Funeral for Crayon Shin-Chan’s Creator!
Crayon Shin-chan’s fans offered their last respects for Yoshito Usui, the creator of this delightful series.
Thousands of manga fans flocked to the funeral Monday of Japanese cartoonist Yoshito Usui, whose cheeky schoolboy character Shin-chan delighted millions.
More than 3,000 mourners queued to offer their last respects at central Tokyo’s Aoyama Funeral Hall, where pictures, stuffed dolls, comic books and videos of Usui’s characters were on display and decorated with flowers.
“Mr Usui unfortunately died, but the characters created by Mr Usui are still alive,” said fellow cartoonist Tetsuya Chiba, hailing the artist who created the hit “Crayon Shin-chan” series in the 1990s.
“It was very shocking to me when I heard of his death,” said one fan, Megumi Nagai, a 24-year-old female bartender. “The funeral was very valuable because I could see his works, all the comics, all the videos and the history.”
Source: AFP via Google
Farewell Yoshito Usui…Your legacy will go on. Crayon Shin-chan will run until February 2010!
Japan Illegal Anime Uploaders ARRESTED!
It seems illegal anime uploaders in Japan are getting arrested in a massive way….
On Monday, police in Japan arrested 10 individuals on suspicion of using the Share file-sharing software to upload films, music, anime, games, and other content on the Internet without the copyright holders’ permission. According to the Anti Counterfeiting Association, the following people were arrested:
1. 40-year-old male company employee from Sapporo (Ranma ½ television series)
2. 23-year-old unemployed male from Toride (Dragon Quest IX: Hoshizora no Mamoribito)
3. 47-year-old male company employee from Nagano (8 musical tracks from Victor Entertainment, SME Records, Sony Music Records, Avex Entertainment)
4. 23-year-old male company contract employee from Sayama (music from Ai Otsuka and Kobukuro, Back to the Future Part III, Death Note, Death Note: The Last Name, others)
5. 37-year-old male local government employee from Tsu (Mobile Suit Gundam 00)
6. 44-year-old male company employee from Jōyō (Lorelei)
7. 37-year-old self-employed male from Yokohama (Wii Music, Wii Sports Resort)
8. 57-year-old unemployed male from Komatsushima (unspecified television anime)
9. 40-year-old unemployed male from Okayama (Dragon Ball Kai, Fresh Precure!, Fullmetal Alchemist)
10. 30-year-old male game center employee from Chikugo (unspecified anime)In addition, an unspecified home was searched in Akita Prefecture, but no arrest was reported there. The first three people to be arrested for allegedly using the Share file-sharing program were arrested in May of last year in three different prefectures. These three previous suspects reportedly shared anime from the Gundam franchise.
I wonder whats going to happen to this people…and the future of Anime file sharing…
Manga and Anime Origins: Kamishibai!
Anime and Manga sure had its origins, but most people don´t know exactly how and when it began…
It was the simple clacking of two wooden sticks on a street corner that signaled to children the start of kamishibai, a popular pastime during Depression-era Japan. Kamishibai means “street theater using painted illustrations.” Author Eric P. Nash examines the little-known art form and predecessor to modern-day anime and manga in his recent book “Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater,” published by Abrams ComicArts.
Storytellers would travel from town to town with their butai (miniature stage) on the back of a bike. The set-up was reminiscent of a “Punch and Judy” show, but instead of puppets the narrator would slide a series of poster boards with water color illustrations in and out of the box. He would act out the script, which was written on cards placed on the back of a board.
Each show consisted of three stories of about 10 minutes each: an adventure for boys, a domestic drama for girls and then a simple comic story. The majority of performances ended in a cliffhanger, forcing eager audiences to return the next day.
Nash, a New York Times writer and research editor and author of several books on architecture, has always been a fan of comics. It was while reading the book “Getting it Wrong in Japan” that he came across “kamishibai,” a word he had never seen before, and decided to dig further. Unable to find any book on the topic in English, he traveled to Japan two years ago to investigate and found more than 300 images in two children’s libraries in Osaka and Tokyo and discovered countless contributions that kamishibai had made to the comics genre.
“A lot of attributes seen in anime are present,” Nash said, “such as Giant Robots and monsters from outer space.” He also mentions the “manga-sized eyes,” wide and oversized, meant to convey emotion found in popular characters such as Jungle Boy.
Golden Bat, created in 1931, was considered to be the world’s first true comic superhero. Although visually resembling Captain America’s nemesis Red Skull, Golden Bat and Superman share more commonalities: the red cape, skill of flight, superhuman strength and a fortress of solitude, albeit in the Japanese Alps.
Kamishibai artists departed from traditional Japanese line art drawing by creating a cartoon-like style and applying chiaroscuro, the Western style of contrasting light and dark, providing depth and mass.
During World War II, the Japanese government used kamishibai for propaganda, as did Americans during the occupation with stories centered on democratic values such as baseball.
The demise of kamishibai coincided with the end of the occupation and introduction of television in 1952.
Many of the form’s writers and artists then migrated into manga in the ’50s such as Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka.
In “Manga Kamishibai,” Golden Bat creator Takeo Nagamatsu summed up his feelings on kamishibai’s role in Japanese society: “Pictures that look nice in someone’s house are great . . . but kamishibai are loved by many children and cheer them up. When I think of these children later growing up to be honorable Japanese adults, it makes me realize the significance of creating kamishibai.”
Source: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times Liesl Bradner wrote an interesting article about the origins of Manga and Anime, and probably, Otaku should pay attention how it started…
Megami Magazine #106 Preview: Where is Nagato??
Megami Magazine 106 was released recently, and it has some interesting girls. Here is the preview…
One curious thing about this Megami Magazine issue is that Haruhi and Mikuru appears here while Nagato, ALONE, appears in the Nyantype issue. Interesting fact, right?
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