So its not about the phone prices.

Maybe people don't like the complexity of the phone? But I would say the Windows Smartphone platform is no more complex that any other phone. Maybe its the style? Could be on something there, but Ted Baker now have an edition of the HTC Touch, LG Prada anyone and what about the most loved gadget of 2007? The Apple iPhone?

2008 is going to be the year of the Smartphone for sure. There is very little reason not to get one and I'm sure the phone shops will be pushing them harder that ever.

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