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Kyoto Animation
Kyoto Animation was devastated last year when an anime obsessive set fire to their studio, killing a number of the animators there. Anime artists get paid little anyway. So fans collect donations for them to help them get by. The Kyoto Animation incident made things even more tragic.
To announce the studio’s comeback Kyoto Animation developed two 30 second television spots. Let’s hope that TV networks, film studios and advertisers respond to their return and the studio goes from strength to strength.
This first one is called Meji – so roughly Victorian through to Edwardian times. The protagonists then get transferred into the future.
The second Kyoto Animation video is called Imagination
More on the studio here.
Hajime Sorayama x Be@brick x 2G
Hajime Sorayama has designed a golden Be@rbrick for Japanese retailer 2G. It will be available as a lottery facilitated drop at their Osaka and Tokyo stores. More at Mediacom
Alumination documentary
Airstream caravans are a design icon. They were made from aluminium in the post-war period. Aluminium alloy was a wonder material that revolutionised aviation from its previous materials of canvas over wood.
Alumination tracks the history of the Airstream and the cultural impact that it had on American culture. It redefined freedom for a post-Cowboy age.
Gravity driven ropeway
Tom Scott usually comes up with interesting thought provoking invention. In this video he looks at an aerial ropeway that conveys shale to a brickworks near by. It transfers 300 tons of materials each day under the power of gravity and careful timing of full and empty returning buckets.
Weiden & Kennedy’s 5G Future for Three UK was banned this week following a complaint to the ASA by Vodafone. It is a lovely piece of craft though.
McDonald’s Japan 50th birthday
McDonald’s Japan put together an amazing ad to celebrate 50 years of McDonald’s in Japan with its first restaurant in the Ginza area of Tokyo. This was some three years before it opened in the UK.
The protagonist, actress Yoshiko Miyazaki is digitally altered to look much younger for the 1971 sections of the advertisement. There is even a making of film for the ad here.
Olympic anime: Tomorrow’s Leaves
Cultural creations go alone with the olympic games. For the Tokyo olympics there is this short anime film. More Japan related content here.