Posts tagged “Anime”

Shenzhen Anime Expo

Posted on August 9th, 2009

This morning I attended the first Shenzhen Anime Expo held in the “Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center” (Futian). In fact I’m not sure what the real name of the convention was since it was cryptically named SCAF (not the Southern Californian Anarchists Federation) with no other explanation in English. As well as showcasing many toy manufacturers from China there were also different kinds of activities, including cosplay (people dressing up as their favourite character), video game and dance competitions. Apparently over 100,000 people attended during the weekend and to say it was crowded would be an understatement. How Doraemon kept smiling I don’t know. The Chinese are crazy about games like World of Warcraft (a massively online role-playing game) and Counter Strike (a first person shooter)…

Overlooking The East

Posted on August 27th, 2008

There have been some amazing advances in CG animation over the past few years with Pixar having a string of hits which seem almost unstoppable and meanwhile a new level of sophistication is emerging both in the visual style and story telling departments. What I find strange though is that the creative output of the Japanese animation (anime) industry is still largely ignored by the west (with a few exceptions) even though they produce more content than every other country put together. I would suspect this has something to do with the cultural gap which can be particularly evident if you are unfamiliar with that part of the world although for me makes it all the more interesting… Recently I’ve seen two anime films…

Ghost in the Shell Live Action

Posted on April 17th, 2008

What exactly is the definition of human in a society where a mind can be copied and the body replaced with a fully synthetic body? Where is the boundary between human and machine when the differences between the two become more philosophical than physical? Ultimately how do we define what it is to be human? I’m not going to try and answer this today but these are the philosophical questions that form the basis of the futuristic manga and anime series ‘Ghost in the Shell‘ created by Masamune Shirow (first published in 1989). Whilst being nearly 30 years old the franchise is still alive and well with three movies, a TV series, game and trilogy of novels being spawned from it along with many…

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