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Easter egg still frames spotted in Dirty Pair: Project Eden

There’s a scene in Project Eden which Mughi is watching a video screen in which several Easter egg still frames were inserted. Here they are, not necessarily in order.

Crusher Joe! Yes, before Haruka Takachiho wrote the Dirty Pair novels, he wrote Crusher Joe.

Images are rapidly flashed of the original version of the Dirty Pair from the SF novels written by Haruka Takachiho. These original character designs are by Yasuhiko Yoshikazu (Gundam, Crusher Joe, Venus Wars, Reideen, and many more anime).

Want ads from what appears to be Starlog Magazine. You see the ad with the Enterprise? That’s Space Station Studios from Massachusetts. I learned about them from ads in old Starblazers and Robotech comic books. I sent away for a catalog, and half a year later they finally sent it to me. I ended up writing a check for about $50 worth of stuff, which they cashed and never mailed me the merchandise I ordered. This was in the early ‘90s, and I’d never spent that much money before and was pissed. Fortunately I was a member of the Robotech Echo at the time via the local Anime Archive BBS in Phoenix, Arizona. I was able to bring about the wrath of Harmony Gold upon those buttpuppets and it turns out they were selling bootleg Macross/Robotech merchandise which landed them in a heap of trouble with HG’s lawyers, who don’t mess around. I very promptly got a refund. I’m glad that HG has finally worked out a deal with Bigwest to bring Macross officially to viewers internationally. They’ve been villains since the ‘90s for preventing Macross to be officially released globally and expecting everyone to only care about Robotech. Still, I’ll always be grateful with how they stuck up for a teenager who got rooked out of his money by a retailer that was either crooks or extremely half-assed and incompetent at the very least.

You see, due to an ignorant jury, Harmony Gold was able to win a case they really had no right to win, and since then they’d been using that ruling to stake a claim on the international rights of Macross that they actually do not have. This whole time, they din’t want people to be interested in Macross Frontier, etc. but just wanted people to forget about all of that and only like Robotech. But now it seems that those bastards are finally going to let international Macross fans own legitimate, English-language versions of Macross. It’s crazy. HG would even allow American toymakers to produce DYRL movie-version Valkyrie toys, but have refused to allow the movie to be released officially in English. Bastards. Well, hopefully things will start to change now. I still couldn’t care less about Macross 7 though. The first time I saw it, I was rolling on the floor laughing at how stupid it was. Anyhow, back to the easter eggs.

More want-ads. This one is for conventions.

Spock! The creators of the Dirty Pair show were definitely Star Trek fans (the design of the TV version’s Lovely Angel ship is definitely Trek-inspired). It came full circle with Star Trek: TNG with plenty of Dirty Pair references. The show’s set designer (I forget his name) was a big fan of the Pair. Even the robot Nanmo was used in the show as a robot that services the ship’s Jeffries’ Tubes. IIRC, there’s a Dirty Pair poster in one of the characters’ living quarters, but it was never shown on-camera.

She looks familiar, but I dunno who this is. Is she from Gundam? If you know, let me know.

There are some other freeze frames, but I couldn’t make any sense from them.

(This article is reposted from my Tumblr feed.)

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Dia’s Galactic Patrol ship from Mighty Orbots

I recently picked up Mighty Orbots: The Complete Series on DVD. It’s a 2-disc DVD set of all 13 episodes of this fantastic, short-lived anime show I loved as a kid. I was already a Voltron fan when this show aired, and I watched it every Saturday morning and then discussed the episode the next day with my friend in Sunday school at church. Then suddenly it was no longer being aired. Then another week went by, and I couldn’t believe that Orbots had been cancelled. It was animated in Japan for the American audience.

So now I’ve got the DVD, and I can watch these episodes that I have not seen since grade school. One cool thing I’ve noticed is the ship flown by Dia, a member of the Galactic Patrol. It’s almost like something between Macross and Lensman. Neat stuff.

Pretty badass-looking ship, I think. Check out it’s landing cycle:

That vertical stabilizer folds up and back out of the way as the landing gears extend. Pretty cool ship design.

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Commemorating the 40th anniversary of 1982: the best year for science fiction

Up for some science fiction movie viewing for summer? 1982 was the most prolific movie for science fiction films. I have set about collecting Japanese promotional flyers (chirashi) from Yahoo Auctions Japan. Here they are.

Blade Runner

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Tron

The Thing. In Japanese, the title is 遊星からの物体X (“Object X from Outer Space” is the best I can translate that as.)

The Dark Crystal

Fire Fox

Mega Force (this one I actually do not own. It’s a pretty silly movie, but I may get this later.)

E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (another one I do not personally own)

Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie

And although it isn’t a movie, it is worth noting that in 1982 Super Dimensional Fortress Macross aired on TV in Japan.

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My nerd cave late at night.

Here is my hobby room, late at night. This is where I keep my retro game collection, my plastic models and hobby bench, and my Linux desktop. You can see my Pac-Man lamps, my Dragon Quest Slime lamp, and on the wall my Pac-Man LED neon lamp. The pixel art is done with iron beads. The posters from left to right are: Puyo Puyo 2 (SFC), Cardcaptor Sakura Tetris (PS1), Bubblegum Crisis, Sakura Taisen (Sat), and Dead or Alive 2 (DC).

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MOAR Galaxy Express 999 booze

I went ahead and ordered the Galaxy Express alcohol I was unable to find locally. I stopped by a large liquor shop in Maebashi called Yamaya that specializes in imports and even they did not have any.

Here we have Captain Harlock’s highball and IPA beer. I don’t even know what IPA stands for, so I looked it up: India Pale Ale. Well, okay.

The other two are the Maetel Weizen and Conductor’s Porter, but this time in beautiful, cobalt blue glass bottles. Neat.

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Nadia & Jean’s wedding that was never animated

This is what the Nadia movie should have been as a followup to the stellar TV series, but instead we got a crappy, poorly-written and conceived movie in which the character progression was reset for lazy reasons.

I expected the movie to either entail Jean and Nadia’s wedding, or to perhaps lead up to it, or maybe even be set after they were married. No, the movie has Nadia in England working for a newspaper, separate from Jean, their relationship sort of on hold, with Grandis and her two companions back to a life of crime. It’s as if the reset button was pressed on the evolution of the characters and their relationships with each other.

The movie features a new enemy who claims to be more powerful than Gargoyle, yet is completely forgettable and is defeated within the span of this movie. Oh, and it entails the characters helping a girl named “Fuzzy.” No, the story never even explains why the heck her name is Fuzzy.

According to the fantastic retro anime site Zimmerit.moe, despite the Nadia show being a huge success, Gainax did not have the rights to Nadia and did not make any revenue from it. They were given a 50 million yen advance from Toho, but in the end they were unable to make the movie and ended up not being able to give the money back. Oops. The movie was not done by Gainax and was not written by Hideaki Anno.

Of course, Anno is far more famous for his Evangelion series, but I don’t care for it because it’s psychotic and gross. Nadia is essentially Hayao Miyazaki meets Jules Verne, and to me that is fantastic. But I’m told that Anno didn’t like 1. working off of Miyazaki’s scraps and 2. being bossed around by NHK. His bizarre Evangelion’s nihilism is a bit of a response to Nadia, I’m told. That’s a shame, because Nadia is a far better story and it’s something I’d love to see more of. It would be wonderful to see Jean and Nadia’s children, etc. They are one of the few anime couples I care about.

On Yahoo Auctions Japan, I found a doujin manga called “We Love Nadia.” Yoshiyuki Sadamoto was involved in this even. Being doujin, I was afraid it would be some sort of hentai manga based on Nadia having sex on her wedding night. I am told by the seller that this is not the case, and that it’s a regular manga. I’d love to have it; it’s just a bit pricey. I cannot find scans of it online, so I’ll have to keep my eyes out for it.

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A trip to Mandai in Takasaki

We were in Takasaki last night and we stopped by the Mandai there. A few months ago, Mandai relocated from its large two buildings into a smaller building, sharing the location with Gunma Leisure Land game center. It’s confusing, but Mandai is located on the first and third floors, while Gunma Leisure Land is on the basement and second floors. Mandai has its own area of UFO catchers.

There were xenomorph figures from Alien in one UFO catcher. I gave it one shot and gave up. Those larger, heavier boxes are difficult to grab. I went into the main store area to look at figures and models while Mayu checked out the dagashiya/candy store area.

Amuro Rey figure, apparently from Char’s Counterattack.

A figure of the Serbine. I’m currently working on the Serbine model by Max Factory.

Plenty of Gundam models. Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t focusing properly on some of this stuff.

Next I went to the third floor to check out the video game stuff.

Neo Geo AES and Mega Drive games.

Boxed Super Famicom and Saturn consoles.

Here are the Super Famicom Mini and Mega Drive mini consoles, plus plenty of handhelds: Neo Geo Pocket Color, Game Boy Color, Wonderswan, Game Boy Advance, etc. I bought my first NGPC for only 1000 yen about 21 years ago in a cramped shopping alley under the train tracks in Kobe called Motoko. This shopping alley stretches between Sannomiya Station and Kobe Station and is home to many used clothing, used appliances, junk electronics, antiques, and retro game shops. At least that’s how it was when I lived in Hyogo Prefecture at the time.

Check out the prices on these Saturn games. Crows 18,000, Twinkle Star Sprites 10,000, Hyper Duel 60,000, Castlevania SOTN 16,000 (I think), can’t make out the price on Radiant Silvergun, Rockman 15,000, Doom 10,000 (NOT worth it), and I see a loose HuCard Parasol Stars for PC Engine laying in front of Dodonpachi. I really wish I had the chance to get Hyper Duel back in the day, but now it is incredibly expensive.

I guess not all retrogaming is terribly expensive. Here are Arkanoid, Arkanoid II, and After Burner for the Famicom, cart only, for decent prices.

I decided to check out their anime soundtracks and found several records for sale: Castle of Cagliostro, Urusei Yatsura, Ashita no Joe, Macross, and Gundam. Pretty cheap, too. I guess the hipsters are leaving the retro record market alone.

At Leisure Land, I played some air hockey with Ulan. There are two lonely Sega Astro City cabinets in the back corner with Shanghai games running on them. 100 yen gives you two credits, so I played this one. Shanghai III was next to it, but an older woman there playing on it.

So what did I buy that night? I bought this nice figure of Mai from King of Fighters, loose, for 1700 yen. It was a fun night.

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Dragon Quest ice cream at Baskin Robbins 31 in Japan

I didn’t even know about this until I was told by my friend in Canada of all places. Currently 31 Ice Cream has a Dragon Quest campaign. (As a side note, when I was a kid we called it “31 Flavors,” but then sometime in the ’90s they changed the name to Baskin Robbins. That never caught here in Japan, and everyone just calls the place “31” here.) My friend Jared sent me an email about this.

Oh look, it has soda-flavored gummy Slimes!

You can buy a limited edition box set and choose up to eight flavors, either regular or small scoops. If you get this box set, it comes with a set of cup coasters.

The store clerk was wearing a handmade Slime badge she made from felt.

So here is the box:

Here are the cup coasters it comes with:

And here is the “Slime Hoimi” ice cream itself.

In America, I never cared for gummy candy. However Japanese gummy candy is pretty great. This ice cream tastes good. Since my daughter’s birthday is coming soon, I bought this to celebrate in advance. Dragon Quest really knocks her out, and she loves the Slimes the best.

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Galaxy Express 999 beer cans!

Check out these FAWESOME beer cans. Galaxy Express 999! Here in Japan, Helios Brewery makes these Maetel, the Conductor, and Emeraldas beers. Still haven’t found Captain Harlock though. These are different types of beer. Maetel’s weizen is fairly light, with a bit of a sharp taste. Cumductor’s Porter is a black beer, very dark and hoppy, with an almost chocolatey taste. I haven’t tried Emeraldas’s red ale yet. There is both a Captain Harlock beer and a whiskey highball that I cannot find in my small town. I might try to find them at Yamaya in Maebashi. It’s a liquor store chain that has an incredible variety of booze as well as plenty of import foods. We sometimes buy tortillas there. It’s the only place I know where I can find Marsala wine, which I use to make our daughter’s favorite pasta cream sauce.