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.)

My new etched acrylic Enterprise lamp

This is my most recent addition to my nerd cave. It’s a Starship Enterprise lamp made of etched acrylic. I peeled off the protective plastic wrap from the acrylic pane and plugged it into the base. Light is sent through the acrylic and catches on the acrylic etching. I can choose the color for it to shine, or elect to have it cycle slowly through colors. This lamp is USB-powered, so I have it plugged into the back of my computer monitor. It’s not an officially-licensed item. It only cost just over 2,000 with free shipping from Yahoo Auctions Japan, so I couldn’t resist.

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.

R2-D2 by Claude Monet

The Dall-E image generator allows you to create images as though they were painted by famous painters. My friend Brian did Ryu from Street Fighter as painted by Picasso, and Hillary Clinton as painted by Rembrant. I gave it a shot with Darth Maul painted by Georges Seurat and it looks pretty cool. I entered R2-D2 by Claude Monet and these pictures are beautiful.

It looks like Artoo is having a nice day by the waterside. That’s nice.

BONUS: Indiana Jones, as painted by Vincent Van Gogh.

’80s movie posters spotted in Huntdown

I’ve been playing Huntdown on Steam lately after it went on sale recently. It’s a sprite-based, 2D cyberpunk bounty hunter game with a retro ’80s aesthetic, down to the Terminator-style synth music, CRT monitors, and floppy disk drives. In the first section of the game, one of the levels you go through a movie theater. Check out the movie posters! Aliens, Akira, and The Thing. Love it!