Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira — the manga/film that predicted the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo — is a feast for the eyes, and here’s a great collection of 12 pieces of background art from the animated film.
Month: January 2017
I am so in need of these 6 shield pin badges, inspired by various titles in the Legend of Zelda series. Sold in Japan for 200 yen each, you can import them as a set from NCSX for a bit more (or via Amazon Japan).
Remember the fantastic Diggin’ in the Carts documentary web series about Japanese game music? Well, it continues, in the form of a weekly radio show on RBMA Radio, hosted by Nick Dwyer, who was also behind the web series. I haven’t listened to it yet, but looking at all the episodes that have been produced so far (and thankfully all archived on the site), it continues to be a treasure trove of interesting coverage on Japanese makers of music for games, with each episode accompanied by a terrific selection of tracks.
Hopefully you played the mobile game Oquonie when it came out a few years ago. The game was created by my friends Devine and Rekka, who are currently living on a boat, sailing the world — follow their Hundred Rabbits adventures here. Rekka, who produced the art on Oquonie, is offering to create personalized Oquonie-inspired creatures for you, as an illustration and also animated GIF. You’ll find all the details here.
I haven’t used a paper planner in years and so can’t really justify getting one (I even still bought one for years, that would never see much use), but I still lust for one every year, and the object of my desire is always the Mother-inspired covers that have been part of the Hobonichi Techo collection for the past few years — this year you have 1994 (pictured above), Memories (picture below), and Ness. Why the Mother (or Earthbound, as it was known outside of Japan) covers? Mother creator Shigesato Itoi is also behind the Hobonichi Techo line.
If you were to ask me what my favorite New Year images I’ve seen shared so far, first up would be the Mother-inspired illustrated piece by Amelicart (pictured above, via this tweet), and then the Legend of Zelda illustration shared by Nintendo, below, which pays tribute to classic imagery of the original game (both below).
As I’ve been going through the entire archives of this site over the past few months, I noticed how I used to often kick off the new year with a big “intent” post. I don’t want to go that far, but I think it’s nice to welcome the new year with a little salute here, and so here goes. And although it’s the year of the, ahem, cock, I’ll let the Mario Bros. welcome us into swingin’ and rockin’ 2017 (courtesy of the imagery produced for the upcoming Switch event in Japan).