It's that time of the year again: we're wondering where info is on Kidrobot's yearly Dunny installment, and some image pops up online purporting to be this year's line-up. Some folks take it at face value and others are more skeptical, but once again, a purported leak has appeared for Dunny 2013 Series.
Since we're not "FIRST!" on the story here, I thought I'd take a deeper look at the supposed leaks and see if there's any chance it could be real. Hit the jump to read up a bit on what I found.
Just this past weekend we got word that a Miku Hatsune dress-up doll for girls based on Takara Tomy's popular Licca-chan doll line would be coming as soon as this July. And while we still haven't received official word yet from Takara Tomy we do have our second Japanese web shop listing, this time with a (blurry) picture!
Japanese news site and retailer Presepe has posted a new listing of their own complete with a small picture of the doll in question. They list the price at ¥2,940 as opposed to the Shibuya Mokei Hobby Shop price of ¥2,100, but both agree that she'll be released in July.
Now, I know what you're probably thinking; it doesn't look a whole lot like any Miku you would know. And for good reason. This is basically the equivalent of any number of Barbie dolls dressed up as iconic characters. This is less of a Hatsune Miku doll and more of a Licca-chan-dressed-as-Miku doll. Think of it like cosplay. For what it is I think it looks pretty good. The outfit is a bit loose, but I've seen worse attempts. I don't think it'll cause a flood of guys to buy their first Licca-chan doll, but it's nice to see an attempt made to give young girls a Miku they can actually play with.
[via Anime News Network]
Tamashii Nations has announced that Amazon has begun to take pre-orders for Bandai's massively exciting S.H. Figuarts Mighty Morphin Power Rangers White Ranger. Not to be shown up, Big Bad Toy Store has its own pre-orders open as well.
MMPR fans will remember the White Ranger as being the wildly popular successor to the wildly popular Green Ranger, upgrading Tommy Oliver's coolness factor by several notches. This included one-upping the musical Dragon Dagger (by far the coolest Ranger weapon in the original set) by giving Tommy a talking sword. Beyond that, the White Ranger outfit might be my favorite Ranger costume in the entirety of the series despite never being all that keen on Tommy himself. It's just a spectacularly awesome design which, thankfully, translates into an even better-looking figure.
The White Ranger can be pre-ordered for US$45 and is slated to release on October 25th (BBTS currently has it listed as August). Who here is pumped? And if the White Ranger isn't your favorite Power Ranger costume then what is?
[ Pre-order at Amazon | Big Bad Toy Store ]
Mitaka [三鷹] - an area located in the West of Tokyo which is home to Kichijoji, the Ghibli Museum and a load of anime studios.
92% of all Japanese anime production studios are located within Tokyo and a large % of that is located in West Tokyo in the Mitaka and immediate surrounding area along the Chuo-line.
42% of that are small studios with less than 10 employees and 10,000,000 yen of capital - many of them were started up by employees who previously worked at other animation studios.
Some of these studios specialise in just some of the processes involved in anime production like the animation between key frames or background coloring.
Many moons ago, anime studios used to hire animators full time but due to the costs of keeping them onboard and the fact that they could not afford to remunerate them based on their performance, most animators are now paid based on how much they can do (ie number of frames they can draw) - for this reason, freelance animators float between various studios based on when they are needed for work.
These days, full time staff at anime studios are usually comprised of managerial, Producers, Directors and general admin - hardly any animators are hired full time. While Production IG has many full time employees, only about 10% of the warm bodies in most anime studios are full time employees.
One of the reason why anime studios are concentrated in the same area is that they often loan thier staff to help each other out - this is the reason why when you see the credits of an anime which was produced by lets say Mad House, you may see "with help from Production IG."
Staff from each studio can easily get to another studio by hopping on the chuo line and be at another studio in less than 30 mins.
I've always loved anime since the Macross Super Dimension Fortress era and am fortunate to work in the anime field which is why I'm in Mitaka so often. Some of the people I work with there are JC Staff, Production IG, and Sato Dai (click on links to see photos and details of my work ^o^)
Mitaka is largely a residential district and if you want to catch a slice of life in Japan then you will enjoy a relaxing stroll around the area absorbing the sights and sounds of daily life.
To get to Mitaka just get off on the JR Chuo or Sobu lines at Mitaka station.
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