Darwin Fish keeps creating interesting time laps videos, and I am pretty sure the last one posted here was his life size Gundam rebuild (remember, a Gundam is much bigger than a human). This one is the new Tokyo Sky Tree, the new home of Radio and Television antennas in Japan’s most impressive city. These are actually several different stop motion studies edited into the finished product, and I find it quite visually impressive. Thanks to Crunchyroll for the heads up on this one.
Jonathan Coulton writes and performs some truly excellent science fiction music, including the theme song to John Scalzi’s new book, Redshirts. Scalzi liked it so much, he did his own cover of it, on a Ukelele no less. And then he recently interviewed Coulton on his Tor Press blog/podcast segment, which you should read, then go back and listen to. It is good to know there are some people having this much fun while earning their living; it gives the rest of us something to aspire to!
Doctor Steel’s Fibonacci Sequence is a great example of Heavy Metal Nerdcore, not a well-represented music sub-genre but one with some very interesting songs. His roots were always in his Steampunk background, and I don’t think he got to perform with his Robot Band on stage live since they kept breaking down, but you have to appreciate his attitude and attempts.
If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to drop into The Hollywood Reporter web site and check out their Women of Comic-Con video roundtable. They have assembled a great group of actresses sharing thoughts on their shows and some other topics of interest. It comes in 10 small video segments, and start’s off with Sara Michelle Geller giving advice on how to enjoy the con.
I don’t play games for more than 15 seconds at a time before my character is dead or disabled, but that doesn’t mean I cannot appreciate some good Mod Game footage. Thanks to the folks at Blastr for the heads up on this one.
Until midnight Sunday night central time there are some great anime titles streaming for free over at The Anime Network. Some of them give you a choice between Subbed and Dubbed, myself I prefer subbed, so I can hear the original actors emotional inflections. I have had some problems viewing some of these, where an hour and a half film ends 30 minutes into it, but I am not sure that isn’t a problem with my browser, rather than at the server end.
Some of these are recent productions, like Loups=Garous, where the members of J-Rock sweethearts Scandal are both the protagonists and laying down the killer soundtrack, while trying to break free of their imprisoning environment and track down the killer before they all die. Another recent choice is Five Numbers, a rather twisty locked room mystery that they need to solve to escape their fate. Asylum Session, ICE, Coicent, and Coffee Samurai round out the more recent productions, and every one of them is worth watching.
Some of these are classics, such as Appleseed, where the surviving members of humanity are equally divided between cyborgs and meatbags, or RahXephon The Motion Picture, a Giant Mecha Defends Against Alien Invasion story where music is the weapon set. The remaining classics go straight to the heart: Grave of the Fireflies and The Place Promised in Our Early Days are true masterpieces that would have won every award on the planet if they had been live action, and won awards enough for their anime versions.
If there is a single one of these you have missed, this is your limited opportunity to see it for free. If you haven’t seen any of them, you are in for a serious treat, and I recommend nuking the popcorn and settling in for a marathon. I would start with The Place Promised, and then alternate between the new and the classics until you have watched them all. It will be time well spent.