When it comes to the holiday gift-giving season, comic book readers are notoriously difficult to shop for. I mean, most of us are down at the shop buying our favorite stuff every single week, so when the time comes for people who like us to get us something we want, well, a lot of times we already have it. That’s why we’re stepping in with a public service, bringing you comics-related items sure to make the season brighter, whether you’re browsing for a gift or just looking for something to drop hints about so that you don’t get stuck with a random assortment of back issues again.
So why not celebrate your inner magical girl with one of the best action figures of the year: The S.H. Figuarts Sailor Moon figure!
Between Mutant Turtles: Choujin Densetsu-hen and its corresponding Supermutants action figure line circa 1996, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a solid history of radical anime and toy treatment in Japan. Later this month toymaker Dreams Come True will contribute another awesome lawyer to the TMNT's Japanese legacy by mashing up Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael with none other than Sanrio's Hello Kitty. Meowabunga, dudes!
We can all agree that things would be a whole lot better if there were more Magical Girl elements in our day-to-day lives, right? I mean, yeah, you'd probably spend a lot of time being lectured about the power of love and justice when you were just trying to get a cup of coffee, and those extensive transformation sequences are probably going to make you late for work at least twice a week, but that's a small price to pay for a better, more glitter-streaked world.
At least one major corporation agrees with me, too. In honor of Anime Festival Asia, Microsoft released a video introducingInori Aizawa, an anime magical girl personification of the Internet Explorer web browser. You did not hallucinate anything in that last sentence. Check below for the video, which is actually pretty awesome.
In the pirate-filled world of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece manga and anime series, gulping down a piece of the legendary Devil Fruit grants eaters phenomenal powers -- an ultra-stretchy body, becoming a living skeleton, generating limitless appendages out of thin air --- but strips them of the ability to swim. So fans will probably be pleased to discover 7-11 stores in Japan are selling a sweet bun version of OP star Luffy's Gum Gum Fruit filled with whipped cream and blueberry jam with none of the potentially career-ending side effects.
Feeling tired, True Believer? Worn out by superhero controversies? Convinced that vital issues are out there in the genre sphere, deserving of discussion, but suspicious that the typical online back and forth amounts to so many weedy paddles 'round the sunken perimeter of a draining pond? Were you nonplussed when Harley Quinn rode that wrecking ball naked into Batwoman's wedding the other week? I have difficulty even keeping things straight anymore, and it's not because the underlying topics are frivolous or unimportant; I just think there are richer, weirder superhero terrains to explore.
So take my hand, tiger! Let us turn our eyes east, for just one post, to the wide world of anime! You remember Battle of the Planets, right? WELL YOU'D BETTER FORGET IT, because there's a new Tatsunoko superhero cartoon in town -- twelve episodes in total, streaming for free with English subtitles -- and it's a hell of a thing: Gatchaman Crowds.
Sanrio's Hello Kitty and Bandai's long-running die-cast Chogokin toy line are both turning 40 next year, so they're commemorating the occasion the only way that makes sense: teaming up for a righteous Hello Kitty mech action figure that, among other things, shoots rocket fists like Mazinger Z.
It looks like Hot Toys has crafted something of a treasure for toy collectors who dug this year's CG animated Space Pirate Captain Harlockfeature. The toymaker has released new images of not only its 1/6 scale Captain Harlock packed with multiple hands, a sword, a blaster and Mr. Bird -- but also a deluxe version of the figure sitting atop the huge Throne of Arcadia.
It's not exactly the return of our beloved Japanese Spider-Man, but Marvel has at least re-teamed with Toei for a new 2D anime set to launch in spring of 2014, with Bandai set to release merchandise (like, tons of toys). Titled, Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers, the series sounds kind of like... Monster Rancher? That's right, Loki has trapped most of the world's heroes and villains inside of new disks -- that were originally designed to capture and secure bad guys like Pokéballs -- and it's up to Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk and Wasp to team with Spider-Man and a group of teens and "harness their respective fighting skills and superhuman powers to foil Loki’s scheme to take over the world."
When it comes to Kaiyodo's line of highly-articulated, pocket-sized Revoltech line, usually giant robots, monsters, sword fighters and martial artists come to mind, but it looks like Yotsuba is about to get another neighbor in the line's "cuteness" corner as Sanrio's Hello Kitty is set to get an action figure on December 15 in Japan.
In another universe, a CG animated movie written by Paul Dini and based on the classic anime Science Ninja Team Gatchaman was made by the same studio that made 2007's TMNT. In this universe, though, the studio, Imagi, had a financial meltdown and the project was scrapped.
There are still plenty of artifacts from that movie's production, though, including these four new videos featuring never-used animatics from scenes and some polished demo animation that show a glimpse of what that alternate-universe movie looks like. Check out all four after the jump.
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