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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.

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’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!